I read what I wrote last time. About looking back on purpose. Understanding instead of blame. Going back through things to find out why they went the way they went.
All true. But I stopped too early. There was something underneath it I didn't say.
When I go back to a decision I'm not proud of, I keep hitting the same wall. Not the decision. The water I was standing in when I made it.
I'd never stood in that water before. I didn't know how deep it was, didn't know what was under the surface, didn't know if it was rising. I only knew it was cold and I was in it. And the version of me standing there made his call from exactly that spot, with what he could see, what he'd lived through up to then, what he was already carrying that day. He did what he could see to do. From where he was standing.
That's the most honest explanation I've ever been able to give myself.
And then there's the part that took even longer.
Nobody else can see the water. Not because they don't care, some of them cared a lot. But to explain a decision you have to put it into words, and words carry the facts fine. They just can't carry the water level. They can't carry what was actually in the room that day. The cold doesn't translate.
So the person listening hears the story. They don't feel the story. And those are not the same thing.
Most of what I got back was: don't worry. It'll be okay.
It came from a good place. It never once helped.
Because that was never the question. The question was never will it be okay.
The question is how.