The Mistakes We Never Stop Replaying

Do you have one of those moments that your brain simply refuses to let go?

Not the life-changing disasters. I’m talking about the little ones. Waving back at someone who wasn’t actually waving at you. Calling someone by the wrong name. Saying something awkward and wishing you could rewind the last thirty seconds.

For years, those were the moments I replayed over and over. I suspect most of us have at least a few of them. The kind of memory that pops into your head years later and still manages to make you cringe.

When I started writing Wrong Bird, I realized something. I wanted to tell funny stories, but I didn’t want those stories to come at someone else’s expense. So I made myself the punchline. It was a little self-deprecating, sure, but instead of worrying about people laughing at me, I chose to invite people to laugh with me about these stories.

As it turns out, I had plenty of material.

The title story in Wrong Bird centers on the tattoo on my arm. When I was nineteen, I wanted something that represented change. Rebirth. A fresh start. I found a phoenix design online, took it to a tattoo artist, and even turned down his suggestion to make it more unique.

“This is exactly what I want,” I told him.

The only changes I requested were orange instead of red and a heavier black outline because I thought it would age better.

More than a decade later, while standing in Helsinki looking at airplanes, I froze.

The logo on the tail of a Japan Airlines aircraft looked awfully familiar.

I looked at my arm.

Then back at the plane.

Then back at my arm.

I had spent years proudly wearing what was, for all practical purposes, the Japan Airlines logo tattooed on my shoulder.

I had accidentally turned myself into a walking corporate billboard.

For a long time, that realization embarrassed me. I even considered having the tattoo removed. It became one of those memories that would occasionally pop into my head just to remind me that nineteen-year-old Matthew wasn’t always as clever as he thought he was.

Then something unexpected happened.

After my divorce, when I started dating again, I needed good icebreakers. So I started telling that story. My now-wife was one of the people who heard it.

Years later, after Wrong Bird was well underway, she admitted something I’d never expected.

That story was one of the reasons she wanted to keep seeing me.

Not because the tattoo was funny, although it certainly was. It was because I was willing to laugh at myself. Telling a story like that made me seem genuine. Authentic. Someone who wasn’t pretending to have everything figured out.

Without realizing it, one of the stories I had been the most embarrassed to tell had actually helped lay the foundation for one of the most important relationships of my life.

As I write this, we’re only a short time away from welcoming our daughter, Imogene, into the world. It’s strange to think that a decision made by a nineteen-year-old who unknowingly tattooed what looks suspiciously like an airline logo on his arm helped set in motion a chain of events that eventually led here.

Life has a funny way of redeeming the things we think we’ll always regret.

Writing Wrong Bird did something similar for me. It took stories I’d quietly carried around for years and transformed them into stories I could share with others. In the process, those memories lost much of their power over me.

This is why I like telling funny stories about my past. They’re entertaining, certainly, but they’re also a reminder that our biggest embarrassments often aren’t the end of the story. Sometimes they’re the beginning of something far better than we ever expected.

If you’d like to read more stories like this, Wrong Bird is available through the West-James Press store. As a newsletter subscriber, you’re entitled to an exclusive 10% discount, and the link includes your discount automatically

(https://store.westjamespress.com/products/wrong-bird-e-book?promo=10WJPS&step=checkout).

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