I pull my new white dress covered in tiny roses over my head, it soon becomes obvious it is six inches too short to qualify for the job it was hired to do: cover my bum. I squint my eyes, annoyed… Reformation, of course… you fast fashion catfish conveyor belt of clothes that always looks better online. I shrug, annoyed with myself most of all. Final sale. I fixate on the issue, pace a bit. The judgment soundtrack starts to play: I told you not to order final sale anymore…
Only because I’m late getting back to the city, I pull myself out of this impending spiral and grab the rest of my packages before heading to the car. I loop the issue as I drive but before I can fully sink into my old tricks of self destruction, which hurt so bad they almost feel good, I hear someone else’s voice in my head: If nothing else, it will be a good story.
I remember the time alone in my apartment when I ripped three keys off my MacBook, one after another. It started with the letter J, which had become permanently stuck. I drove my nail underneath its right edge to try and free it. I lifted too hard and broke its tiny claws off. Staring down at the broken key and the empty square left behind, I felt confused. I stuck my finger under another and pulled it off too. I did this once more before standing up and calling Tony, talking quickly about how he needed to come over as soon as he could and help me stop breaking my computer. I remember thinking if I could understand how to take a key off without breaking it, I could somehow ameliorate the whole ordeal. It was an incessant kind of fixing, desperate.
I grab the nearest paper, an old ferry ticket from the cupholder, keeping my eyes on the road I feel for something to write with and scribble the words “dress”, “incessant fixing” and “good story”.
I recall something else, this time I’m a few years older, on my knees in my living room scrubbing a footstool madly while Googling “how to remove spilled nail polish from fabric”. I tried at least four of the top results in a frenzy. I can hear the berating I did then too, Look at this mess… how could you be so stupid.
Back in the present moment, I feel compelled to fix this but consider another way. The most successful I’ve been in letting go of self criticism after making a mistake is to assure myself that my mistakes are accumulating to be part of a great story, bigger than the sum of their parts. It could be a self fulfilling prophecy, to believe there is meaning in what goes wrong, and maybe even narcissistic, to believe that I will benefit from it too. But like a placebo, who cares if it makes me feel better? Should I not be in control of making myself feel good, in my own life?
I feel called to write and always have, which makes this belief more alluring to me than it might be otherwise. But great stories aren’t more valuable because they happened to a writer who wanted to share them. It’s about the embodiment of experiences, the person you become for having had them: empathetic, honest, appropriately cautious, kind. Importantly, when you practice accepting the small mundane things that go wrong, you flex the muscle you’ll need when life really gives you a sucker punch: grief, death, sickness, loss.
A writer I love for her honesty and directness, Haley Nahman, wrote last year:
“That’s what life’s about, you know? Going past the line, then finding where you’re comfortable and pushing things a little further, then bringing it back. If you’re not negotiating, what are you actually doing? You’re not growing”.
Years ago, after a long flight to Italy I arrived at my airbnb only to realize due to a lack of understanding time zones I was arriving a day later than my booking, and that my data plan had stopped working. Without a way to contact the host or find out my apartment number, I stared up at the five story ornate stone apartment building, then at the locked door in front of me, then at list of apartment occupants: 15 Italian names with 15 corresponding buzzers. Like playing a piano scale, I pressed every one from top to bottom. When I started to hear yelling in Italian above me and heads popping out of their windows, I realized I had made a mistake.
A few moments later an angry woman, who I would soon find out was my airbnb host yanked the front door open. She began to yell as she directed me up the building’s main staircase to my apartment, where she changed to English once inside. Shouting in my face she expressed every grievance: How I could I be so rude? How could I be so late? She had waited hours for me the night before, only to have me not show up. I tried to interject, explaining how I got the time zones mixed up, and that my data plan wasn’t working, that I had no way to contact her. My explanations only made her more angry. I remember feeling defeated, misunderstood, and finally in my firmest voice I yelled: “YES. That was WRONG. I am SORRY. I made a MISTAKE. I am HUMAN. What else do you want?”
She huffed, quieted, then finally left me alone in my room.
To own your mistakes, not with pride, but with great acceptance, is a disarming act. Like checkmate, if you reject your own and others judgment, there’s simply nowhere for your mistake’s power to go.
Thanks for reading, as always.
Caitlin
Thank you for your wisdom and vulnerability, Caitlin. I really needed this today, and your work is always thought-provoking and healing. ☺️ I’ve been a follower of your youtube channel for years and I’ve always felt you gave the big sister advice that I always needed (from job interview tips, to makeup, to mental health). Rooting for you always. 💕 -Liz