Learning From Mistakes

I like to move, I like to run.

In life it is important to continue moving forward and I would love to say I move forward without looking back, but I cannot do this. I fantasize about forgetting everything in my past and waking up one morning with total and complete amnesia. Just being able to get a fresh start would be a dream.

But then I wonder would it really?

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My grandmother always told me that it was ok to make mistakes and that is why there were erasers on pencils. She was a wise woman. I used to laugh when she said it because she always said it in her upbeat tone with a smile. Usually it calmed me down and made me realize it was ok to fall down as long as I got back up.

So in life if we forgot our past would we really learn from it? I know we cannot literally erase our mistakes but we can take an eraser and clean them up by learning from them and moving on. I think this is more of what she was trying to tell me. It is ok to make a mistake but do not hold onto that. Do not hold onto the regret and the shame and hurt from it. Take it and erase it from that part of you brain. Take it and learn why it happened and make sure it does not happen again.

When you get into a depression it is hard to feel like your entire life is not one big mistake. It is hard to see that there will be something good to come from all of your pain and hurt. I allowed myself to be in a place where hurt and pain felt normal and  I thought I was living a semi normal life. Honestly I had just learned to accept it as my fate and take it as, this is as good as it gets.

Being obese, being depressed, being sick all the time, I just took it as my fate and learned how to live with it. I would plaster a smile on if I found the strength that day and if I did not then I would hide out in a mental cave and stay home. If I needed comfort I would turn to food because it was there and it always seemed to help me cope. It was a dark time, it was a dark place. I let myself live in a world in a relationship that was no the best choice for me. I let myself pretend that I did not deserve something more, something normal.

Truly I had really just given up. Given up on being truly happy, given up on going after somethings that I really wanted. I assumed that because of my past mistakes I had to pay a penance and live the way I was living for the rest of my life.

I would love to stand here today and say I am free. I am free from the dark place, I have cleared my mind of all the demons and am ready to live my life to the fullest every single day. I would love to say I erased all those things from my brain and have moved on. But we all know that it is not possible. We cannot live in that way.

I am learning rather, to embrace my past for what it was, a life lesson. I am learning that everything that may have happened may have happened for a reason, a very good one. But mainly I am learning and focusing on myself. Doing things that make me happy and whole. I am trying to accept the fact that, I deserve more. I need more.

There are erasers on pencils, they work well for erasing mistakes when trying to write things down, but pencil marks stay engrained on paper even with faint indentations. That is how our life mistakes remain, engrained very faintly in our hearts, not to cause more pain or sorrow, but to remind us that moving forward is the only way to live.