Mistakes..Are They Easy to Just Erase Away?

When i was a child, when i made a mistake, it would usually mean that i couldn't get that new set of markers that i was planning on getting when my mom would take us shopping every Saturday afternoon. In more serious conditions, when my mom or dad used to really get quite fed up with me and with something i did, stricter measures would be taken and this would even include my not being allowed to go out of the house and play with all my brothers and sisters and i would be left crying my 'unjust' fate indoors but at the same time being stubborn and pretending that it didn't really matter anyways. The truth was that inside i could have burst into two from jealousy!

As a young adult, mistakes had their own significance and consequences afterwards. Most of the time, I kind of knew what the outcome was going to be but since I had the luxury of being still quite young, i could most of the times get away with anything that came my way. If though sometimes, the consequences were a bit more serious, again the fact that youth does allow you to make mistakes also made any of the pain and heartache less difficult to manage.This is indeed the greatness of youth!!!

Now though,as i am in my late thirties, i look back on all my past mistakes up til adulthood with nostalgia. Now, any mistakes that i do in fact make have more serious consequences on myself and on those around me. I sometimes feel that though I've gotten over any kind of mistake that i may have put myself in, and though I've paid the price for it personally more than enough times to compensate for it, i feel like its waiting for me around the corner, as I'm walking down the street...waiting for me to pass the corner and for it to spring out in front of me with a huge scream and scare the life out of me once again. Even the mistake itself wont let me forgive and forget...

Of course I'm not so naive as to compare my mistakes when i was nine to the ones i have made now in my thirties. There is no comparison whatsoever and the consequences are by far more serious now. Nonetheless, when i was nine, at that point, the mistakes seemed as serious as they could be and they were if you think about it. Each age period has its own worries and you cant expect any nine year old to have the problems of any adult and this is the way it should be.

The weight though of my adulthood mistakes is still quite heavy on my shoulders and its the reason that many times, i am in fact, second guessed and doubted by those around me. Though they mean best, it is in fact quite difficult to live something like that over and over again. Of course the main responsibility is mine but still..is it really so difficult to forgive and forget? This seems quite impossible from what I've seen so far.

All the people i know around me have in one way or another each made their own share of mistakes, directly or indirectly, purposefully or not. I look at them and most of them do just get over them without a second thought. It's i that torment myself i suppose about it. I honestly believe that some of us, those of us who in fact do think about what they've done at the end of the day before they go to sleep, do learn from their faults. Especially those of us who hurt as a result of them.

As i write on a piece of paper my thoughts or other kinds of calculations, my mistakes can easily be erased with a very good rubber or eraser. This is the 'safe' way to think that is. But nothing is completely erasable...even if you write in pencil. If you look closely at the paper you can still see that something else had been written there before it. A small smug is still on the paper as well as a few leftover dirty pieces of rubber. So are mistakes easy enough to just erase away? I suppose I've answered my own question...