Well Beyond Expectation

Preface

Mistakes.  

Mistakes are a part of everyday life. They affect each and every one of us, or at least that's what we tell ourselves to make us feel better. And sure, I'd be willing to bet my trust fund that everyone makes at least one mistake everyday, but some are much bigger than others.

Mistakes can run the full gambit from the tiniest of mistakes like accidentally wearing my boxers that say Monday on a Wednesday and my teammates notice and give me shit for the rest of the week, or I could accidentally call Maggie Molly while we're doing the dirty and end up with a stinging red slap across the face and blue balls.

But those are just the little ones.

The tiny unnoticeable forget it all by next week kind of mistakes.

Then there's bigger ones. Like the time I was driving up my street minding my own business and I dropped my pop-tart in the floor board and leaned over to get it, taking my eyes off of the road for only a second but ended up knocking bumpers with a police cruiser. That mistake cost me three Friday nights out and the chance to be at Blake Web's party the night Cindy Graber got wasted and took off her top in front of everyone.

Mistakes happen.

Mistakes are life.

As a matter of fact, my life was a mistake funny enough.
Isn't that crazy? Your very life could be a mistake. The forgotten pill, the old condom, the misplaced faith in your pullout game; all of it could lead to you.

Most of the time, your mistakes are your own. You can go through a day and not do anything that negatively or positively affects any other people. But then there are also nights that your mistake, your stupid decisions, your idiotic brain, your temper, your hurt... MY mistake cost one person everything.

Of course it was a mistake.

I never meant for that night to go down the way it did.
In the literal blink of an eye, the flap of a butterfly's wings, the descent of a raindrop, your mistake can change everything. Your mistake can ruin the lives of so many people.

If I could rewind my life, go back to the night when it all went wrong, of course I would. In a single heartbeat I'd hit that rewind button. But life doesn't come with one of those.

Plus, now, looking back through the aftermath of my really bad terrible mistake, I notice something. Something I'm not worthy of noticing.

You can make a heinous mistake that takes everything away from a person and that hurts so many countless others, but still, somehow or another, something beautiful comes from it too.

You can make a mistake that ruins so much, but it can also grow something perfect and pure at the exact same time. But what sucks, and I mean reealllly sucks, is that even though it was a mistake, and even though good came from it, that doesn't mean that the people affected are going to forgive you.

That shit really hurts.

More than being kicked in the nuts by a linebacker, more than pouring lemon juice in an open wound, more than eating ghost peppers with nothing to chase it down with. It's indescribable pain because the person who holds your literal heart in her perfectly manicured hand is the same person you hurt the most. She's the person who holds the power to destroy me from the inside out and she's the one most affected by mistake.

Telling her the truth could be a mistake.

Not telling could be a mistake.

My life if nothing but mistakes. I'm haunted by them every single day.

I don't want them to haunt her too.