If the last time already happened, what is this? The last of the last times? Hopefully the very last of the last of the last time you’ve promised yourself last, last, last, last time ago. Maybe even further back than that. A simple mental promise to yourself after that disaster(s).

It was painfully slow. You brace yourself upon the impact, tensed up knowing what will come. You know exactly how you got to this moment, every excruciating detail. Every single twist and turn that has led you to another dead end. You want to travel back, maybe even just for a minute. There are a million different things you could’ve done. Why did you choose the most painful, stupid choice?

But it’s “fine”.

Everything will be alright. You’ll grow, cherish your past and learn. Whatever happened in the past will be a stepping stone for a greater future, you foolishly assert as you stumble over stone after stone. All these battle scars shall be resume material! The bumps and bruises exist only to increase your pain tolerance! You will certainly never trip again, clearly with all this experience, all this suffering, this will be the last unbearably stupid mistake I fall prey to.

They always make it sound so easy. One pivotal moment that gets a couch potato off TV and out to start a new world. One lesson that gets a student to top the class. They always wake up and decide to start doing something. All the whimsical biographies, memoirs, and fantasies that mythicise the moment. Perhaps this is THE moment. This is your moment. Life will 180 from here on out. Everything will change.

Mistakes are simply bound to happen. They are inevitable. Just move on. You will change. Right? One day, there will be no more. One day, one glorious day, you will become as great as everyone you’ve compared yourself to.

Perhaps you will change with the freezing cold wind passing through. The fall’s harvest withers at its wake. Snow blankets the frozen ground. The world feels almost devoid of life as the animals scamper off, but it’s instantly filled by the festivities surrounding winter. Everyone is preparing for something, it’s warm, happy. It feels too calm. How could it possibly be this easy?

And again. Perhaps a mistake at a party, another problem at school, a stupid stupid mistake.

You anticipate it. Your tense up on the impact. Another wrong step.

It’s okay. You will change. Right?