One Sunday, I was driving my son to his test-prep tutor
when we got detoured because of the Houston Marathon. Oh no, oh no, oh no.
After much fretful and fruitless driving around in circles, it became apparent
even to me (policeman directing traffic that way) that the only way left open
to get where we were going was the freeway. And then it became horrifyingly
clear that the only way out of the little loop of marathon I had blundered into
was the freeway.
We ended up finding a restaurant (thank God), calling the
tutor to explain my ridiculous predicament and having a leisurely breakfast
till the marathon was over.
Well, last weekend, we were driving to his tutor again,
when we got detoured because of the Houston Rodeo.
Part
of the rodeo is people doing old-fashioned trail rides, coming into the
center of Houston on horseback and in wagons.
Oh, yeah, well, great.
My palms were already sweaty as the GPS recalculated to
an unknown, and therefore scary, route.
And that’s when my son, seeing that I was barely keeping it together – and OK, maybe thinking breakfast is more fun
than doing ACT math problems – said:
“Remember, Mom, failure is an option here.”
I have been thinking about this ever since.
Don’t get me wrong: This isn’t about not trying. In fact,
this is all about being able to try, because it’s OK to fail. Nothing bad is
going to happen. You can just pick yourself up, maybe have a nice laugh about
it with the tutor, who confides her own imperfections, and keep going.
By the way, there was a non-freeway route to the tutor this
last time. So, yay.
I got sweaty palms just reading this. I haven't driven a freeway almost 20 years, but I used to drive them in CA. You haven't lived until you go from 0 to 70 from a dead stop on a Pasadena on-ramp that was constructed for tin lizzies in the 1920s. But I agree with your premise that failure is OK. I'm retraining myself to learn a new swim technique, and as they say, teaching an old dog, etc., etc. But I keep trying!
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