My mistakes? Why, I think you may be mistaken.

To this day, this hour, this minute, I still feel guilt for the mistakes I made at the beginning of last year. LAST YEAR. Even writing it down feels ridiculous. Voicing them is another matter, I know my nearest and dearest are bored of hearing about them, yet I continue to justify them with various quotes I found on Tumblr over copious amounts of tea and biscuits*. (*whiskey and cigars**) (**gin and peanuts)

So why I am I writing about them now? To let go? To wave my white hanky as they sail away on the wave that is life? Probably not, no. I am writing about them now because I have been given the means to. Blogging is a wonderful thing, it is one of the only ways you can talk endlessly about tiring topics and not be interrupted. No one will hold their finger to your mouth and soothly whisper, 'hush now'. No one will blurt 'yeah but...'. And no one will put on their white coat and play psychotherapist, reeling off quotes about how 'it is all practise for the real thing'. Guilty. That one is mine.

My mistakes are a black hole, they are sucking away my time, energy and consideration. They have effected other relationships in my life, relationships that mean more to me than my mistakes ever could. So I have decided, enough is enough. Take me as I am, my mistakes come free of charge like that crumby lipgloss you got with your monthly magazine, sticky sweet.

One thing we fail to comprehend when our heads are full of youthfulness, naivety and freeze hold hairspray is that mistakes are just that, mistakes. Mistakes when young however are merely naiveties, naiveties made to learn from. If we do not learn from our mistakes then there is a 95% chance we will make the same mistake again, and we will keep on doing so until it really sinks in. I mean, I can offer up hundreds of photos of me with hair backcombed into oblivion. It does not look good. Yet, I am still sat here with hair that could hold the contents of a dolls house, a family of mice and the cast of Mama Mia. Big hair is a mistake I am yet to learn from. But, just like sandals and socks and jeans in snow...I will.

Mistakes when young are merely naiveties made to learn from. #bloggin pic.twitter.com/LEjdGS6ZkY

— Briony Gaffer (@brionygaffer) March 2, 2014

It is precisely this idea of learning and imparting knowledge that has led me to try my hand at self help. I shall not bore you with various philosophies that roots lie quintessentially in bullshit, but tell you what I have learnt from the mistakes that make me well...me.

1) Mistakes are not for the faint hearted:
In order to make a mistake you must muster the bulls to put yourself out there, get hurt, get stupid and get just a little bit naughty. Whilst my mistakes may feel like the end of the world now, they will feed the world of my grandchildren and transpire into tales that will whip the ass of Cinderella. That sounds, horrendous. Please remove that image from your muddled minds. I'm sorry.

2) You cannot regret what once made you smile:
Enough said.

3) Perfection leaves no room for improvement:
Mistakes teach us how to forgive. I am a self confessed failed-forgiver. Like cross words, forgiveness is a lot easier said than done. But, there comes a point where you have to look at that persons presence in your life and ask 'does this one mistake outshine all the good?'. If no, then grow a pair and let it go. They have tortured themselves enough already, they don't need you handing them the whip.

4) "Life lessons" is code for mistakes:
I have always been told that it is the fear of being nothing, achieving nothing and becoming nothing that should in fact be bigger than the fear of making mistakes at all. The moment we distort our view and look upon our mistakes as lessons, will be the moment the terror of encountering them on the journey that is life is lost.

5) Mistakes are the pathway to happiness:
Remember Thomas Edison? Of course you don't, neither do I. But for the sake of argument let's pretend that we both know who he is and we had posters of his mug plastered on our walls instead of Hanson. Well, he failed more than 10,000 times while working on the light bulb and in the end he succeeded. Ta-da, step into the light. By making a mistake we learn more about ourselves, what we want, what we don't want* (*Pizza Hut's new Cheeseburger Pizza) and what, or more precisely, who you want in your life.

I could go on but quite frankly, The Big Bang Theory is on and I fear that it would be a great mistake if I was to miss another second.

I shall leave you with this, 'Making mistakes has been the life changing magic that I was lacking before.' Mull that over a little, wash it round your mouth, hum and har. After all, as our friend with the lust worthy wardrobe teaches us: “Enjoy yourself. That’s what your 20s are for. Your 30s are to learn the lessons. Your 40s are to pay for the drinks.” - so mistakes, come at me.

All my love,
B x