Lessons Not Learned

I took a nasty spill on my way into work yesterday. I simply did not see that patch of ice. My thumb went straight through my Dunkin Donuts coffee cup and I got coffee all over my nice white jacket. Luckily, my office is technically a condo and comes equipped with my choice of not one, but two washing machines.
I took off my jacket and went into the bathroom to soak the right arm of my jacket so the coffee didn’t set. As I was rubbing Tide into the edges of the stain, I actually felt sick. I love this jacket. I love the color, and the collar, and I love how the belt goes around the smallest part of my waist (Stacey London would be proud) and most of all I love how it’s inexplicably is warm in the winter and is just enough covering on a chilly April night. And then my stomach hurt. It wasn’t a hurt like I just had a huge cup of coffee and a flax seed granola bar and now the wheels of regularity are in motion; it was my stomach hurts because I’m worried. I could feel that sour taste in my mouth the tingles your jaw. I was about to throw up. I was about to throw up because I may have ruined my jacket; and I wondered, how did I get to a place in my life where coffee on a jacket would upset me so much?
I didn’t hurl. I put the jacket in the wash with hot water and just hoped. I was sitting at my desk remembering other times when I felt that worry. For me, there are two types of worry. The first is the type of worry that I feel when I get an unexpected bill or a flat tire. It’s temporary because I know that there is a quick fix. I have AAA and a really good health insurance company. The other is a type of worry that is a little more lingering. It happens when I really disappoint myself. Not on a grand scale or anything just the thought that had I been a little more careful, I could have avoided this feeling.
Case in point (at one end of the spectrum, then the other):
I had this pair of shoes that I loved. They went with everything, the heel was the right height to be able to walk reasonable distances in, and they were comfortable. I wore them all the time, even in the winter. They were leather shoes and the salt and snow had eaten away so much of the leather on the heel so as to expose the bones. I watched it happen but rather than wear rubber soled shoes while outside, I wore those shoes. Come spring, the heel broke when I was walking to a company event on Michigan Avenue. I could absolutely not walk in these shoes and actually had to stop at Macy’s and buy a new pair for fear that my shoes were about to fill with my own blood. My stomach hurt and my jaw tingled.
Spectrum-Other end:
Some may remember a very brief time in which there was an actual human male in my life. Sure he lived 400 miles away, but whatever. He was easily the coolest person I’ve met in a long time and I often think that if I hadn’t acted like a crazy person, we might even still be friends. A year later it still makes me sick that I had zero self control in that situation. I mean, relax baby! Dare I say, take a chill pill. I don’t know what chemically changes in girls during a time like this but I’m pretty sure in me, it’s the expectation for something to go wrong and the unwavering compulsion to prevent wrong from happening. It’s often quite counterproductive, it turns out. I don’t even know who that girl was but that one really made this girl’s jaw tingle.
So back to my jacket. It’s fine and it smells like Tide. I am truly lucky there are people in the office that don’t short circuit at times. This is the reason I still have that jacket. Had this happened on my way home from work, the jacket would probably be in my “lessons not learned” pail with my brown leather shoes and a Minnesota license plate, which is the one thing I can’t seem to escape, but serves as a, seemingly daily, reminder to think before I act.