One touch

There was a morning after a storm, I driving to work in New Jersey. It was a drive I did every morning, on auto-pilot, changing lanes without thinking. I was maybe half-listening to the radio, when the announcer pointed out that some live wires had come down. I looked up, and the wires above me were intact. But my mind started wandering: what if a wire came free? What if I touched that wire? What if, for one instant, I abandoned logic and instinct and reached out and grabbed a live wire?

For some reason, that scene in my head haunted me. The idea of one stupid thing changing everything. You'd like to think that you'll always do the right thing, but we know it's not true. We know that we do dumb stuff; what happens when the dumb stuff is a big deal?

I guess I've been lucky: I haven't done anything major like (obviously) touched that live wire. But I have done stupid little things that ruin a perfectly wonderful occasion. The overreaction to something so minor, it's embarrassing. ("The meal was delicious, but I noticed that the frosting on the cake was a little too sweet, so I am freaking out in the kitchen!") In fact, it's so embarrassingly stupid, you can't even believe you are acting that way over something so silly, so now you need to make it a big deal to justify it. ("Everyone knows that that frosting sets the tone, not only for the meal but for the year. It's a birthday, after all, yeah, that's it! It's important that this is perfect, so my reaction was not kooky or nutty!") Justifying the overreaction rarely works.

The reality is that you want to make that moment of crazy go away, but it's out there. People have already reacted to your outburst. In fact, you're now upset that you've gotten everyone else upset and you've behaved like a five-year-old, but everyone still thinks you're upset about the first hunk of crazy you've delivered. And you will never make it go away.

In case you are wondering, right now I am embarrassed by so much previous bad behavior. I am thinking of one thing in particular, though. One stupid bit in a sea of amazing.

I am so sorry. I can't untouch that wire. All I can do is hope it didn't cause too much damage.