Mistakes …. were made …. by me.

I am picky. I am a perfectionist by training. I think that living in an imperfect world means that one should strive to make as much order from chaos as is possible. That means realigning the world to meet one’s expectations, wants, or possibly even needs.

My mistake caused no overt harm. I did make life difficult for over 100 people, but only as so far as a change in scheduling. As Shakespeare noticed, All’s Well That Ends Well. Except for me, that may be true. The woman who counted on my accuracy was wonderful. She worked around my stupidity and made it possible for everyone to attain the desired result.

The two words in the above paragraph that are the most galling are “my” and “stupidity.” They are especially galling when concatenated. Other people’s stupidity irritates me momentarily. My own irritates me for days. I have been chastising myself for close to 24 hours now. I would never do that to anyone else. She has forgiven my error, why can’t I?

There was a time when any error I committed might cause someone else serious, grievous harm – even death. That is no longer true. That is one of the things that justifies a much [very much] lower salary. And true enough, no one died because of my clerical error.

As an aside, I once caught a clerical error that did indeed almost kill someone. If it had continued, it would have killed someone. I know clerical errors!

But … I want to be perfect. I want to never, ever make a mistake. Because I do try to live like that, I make fewer mistakes. That is good. Because I make fewer mistakes, I don’t have a lot of experience with self-forgiveness. It is much easier for me to forgive someone else’s error than to forgive my own.

That last statement probably has a lot to do with pride. When I forgive someone else, I am in a position of power, granting absolution for their dumbness. To forgive myself, I have to admit and own my own dumbness. My humanity. My less-than-perfect self. I have to let that person off the hook. I can’t do it from a position of power. I have to get there from a position of humility. I am not very good at humble.

I am not perfect [even though I tell my family that I am] and when I make a mistake it becomes glaringly obvious. “No one’s perfect.” I’ve said that – a lot. But I invariably add “except me, of course.” I wish I were. I wish I were strong enough to know that I am permitted mistakes because it is part and parcel of being human. That one should make atonement for mistakes [I have a small gift for the recipient of my stupidity] and correct them as soon as possible. One should then take measures [pains?] to make sure that the mistake does not recur [I surely, positively, definitely have].

Forgive me, self, for I have erred. My last error was … not long enough ago. For this and all my errors I am heartily sorry. In fact, I wish I could erase them. Where is the “backspace” key when you need it.

That’s my story and I’m stuck with it.