#learning from experience

There have been, and still are, things I don't eat because I don't like the flavor or the texture (tapioca, I'm looking at you!), there have been very few things I absolutely Could Not Eat, and I've never had food allergies. So please understand that during the years when I wasn't perfectly compliant to or considerate of other people's needs in that regard, I wasn't trying to be a jerk about it.

I was an idiot. Honest and truly, I was an idiot. As a white, fairly privileged, generally healthy Boomer raised by Republicans, I had no basis for understanding the problems that so many other people have, until I started meeting the people who have those problems and started listening to them.

I look back now at things I've said and done, in innocent ignorance, quite unaware of how hurtful they were, and I'm embarrassed by them. But I don't beat myself up about them, because (a) berating myself over past mistakes doesn't change the fact that I made them, and (b) I've learned better over the years, and I remind myself of those lessons.

I learned from listening when other people tell about their experiences, and sometimes I've learned from having those experiences (oh, so many experiences!).

Along the way, when I feel it would be helpful, I share the lessons I've learned from my own experiences and those that others have shared with me. Sometimes I even discuss things with my 89-year-old Mom from my new perspective. Sometimes a little bit of it even gets through to her (for a minute, anyway).

Because one of the benefits of living this long is that it's given me a lot of time to have a lot of different experiences learn a lot of things from them.

I know I started this post writing about how I was an idiot about people's food issues, but I realized that I was the same kind of idiot about so many kinds of issues that I hadn't had the experience to understand, and it seemed appropriate to address all of it here, if briefly.

You know how parents (and other elders) say, "You'll understand when you're older"? They're right. You will. If you live long enough, and you listen.

And I'm choosing to completely unravel the whole thing and start over.

Am I mad at it? Myself? Knitting in general? No, actually. I wasn't pleased with the janky result of my learning process and wanted it to be better. So... I'm winding it up and starting over. Not to do the same thing again, but to implement new skills and techniques that I'll be proud of.

Because life's like that sometimes. We do things a certain way as we're learning, and they turn out wobbly and janky and unstable. So, we unravel the threads and do it again, but better because of what we learned the first time. I'm going back to school for the first time in [over a decade], but I'm doing things differently because I learned about myself more in the last [number of] years.

It's not hopeless, worthless, or wasted effort to point out your own imperfections and take apart the whole pursuit because of them. Mistakes and messes are how we learn and grow. And we never really stop learning or growing; we're designed to be curious, and there's no expiration date on curiosity.