Mistakes

People make mistakes. People make mistakes that are often considered trivial or unimportant. People make mistakes that they view afterwards as stupid or more regretable than others. And people, most of all, make mistakes that cannot be remedied.
Often these are mistakes that hurt a friend, or harm an innocent, or even cause oneself to view themselves differently - for worse, more often than not. And these are the mistakes that we regret the most because they are the ones that - although they may not seem as severe as larger ones in the past - are inflicted harder, and cut deeper.
I have made mistakes like this before. I have cut people, have cut friends and family. I have caused pain to those I love, and through this have caused pain to myself.
Is this pain I have caused myself selfish? Is my pitying myself for this pain arrogant? Is my making a deal out of this pointless or melodramatic?
I don't think so.
Yet when I look back upon the mistakes that I have made, and then back on the sorrows the mistakes have created, I find that my reactions and my actions are foolish and regretable. I find that I do not act in a manner that befits me. I find that my motives and my aims are not fully innocent and honorable, and I am ashamed of this.
--
Some things I have done cannot be made better. I try and fix what I can, but not everything is fixable. There are something you can't go back from; there are some things you can't make better. And what do we do with these things? We leave them. We shove them in the backs of our minds and let them smolder and burn us every time we reach into those dark corners and find it still there. Those painful memories and deeds still hurt, and there's nothing you can do about them.
How do you fight monsters that don't exist except in your mind? How do you try and fix problems that everyone else has forgotten? Why do you remember, when everyone else has let it go?? And if everyone else has left it in the past, then why do you remember? What is the point of this pain and regret? Does it mean that you shouldn't remember? Does it mean that you are silly, that your thoughts and feelings are stupid and that everyone else is better than you because they don't feel the pain of these wounds?
Why is it you that still remembers? Why is it you that cannot forgive and forget? And why is it yourself that you cannot forgive, yet you forgive the actions and words of others who have hurt you worse? Do the things you do to hurt yourself actually matter more than that of outsiders? Do the blows that you strike upon yourself take harder, if only because you inflict them upon your own skin, your own body?
And if that is the case - if self-inflicted pain is the worst of all - how do you avoid it? Is it unavoidable? Is it only left to fate whether your past haunts you and your future taunts you? Do your actions now mean nothing, if the past is still there? If no one remembers what actually happened, but they still judge you for it? Those lingering feelings, and those unsure thoughts about if you're actually a better person, if you're actually not a backstabbing who-knows-what.
And we don't know. We don't know any of it. We don't know how people actually think of us. So what do we do? We bite our nails and hope that our actions then don't affect our status now.
--
Maybe I don't know anything. Maybe I'm just spouting nonsense.
But I do know this.
Mistakes you make are made because of your reactions to others. It's not what they do that creates the problem. It's what you do because of - or in spite of - their actions. Their words, their actions, their feelings, are all null and void if you don't fall for the trap. If you don't take the plunge.
So don't do that. Don't fall into the abyss. Because it's like quicksand. The more you move and try to fix it the worse it'll become. If you just lay there...you'll float.


-Sarah