I heard that saying time and again from my mom. She loved collecting sayings and injecting them into life as little tidbits of trial and error, teaching me of the world in her own way I suppose. I didn't understand half of them when I was small as she never took the time to explain them to me.
Perhaps she knew somewhere later down the road they'd make sense, that my own failures, successes and everything in between the two sides of that pendulum swing would explain them on their own. She wasn't wrong and it's a good thing she used them frequently as if she had to drill them into my memory like a sergeant shaping up a soldier for the battlefield.
I was reminded of this one today which I titled my post after
"No good deed goes unpunished" and it's always been a bit of a quandary because in my naivety in my younger years I thought "why would you get punished for something good?"
But life does that sometimes. Sometimes you get great things from good deeds. You get to feel good. Sometimes you get the opposite. This happened to me today and all things considered, I was proud of how I handled it.
The last while I've been taking a lady out in my car and giving her a few driving lessons. She's a bright woman and I knew she'd pick it up quickly. Even though my mind wasn't really in the best place, I had diarised some time with her. We drove down the road and she was doing so well. Then we turned the corner and while straightening out the wheel, she started to panic and she slammed her foot on what she thought was the brake pedal as anyone would do wanting to stop the car.
It wasn't the brake pedal though, was it?
Nope.
It was the accelerator. And so we went careening at the top range of first gear, straight into a fucking wall.
You know what I did? I asked her "are you ok?" I wasn't worried about any of the other stuff because a wall is a wall, a car is a car. Not breathing, not living, not feeling beings. She was fine. No damage, but understandably, a little bit shaken up. I was relieved. That was all that mattered in that moment - that she was ok.
But I could hear my mom's words ringing in my head as I extricated my car.
I could see her face in a cynical scowl as she shook her head disapprovingly of me.
I decided to laugh at that memory of her, because I realised that I have outgrown her "mould".
My mom was the greatest cynic that every graced this planet lol, yet I saw endless number of selfless acts come from her. Things that my sister and I still talk about to this day. Our mom was the biggest contradiction. She was insanely physically strong for her physique and she was rough around the edges. She was neurotic as all hell about almost everything and her sense of humour was almost non existent, yet she was capable of showing so much love, care and attention. I can remember when I was very young, she was almost always on the floor with me, rolling around marbles, playing board games or chasing the few pull back cars we had collected.
I pulled back my car this time, in real life and a few hours later I repainted the wall where my car's paint now decorated it. I will repaint my car, I will sand down my bumper and fix up the damage. I will hold no grudges either. It was an accident and they happen.
It's funny to look back now at what she thought she was trying to teach me, it has shaped me in ways obviously, but I've also overcome so much of what she tried to imprint on me that would have held me back.
Perhaps it's lessons like these that I need to pass on to my nieces and nephews instead of things filled with bitterness and disillusionment. I prefer to believe that there's still good in the world because I know it to be true. I think some people just choose to no longer see it and I couldn't think of a sadder existence than to only see the darkness when you've personally shrouded out the light or refused to acknowledge it.
The track below my sister sent to me a few days ago and it seems synchronistic listening to it now, perhaps this was the lesson I needed this week, not just to grow, but to realise just how much I already have.
๐ท๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐จ๐ฐ ๐๐๐๐. ๐จ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐.