Press Play ⏯️ 🕹️

When I was 17 I was driving too fast in the snow and slid off the road hitting a stop sign. 

🛑 

I lied to my parents and the police officer because I didn’t want to be harassed about this mistake for the rest of my life. 

Little did I know I would be harassed relentlessly anyway and the night of my dad belittled me about not having cash to pay the nice guy who pulled me out of the ditch making me feel even worse. 

In my family, we collected these mistake jars 🫙 on one another ready to pull out a myriad painful memories at the worst time like it was a game, usually when someone was celebrating a success or something good (seriously). We’d remind that person of something awful under the guise of “playful teasing” to “bring them down to earth”. 

What a sick family tradition. ❌
No wonder why I never want to celebrate anything. 

Sadly I was just as guilty of it as them and I don’t do this anymore. It’s so hurtful. 

If I ever did something like this to you I am sorry.

I told myself if I could be perfect and never make a mistake, they would never have anything to hold against me. My parents even made fun of me for having such a clean record calling me star child and prince perfect because they had nothing else to go on. 

It might seem like joking but this is where perfectionism, “I’m not enough”, self-hatred, and shame are born. ☮️🫶🏻

I still tell myself I have the best “no mistakes” record in our family which is true, but where the failure lies is in never having tried, failed, learned, and grown because of this fear. There’s far more loss in not trying than there would have been in any mistake I could have made. 

I was recently at a game arcade with some friends. One of them held out a hand with coins in it.

🪙 🤚🏻 🕹️

I took one quarter and immediately started judging myself harshly for “not being adult” “quit acting like a child” “not being prepared” and feeling stupid for not having planned ahead. 1000s of awful critical parent statements ran through my head instantly. I decided to walk to a nearby 🏧 to get cash like a capable adult but it was too late. 

I went right back to the innumerable times my dad belittled me for not having cash and unfortunately had to leave for a self-care serenity walk for the next few hours. 

♾️ 
🚪⬅️👁⏱👁➡️🚪

Thanks for traveling through the tesseract with me, infinity loops can be broken.