Failure Dwelling

On Saturday, J and I hosted a Halloween party at our house. I spent way too much time and money creating a Hedwig costume, and to my amazement J went along with the plan by dressing up as Harry Potter without complaint. I absolutely love Halloween, probably because it elicits some of my favorite childhood memories. I have no unhappy memories of Halloween as a child (which I can't say about other holidays), so it probably became one of my favorite days for that reason.
However this year, unfortunately, I created a bad memory all by myself, without anyone's help. A friend from high school whom I haven't seen in about 7 years happened to be in town and stopped by the party right around the time it was winding down. We started catching up about people we know in common and I ended up making a snarky comment that, although it was true, would have been better left in my own head. The friend, as it ended up, was still rather close to the person I made the comment about and although I am sure they have not thought of it since, my actions haunted me for the rest of the weekend.
What upsets me most is that I gave the wrong impression of who I really am now. I am not actively a hurtful or shallow person, but that is what I sounded like. I have come too far from the horrible days of high school, always being talked about by the girls in my class, to have acted like them the first chance I got. I am not that person and I realized in that moment that the things we say and the way we portray ourselves cannot be taken back. More than anything I wish I could remove the foot from my mouth.
I spent the next day tortured by my comment, feeling disgusted with myself. After talking to the true compass that is my mother, I realized that I can't and won't always say and do the right things, and to wallow in self-loathing won't make me any better a person. Later that day, while watching my totally un-guilty pleasure The Biggest Loser, I heard one of the trainers pep-talking a contestant that had an incessant need to please and act perfectly, which inevitably lead to a snowball effect of feeling like a failure. "People are terrified to mess up or fail because they think they have to be perfect to be loved. Failure is what teaches us to be better people. Failure makes us more lovable, not less." (I'm paraphrasing my homegirl Jillian Michaels. Off topic, Biggest Loser just isn't the same this season without her.) That comment really had an impact on me. For so much of my life my self-worth has been measured by how much or how little I mess up, stick my foot in my mouth, or fail at being the person I really want to be. Hurting someone's feelings or realizing I've embarrassed myself by saying something I shouldn't have stays with me. I can easily recall plenty of times that I've said something inappropriate or hurtful, and my heart will race and my cheeks will flush, even if it was years ago. Even worse, in true Southern form, I constantly have to fight the urge to apologize for every word I've said and opinions I've voiced. My college roommate and best friend Rachel once told me if I didn't stop apologizing for everything she was going to give me the silent treatment. If my family had a "cuss jar" for every gratuitous "I'm sorry" we would have enough savings to vaccinate a small island or invest in one of those drive-though zoos.
These times that we say or do the wrong thing are inevitable, but I think how we choose to rebound from them is the real measure of failure or success. If I continue to dwell on how I missed the mark on representing myself, I will really fail, because I will be wasting the best of me, stagnating in the past. The best course of action in this scenario is to be mindful of how my open-mouth-insert-foot moment made me feel, and I can try not to replicate it. I also can't let all the fun memories I made that night be overshadowed by the one low point. I had so much fun with our friends and the night was a success and the true pity would be if I didn't let that be the thing I remember.