9 April 2014. Thirty-seven years ago today, I made the first of three great mistakes in my life. Twenty-three years ago this month, I made the second. Fifteen years ago this season, I made the third. April is a momentous month on the northern hemisphere’s calendar, for it burgeons with re-beginnings and the tender stems of new life easing their way out of the cold, wintry ground to provide sustenance and cheer for another few months. For me this winsome resurrecting month also, always and ever, trumpets my major errors. In triplicate. Raised by now to some unseemly exponent to boot.
I will never quit paying for those three mistakes, it is clear. I will never survive, outwit, or outrun them, either (but, oh my, how I have tried!). That said, and despite feeling downright weary of their continuing costs some days, I do not regret my mistakes.
From them—and the carrying on (through all the smaller flub-ups that, by comparison, don’t qualify for Big Three Status!)—I have learned: what it means to love someone else no matter what; that I am more resilient than I ever could’ve guessed without these me-created disasters; that being a knucklehead, even for long spells, doesn’t cancel out my humanity; and that, even though I shan’t ever get a foot on ground not torn up already by my mistakes, they have made me a better human than I otherwise might have been. Under their stern tutelage, I’ve learned how to leach beauty from the sharpest stings, to watch the best years of my life (and all that could so easily have been and sometimes even was) trampled beneath these three singularly unwise decisions. The heart is a sturdy wayfaring stranger in such sloughs, and I find my own a comfort anymore. Even in April. No, check that last. Especially in April.
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