I don’t like feeling dumb.
And Hindsight is a motherfucker who hisses in your ear: “Bitch you should’ve known better. Look at all the clues you had.” Hindsight tells you that you are dumb, gullible…a bonafide sucker. Hindsight isn’t just 20/20: she doesn’t just see – she mocks.
She’s relentless. We’ve been dealing with each other the last few weeks. At first, I argued with her, stated my case about why I made the decisions I made, tried to urge her to gain some empathy, over-explained. She would listen, stay quiet, and then hours later -even if she had to interrupt my sleep – lean over, get so close to my ear that I could feel her breath on my neck, “I heard you earlier but what about this incident (recalling some memory that I had long buried which bolstered her case of me being a dumb ass). As soon as she’d bring up the incident, my brain would see it vividly, remember every smell and sight, and remember feel the way my stomach clenched like a mimosa plant.
Hindsight has the ability to make dead memories come back to life – instantly.
Hindsight’s skill with memory-excavation wore me down. I could no longer wrestle or reason with her; so, I reluctantly admitted defeat. “You win. I was dumb,” I resigned.
But, as I told you, hindsight is a motherfucker: she didn’t and hasn’t stopped. “Remember when (fill in the blank happened) you should’ve stopped then. She doesn’t sleep. She comes in the middle of the night causing me to watch mindless television for hours to distract my mind or even in the middle of conversations, exercising, working or partying.
I don’t know if it is her intention, but she has gotten me to lose any anger I had towards anyone else and to fully focus on myself. I have resigned: “You should have known. The signs were there. They weren’t only there; they were bold and blinking. You only ignored them because you wanted to believe something else.” I was dumb. And I don’t like feeling dumb.
But as the days have passed, while I still can’t stand Hindsight, I realize that perhaps she needs me to feel dumb. How will I learn and grow, how will I open myself up to the lessons and to doing things better if I’m not shown that I need to? I need to forgive myself for being dumb; be gentle with myself (even though Hindsight isn’t), so I can be open to receiving the teachings.
That period when you are feeling as if you are dumb – when hindsight is making you feel as if the world is ending – is the true mark of a beginning (a time in your life where you learn better, do better, and become better). If we embrace Hindsight – the nasty bitch that she is – hold her close, listen and receive not just the bad memories but the good lessons – we will make smarter decisions and build a life that Hindsight rarely needs to visit.
