Some days I get it right

I've had this cold for about a week now, and I still feel pretty crummy. (Although I think I might finally be able to make it through the day without any cold medicine! Huzzah!)

There are days when, no matter my intentions, I mess everything up. I'm in a bad mood or I stumble over the words I use or I just want to be left alone. I make a rash decision that results in problems for me and/or others. I have these days a lot, and mostly I try to think of them as learning opportunities. (Especially the bad decisions.) If I learn something from all the mistakes and all the bad days, that helps make them mean something, right? (It sounds good in theory, but living with it can still be hard.)

I often say there are many things I regret (I remember the line from Reality Bites where Ethan Hawke said, "I have this planet of regret sitting on my shoulders" -- a line I remember even though I haven't seen that movie in 20 years), but I wouldn't undo any of my regrets, because I would lose the things I learned from them, too. And then I would be less me.

Anyway, there are lots of those days, but there are also days when I get it right. Days when I do something small that has a big impact. Like Goldie thanking me a second time for the stress liver I mailed her in my most recent postal ninjery. Like Kraken thanking me for "being awesome" as we discussed officiating lineups. Like Roo and her mom.

When it was time to hand my free pass to someone else, I posted this on Facebook:

Have you ever felt like you needed a Free Pass on something? (The homework or dishes or exercise you don't want to do tonight but feel guilty about putting off? The way you took out your bad day on someone else? The opportunity you let slip through your fingers?) I've got ONE free pass to hand off to someone. Tell me you need it (you don't need to say why), and I'll postal ninja it to you. Go!

Roo said her mom really needed something like that. So, I sent it to her mom. I think the gesture confused her more than anything, but at the very least, it gave Roo an opportunity to tell her mom how great she is and that she deserves to take a break for herself sometimes. Roo and her mom thanked me as if I'd done something great when all I'd done was send a little token (literally!) in the mail.

Because, sometimes, that's all it takes.

I realize that the days I get it right are the days when I'm not overthinking things, not oversharing things, not complicating things. They're the days when I think of something small and maybe a little sweet and I do them. Just because.

I ordered a bunch of stamps from the post office -- Harry Potters and two kinds of Pixar montages. I bought them because I thought getting mail with those stamps on them might be fun for people (if they look at the stamps, and I hope they do). So, I'm going to keep postal ninja-ing random things to people, but I'm also going to start sending more 1-stamp notes (at least until these three sheets of stamps runs out...) because I can and because it might make the difference in someone's day.

Starting now.