Affirmation.

Your mistakes will cost you.

My mistakes have cost me a lot. Relationships, the most valuable of my losses. Time, a close second.

For the stubborn, hard-headed person, mistakes are especially pricey. I have had to stumble and embarrass myself at increasing degree levels until the pain of getting myself together is less than the pain of the exposure. Simple Math.

This journey is teaching me how to change that equation so that I won't have to lose so much just to get it right. But this path is also teaching me to give myself enough grace to struggle my way to freedom from perfection at the expense of my personal well-being.

In doing so, I will also be able to free my heart from judging the perfection of others.

These mistakes don't have to own you. They don't have to follow you around like a dark cloud of despair; reminding you of your deeply-flawed humanness, your embarrassing gaffes, your very public failures, or your most secretive regrets.

Arielle, you are still worth celebrating because joy can still be found in the darkest places. Keep searching.