A Mistake

First of all, you’ll have to forgive me if I never post here again, because some jerk on Twitter or something mentioned Angry Birds, and then of course I, being an idiot, had to download Angry Birds for my stupid iPhone, and the next thing you know, I BLACKED OUT and woke up with birds grunting in my ear, my iPhone pressed to my face in a sticky, sleep-induced snuggle. Hours I’ve wasted on this stupid thing. Hours. HOURS. Hours of nothing but — wait for it — pulling birds back into a slingshot and shooting them at animated snorting pigs, who are occasionally wearing helmets.

It is so STUPID. I don’t even think I LIKE IT. So what am I doing? Nothing, that’s what. I am angry about Angry Birds.

***

My sister, twelve years my senior, is the queen of unsolicited advice. I think even she would admit that (and if she’s reading, which she only rarely does, maybe she’ll chime in). I mean, she has advice on EVERYTHING, from the kind of pants I should buy to where I should live, to what the best thing is to do for my daughter in terms of religion. Yes, EVERYTHING. She’s not being an asshole about it — it’s the furthest thing from malicious, actually. She’s just trying to impart her learned wisdom — stuff that worked for her — on me so that I don’t have to make a lot of the same mistakes. Plus, she gives career advice for a living, so it just sort of comes out. It used to drive me nuts, and by nuts, I mean ABSOLUTELY MISERABLY CRAZY OT THE POINT OF HYSTERICAL HYSTERIA OH MY GOD ANN STOP STOP STOP I WILL FIGURE THIS OUT.

Then I became a parent, and … well, shit if I don’t understand what my sister goes through and then some. I don’t want Sam to make any mistakes. I don’t want her to get hurt. I don’t want her to feel that awful, sickening mental crunch when she’s made a horrible mistake, and she can’t fix it, and no one is talking to her because she said the wrong thing and … oh MAN. Here. Here, child. Learn from my mistakes, and let’s do this whole thing perfectly from start to finish, and don’t ever, ever get hurt.

For God’s sake, I can barely let her learn how to use the Cozy Coupe without the bottom in it without showing her how to do it, over and over again until she figures it out (no luck so far), so I remain entirely unclear as to how I’m supposed to let this kid screw up royally on other, bigger things.

Mentioning Florida the other day got me thinking about it — by all accounts, moving there was a huge fuck-up, financially, mentally and otherwise, except for the fact that we learned so much there. Then there was that awful time I became terrifyingly depressed in college and handled it badly and didn’t talk to anyone until I woke up one day and realized I had next to no friends because I was such a doucheface to all of them, and God, it was awful and probably the worst time of my life, except badow! I figured a lot of shit out then, and became a better friend and person.

I opened my mouth and said things I shouldn’t have and hurt people’s feelings, and subsequently learned how not to be a big mouth biznatch if it hurts someone else. I quit jobs, took jobs, made colossal, career-jeopardizing mistakes at work, was mean to boyfriends, friends and family.

I didn’t talk to some of my family members for years, and yes, I mean YEARS, and it was a horrible, crushing mistake, except that our relationship is now better than it ever was before.

I hurt people; I let people hurt me. I did stupid things and got scared and learned never to do those stupid things again because of how close I came to not making it through that stupid thing I did, and sometimes that meant literally not LIVING through that terrible error. I have been a jerk, a bigger jerk than I would have thought myself capable of — sometimes unwittingly, sometimes entirely on purpose — and those are usually the times I learn the most about myself, and how my actions impact other people.

And my marriage! My marriage usually gets better after one of us screws up, even though it sucks at the time, and the thing is, mistakes are good, obviously, provided they aren’t IRREVERSIBLE. I am a better everything because I’ve screwed up so badly at times.

But how do you KNOW? I mean any one of my screw ups could have tipped the scales into the Irrevocable Disaster Zone, and it’s just horrible, the idea of letting my kid take risks. The biggest risk I let her take was going down the hill by herself at the park today, and she flew down so fast her feet couldn’t catch up with her body and KABOOM! Faceplant. Bloody lip. SAD TROMBONE.

I’m not sure I’m cut out for this, you know? I laugh at people who say they aren’t ready to have kids, because the truth is, I say that I wasn’t ready until they laid her on my chest after she was born, and while that is sort of true, I wasn’t really ready until, well, ever.

I am still not ready. I am still clueless, dude, scraping at the very idea of letting her do anything other than sit next to me snuggling with a sippy cup. Letting her leave the house without me? Good God, my parents took her to Trader Joe’s yesterday and I almost had a heart attack, even knowing she’s theoretically safer with them than me (my dad’s a better driver than I am, by a long shot). Standing by and watching while she makes a mistake, even knowing she might recover a better person?

Impossible. I don’t see it happening. Ever. Except that it obviously has to.

Oh, friends. I am so not ready for any of this.

*Fiona Apple

28 comments September 20th, 2010