I messed up

This past week, I messed up. 

I completely forgot my mom’s birthday. I even responded to a non-related text to her and didn’t mention it. It was out of my brain, off my radar, and had my sister not checked in, I am not sure when I would have remembered. 

I felt awful.

I called her, apologized, we talked and it’s in the past. We are ok. She is incredibly gracious.

But it still happened. 

You know that feeling when you know you’ve done something wrong, you don’t get a do-over, you can’t go back in time and fix it and yet you desperately want to make it right? You kinda want someone to tell you, “oh, it’s ok.” But you also don’t really want them to say that because you know it’s not ok, and you just need to sit with the discomfort that you hurt another person. 

It’s not my favorite feeling.

I am writing about it here, not because I am looking for any sort of commiseration. (I know I goofed and I don’t want a pass.) I am writing about it because experiencing this feeling has me thinking about parenting. I think my kids feel this a lot. So often, I find myself admonishing them, offering constant micro-corrections as I attempt to teach them appropriate behaviors for navigating life. 

“No, you can’t shoot the dog in the face with the squirt gun.”

“Can you please remember to put your plate in the dishwasher?” (x100)

“How can you rephrase that and talk to your brother kindly?”

When they get corrected by a stranger, it feels even harder:

“You need to move off to the same side of the trail to let horses pass so you don’t scare them.”

“Don’t eat with your fingers.” 

These examples may seem mundane and typical, but in the moments they happen, and based on my kids’ reactions to them, I watch them flow through a range of intense emotions - a combination of embarrassment, hurt, guilt, sadness and anger all rolled into one. It’s the kind of feeling, especially if you know you have hurt someone or something else, that makes you want to barrage yourself with negative self talk, “I am so stupid!” “I can’t believe I did that!” And when my kids go there, I am quick to say, “Woah - don’t be a victim. Let’s just learn the lesson and move on. Your action doesn’t define you, it doesn’t make you a bad person.” 

But then when I feel it, I catch myself wanting to do all the same things my kids do. In this situation, I wanted to keep apologizing. I wanted to tell my husband and my sister, my close friends and my kids how stupid I was to have forgotten, that I am a bad daughter. 

But I caught myself. If I don’t want my kids acting this way, I shouldn’t either. It’s not productive and doesn’t actually help anyone involved. I had to own it, apologize (once) and then sit with my guilt and the yucky feelings of self-annoyance and frustration.

So I sat with it. And all day, I had that background blah feeling. 

But just like I want my kids to learn the lesson and move on, I needed to do that too. And, after a couple of days, the feelings have faded. While I can never go back and undo it, I can do better in the future.

One of our favorite family quotes is from Maya Angelou:

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” 

I think what’s tough is that in some situations, even when we know better, we can still mess up. I think the quote, if we really live it, believe it, and truly try to do better, always holds. I guess there are some lessons we must learn more than once. 

So in the spirit of moving on and trying to do better:

To my boys: I’ll always try to live how I want you to live. I am always learning too.

And to my mom (I know you are reading): I love you. Happy Birthday