All the Pieces

I was working in the garage and one of those old white flower vases fell of the shelf and hit me in the head.  I have been moving this particular vase around from box to box.  I put it in the donation box and then take it out and put it back on the shelf.  I just could not make up my mind on what to do with it.

So on the day it finally fell off the shelf and hit me on the head, I was immediately mad as hell.  I was already frustrated because I was trying to fix the gate on the side of the house and it was not going well.  So I looked down at the 2 pieces of the vase and I picked them both up and threw them down as hard as I could.   Instead of two big pieces to pick up and throw in the trash, there are shards of vase everywhere.

There are two very important points here.

The vase was mine and I had to pick up all the pieces.  Breaking it into more pieces only felt good for a second, I felt like an asshole for the next hour while I crawled around looking for all the pieces.  I was not my finest hour and it was not true to who I really am, I was disappointed I did that.  How it got broke in the first place no longer mattered.

I could have avoided the whole thing by just throwing out something that was broken.  It would have been OK to stop and lament that I broke a favorite vase but I did not do that.  I thought because I did not break it in the first place, it was OK to do that.  It was not OK to do that.

I also spent more time than was needed trying to explain this away.  I have as of this writing moved on.  I messed up, realize that, and I have moved on.  Remember the most important thing, if you screw up - own it, learn from it and most importantly move on.  Screwing up is only a lifestyle if you keep making the same mistake over, and over and over...

You of course have no idea how proud I am of you both. 

- Love Dad