#talkpost

Remember what hangs in the balance.

Cross hope on your heart and Change Your Mind.

-

It's been 7 years!

and slips of the tongue

There is a particular shade of exhaustion and anxiety that stems from being the person that seems to say the wrong thing, all the time. Not something dramatic and not something that ruins things at once, but a tiny little thing that seems to accumulate. A misplaced word, a poorly timed joke, a thought that leaves a gross flavor in your mouth. You mean one thing, but out comes another. You watch expressions shift, conversations stumble, and you immediately wish you could grab your words out of the air and shove them back in your mouth. But language is irreversible! Once spoken, the letters belong to the world.

First, slip-ups seem fixable. You apologize, explain, acknowledge, and promise to do better next time. Then, next time comes around and you do it again. Eventually mistakes stop being accidents and become proof that something is wrong with the way you move through the world.

The worst part isn't even what you said, it's the awareness that follows. The weight of someone elses problem, caused by you, sits in your gut. The perfect words arrive too late — on the drive home, in the middle of the night, while you toss and turn in bed. You become a collector, accumulating alternative versions of yourself, each one saying what you should have said.

Over time, conversations become lined with barbed wire and grow teeth laced with venom. Every word is measured before it goes, yet it happens again. And again. You try to build bridges to people, get too happy, and end up staring at the distance between.

The tragedy is not that we fail, but that we compare ourselves to a version of ourselves that never would. We imagine a person with perfect timing, perfect words, forgetting no such person exists.

There are days where every mistake feels unforgivable, when old memories return carrying every sentence you wish you'd never spat. On those days, it's easy to believe you're nothing more than your failures.

Yet despite every slip of the tongue, and every failed attempt to fix, you keep trying. You continue reaching for people, hoping the next sentence will carry your meaning more carefully than the last. Perhaps that is what it is to be human. Not avoiding mistakes, continuing to seek connection despite them.

dividers by ; @angeliicide

@angelgamer2048 Makoto: *discussing the treasure* Ann: "Huh? She understands?" Angel: "Ann, I'm pretty sure she has all of the braincells" Me: "That was the requirement to become a Phantom Thief, she had to take the braincells" Angel: "yeahhh- she left everyone else with like... half a braincell" Me: "You've heard of taking the braincells in the divorce, now get ready for taking the braincells in the prenup."