This is a regular phrase used by Ava and I have to say I really hate it. I try to correct her immediately. She is far from an idiot.
What I find is this is used more when she has made a mistake. I try to explain how she is not an idiot but maybe we can learn from something. Tonight was a great example of this.
Ava has had a lifelong issue with crazy hair. It has lead to us buying sprays,shampoos, heavy conditioner, and even special pillow cases. Her father and I have lost our patience and threatened to cut her hair off. I no longer apply to this idea. We need to help her maintain hair she really wants to keep long. Well she has also taken this responsibility pretty seriously. In doing so she started conditioning her hair and brushing it in the shower as she thinks this helps keep it untangled. Tonight she calls for my help and I find she instead used a comb and it is deeply tangled in her hair. After wrapping her up to keep her warm I begin to try and extract this comb. I even cut the comb itself in an effort to save her hair. Unfortunately after 45 minutes she is crying, hating herself and we make the decision to cut the comb out of her hair. It broke my heart. I did everything I could to save as much hair as I could and in the end as I brushed out the last knots I felt better about it as she still has bangs left past her nose.
The point of this long post?
How do you learn and teach that it is okay to make mistakes? To make wrong decisions? To fuck up?
Especially if you were thinking this was a good decision at the time and you were doing it with good intentions.
I have spent a great deal of my life afraid to make a mistake. Afraid to not have the right answer. To let people down.
But in reality if you don't make mistakes or take a chance how do you learn?
I was recently told by someone that they knew I was making a mistake. They knew I was making a horrible choice and they knew I was going to get hurt.
My thought is now this. Did I learn something from this? Yes. Did it hurt? Yes, but I can now make better choices in my life because I did it and learned. Also not everything you do turns out bad and if you never try stuff how will you find the really cool stuff.
People have not agreed with a lot of things that I do. If I didn't do them just because another person told me it wasn't a good choice I may not have found some great things that I now love.
So I explained to Ava that she was not an idiot but she was being a big kid and trying to manage her hair on her own. Guess what we learned? Maybe a comb isn't going to be a good tool for that. Now we know. Also hair grows so this isn't permanent damage and it will grow back.
For me, learning this lesson is turning out to be a little harder. I still have flashback feelings of being an idiot for some of the choices I have made and that is hard.
I am so sick of that.
I am sick of thinking about it.
Sick of feeling dumb.
So from now on we make all decisions with our best intentions. Trying to do what is best for ourselves. Trusting our gut. Some will be good and some will be not so good but we will learn from both.
No self hate.
No feeling stupid.
Living a life that is as honest to myself as possible.
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