NOT EXACTLY A COMEDY OF ERRORS

I am not a bad person. I am human and make mistakes, but I am not a bad person.

Lately, I have made more than my share of mistakes: I missed a lunch meeting with Sister because I screwed up resetting my watch after returning from Europe; I forgot the date of a charity event that a good friend spent a long time planning and at which I was supposed to volunteer; I lost a bracelet which was borrowed from a colleague. It has not been my best week.

All three of the above people had very different reactions to my errors and response to my apologies ranged from, “It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” to two days (and counting) of silent treatment.

Do I feel bad about these things? Certainly. But, despite what some people would have me believe, none of these events make me a bad person. Careless? Yes. A little scatterbrained? Totally. But a bad person? No.

Does this seem elementary to you? It actually took me several days before I could come to that conclusion. And, Saturday night, as I cried about all of this, it took Husband to remind me that people express anger and frustration in different ways, but I can not judge myself simply by others reactions to my errors.

While anger and frustration is part of any deep friendship, it is not supposed to consume you. Friends make mistakes. They don’t hold grudges and they, after time, even learn to laugh about a bracelet having relocated to Poland.

I have apologized, owned up to my errors of the week and offered, where appropriate, some kind of payment. There is nothing more I can do except remind myself that everyone makes mistakes a someone who holds me to an unobtainable standard of perfection will never really like me. It’s not who I am. I forget stuff and people who really love me for who I am understand that.

I guess the point is that it’s okay to be upset with someone else, but if that someone else is someone you truly care about, you get over it and decide the friendship is worth more than even a silver bracelet.