A History of Mistakes

There are some days, like today, when you can't help but look back and recount all of your mistakes. I know that messing up is how you change, how you grow, but when you tally up your scars and neatly stack the ones you've made on others together...it can overwhelm. It leaves me wondering how much of myself I've mistaken for debris and left scattered on the side of the road along the way. In this moment, I am acutely aware of my holes and missing pieces. What I cannot pinpoint is how many have been self-made. And what have I really learned in the process? The saying is that you are expected to "learn from your mistakes", but there is also the old adage of "history repeats itself". I struggle to understand how both can ever be true. I want to trust that my experiences have taught me a lot about myself, about people, and about the world in general, but I don't really know how true that is. If I am to believe that I have learned lessons, then why is it that I continually seem to be drawn to the same types of destructive people and behaviors? Maybe I'm simply too stubborn to learn anything, no matter how many times I make the same mistakes. Or, maybe, I choose to blindly ignore what I know to be true in some sort of vain effort to prove myself wrong. I've always tried to remain at least semi-positive. I cling to ridiculous quixotic notions, but secretly...I'm becoming more and more jaded every single day. I'll always find beauty in simple things and I'll always hope for a better tomorrow, but its getting increasingly difficult to find the upside of today.