Do you ever wish that there was a DELETE button for conversations?
It happens to me all the time. I'll blurt something out and immediately realise the words came out wrong, and I wish wish wish I could take them back. Or the words might come out exactly the way I meant them, but I really only meant them for a second or two, in anger or frustration or hurt. But when the second passes, and I don't mean them anymore, they hang in the air, spoken, forever. And I long to press DELETE. Just wipe out the moment and start the conversation again, all fresh and new and unsullied by my own emotion.
Or I'll have an entire discussion when I'm in an unhappy mood - overwhelmed or insecure or anxious or sad - and I'll just act overwhelmed or insecure or anxious or sad. All.... messy. All.... wrong. And then my overwhelmedness and insecurity and anxiety and sadness gets worse, because I know I've sounded pathetic, and I worry that the person I was speaking to will think less of me.
And I long long long for DELETE.
As for emails and texts, I'm starting to think there should be a compulsory waiting period of at least five full minutes between hitting SEND and the message's release into the interweb. How many times have I sent off an email on impulse, or in the heat of passion, or in the fire of anger, or in the sudden warmth of a memory, only to regret it a moment later? And how many times have I received a reply to a message sent in haste, only to cringe in hot embarrassment when I realise my message has been misunderstood?
I want a DELETE button for life. I want a remote control to carry around with me, to get rid of mistakes, to wipe out misunderstandings, to avoid the need to ever again feel regret and shame.
But then life wouldn't be life. It would be a story without a complication. And the complications are what make the story worth reading.
So I'll live without DELETE, and I'll suck up my mistakes. And today, as always, I'll just deal.
