Saturday 18 August 2007

Mistakes. All Over Again


I had a mishap yesterday while printing out my digital photos.

I went in to the store with a disc containing a year's worth of photos and when I went to pick them up, they handed me a box.

Um. What?

"This is my fault." says my brain.

See, when I was in the store and their magical computer finished uploading my photos it said something like "there are three hundred something photos and two hundred something that were detected and found to be too small to print" and I just kind of shrugged it off because, huh? Are you telling me there were six hundred photos on that disc? Impossible. There were maybe three hundred, max.

I could have scrolled through all the photos but I'd already pre-cropped them at home and I wanted to get out of the line and figured I'd re-check the number of photos on my disc when I got home. Which I did.

My disc contained 246 photos and I was pretty sure the store's computer had said three hundred and something. There was a moment where my brain said "Call the store and check. Cancel the order and go back in. There's a mistake." But I didn't, I just figured it'd all work out fine 'cuz, come on. My disc contained two hundred and forty-six photos. I'd just checked. What the computer was suggesting wasn't possible. "Don't worry," I told myself. "You worry too much. It'll be ok"

Which it wasn't, as I discovered when I went back to pick them up and found my giant box of 385 prints waiting for me. Damn.

I think I know, partially, what caused some of the overprints, but that's not what's bothering me.

A hundred and fifty dollars later I found myself sitting in my car sorting through photos that had randomly doubled themselves and weren't in any sort of chronological order and why on earth were there now four of that photo?

I was mad at myself at making the mistake, and really mad at myself for ignoring what might have been a way to fix the mistake and really really mad at myself for not even investigating it when my gut told me otherwise.

As I sat there, trying to tell myself it was ok to make a mistake and that I'd figure out something to do with the extra photos, tears started welling up in my eyes.

Thinking about mistakes made me think about Smith and the feeling I have right now that I made a huge mistake by putting my trust in him; that my relationship with him was a mistake. I don't need any more mistakes right now.

So all of a sudden I'm not dealing with a hundred and fifty extra prints, I'm dealing with my broken heart all over again.

Just when I was starting to feel better about things. Sigh.

I hope this gets easier. Knowing that I'm going to make more mistakes, in life, and in love I either have to be ok with it or I'm never going to survive.




This getting-over-Smith thing is very much two steps forward and one step back.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

it's amazing how you can be trundling along seemingly fine when something pulls you back.

there's no escape. it's like gravity but perhaps as your heart lightens so the pull of your memories will lessen and you can focus on the here and now.

good luck :)

p.s. i always find a nice big glass of wine helps in these situations. just the one glass though ;)

Anonymous said...

Only 246 in one year? That's only around 20
per month. I usually go through about 50-70
per month, but it's mostly film.

I assume it's London Drugs that you went to.
I called them before and found out that they
can easily tell you the status of your order
or change it over the phone if you tell them
your name and number.

As for your "mistake", don't be so hard
on yourself. Think of it this way. There
are many frogs in the pond that you need
to kiss. As you kiss more frogs, your
bad experiences help you in the future by
spotting the duds. Soon you become an
expert froggy-kisser and you'll be able
to pick out the one that will turn into a
prince, not the artist formerly known
as symbol. So, don't think of your bad
experience as something that has harmed
you, but rather something that will help
you.

dilling said...

sigh....what to say? i don't know. i don't know, but i am sad for you.

Victoria said...

Flowers on Friday, it is rather amazing, as you put it, about that gravity pull. I do hope it lessens, and seem to remember it does from past breakups. Hopefully this one's no different and I'll heal in time.

Meanwhile, I'll see if I can find any wine ; )

Victoria said...

YNBF, I did indeed go to L.D. and I know it wasn't a huge amount for a year. Compared to what I used to spend on processing my film, digital has saved me money. It just didn't feel like it yesterday. :( I probably take closer to a hundred a month but gradually reduce them to the keepers, and in this case the printers.
I figured I could have called them. I just didn't and that's why I was kicking myself so much. Next time, I guess.
I know about the frog/prince theory. I'm just kind of tired of it, you know?
I wouldn't mind kissing Prince though. I used to have the biggest crush on him! ; )

Victoria said...

Dilling, I'll be ok. It's just been a rough day. Thanks though. Sometimes there's not much to say, just things that have to be worked through. Gotten through.

Delton said...

Some of those feelings, they never go away. Years later, many relationships later, something will come along that reminds you of that someone and it'll be like it just happened yesterday. Like you said, just one of those things that have to be worked through.

Victoria said...

Yeah, that's true Delton. Good point.

We're funny creatures, us humans, huh?

Unknown said...

My advice is that you honor the pain. You don't try to supress it and pretend it doesn't exist, but truly embrace it. When you do that you give yourself a chance to open up and release all that negative energy.

Like they always told me at basketball camp, "Pain is weakness leaving the body," and if you allow yourself to feel that pain and be okay with it then you will be well on your way to getting over him.

<3 Knikki

Ps. Mistakes are a good thing. We learn from them and the only way to judge your growth as a human being based on not making the same one twice.

Anonymous said...

You need to pamper yourself now. Don't beat yourself up over a mistake, we all make mistakes. Have a nice bubblebath.
We're all on the same path. Share when you need to, and take care of yourself.

Jonathan Beckett said...

What you really need is me to tell you about the day I wiped a company's database by accident and their entire website vanished from the internet, and all of their enquiry records with it.

That was a *mistake*.

Or the time the food store where my brother in law works ordered crates of chocolate bars instead of boxes. They gave the staff boxes and boxes of chocolate bars to try and get rid of them.

I am good at mistakes. It should be on my resume.

Victoria said...

Tyler, it's funny how the little things bring stuff back, eh?
The only reason I'm avoiding alcohol is that it tends to get me even MORE depressed which is totally not the point! ; )

Victoria said...

Thanks Knikki. I have a really hard time doing that: honouring the pain. I prefer to lock it up, but, yeah, it never seems to work. I sometimes feel like life gets in the way too. Like, I can't be utterly miserable and feel the pain when I have to get out of bed and function, you know?
But, yes. I'll have to learn to deal with it, and him, somehow.

Victoria said...

Angela, I'm admittedly not great at pampering myself, but I did try to do something about it last night (I'll post about it later today)
Thanks for the good wishes. I appreciate knowing they're out there.

Victoria said...

Jonathan, I totally needed that!

:D

hee hee!