So, my wallet went through the washer today.

Totally my fault. Didn’t check the pockets like I should. Also, put my pants in hamper with wallet still in the pocket.

And I can feel that old familiar chasm opening up inside me, ready to stuff my self esteem in its cavernous mouth, chew on it messily, swallows, then poop out depression so fast that it’s universally hailed as a triumph of metabolism

But I’m not going to let that happen this time. This time I’m going to put a stick in that mean ol alligator’s mouth so that he can’t bite down on me.  And then I am going to pull myself out of its jaws and walk away unscathed.

Because really, it’s no big deal. These things happen. To everybody.  Maybe they happen to me slightly more others, and maybe they don’t.

The body of evidence is wildly insufficient to support either claim.

And so it is my choice whether I want to see this as yet another example of behaviour that fits into an overall, damning pattern of unwise actions.

In other words, I can see this as me being a dumbass again and having that spiral into an all encompassing self-loathing that makes me question my right to live.

Or I can see it as one of life’s speedbumps and gaily motor onwards.

Because really, how much does a thing like this really matter? My money is fine. I take back every bad thing I have ever said about Canada’s switch to plastic money. It’s saved my ass two or three times now.

However, I am keeping the smack I talked about Stephen Harper. Fuck that guy.^[1]

And my ID seems to be fine too. Once again, yay plastic. The stamp that won me that Xbox One S looks a little worse for wear, but the website said I probably won’t need it anyway. And that makes sense, seeing as they are taking 6 to 8 weeks to verify my identity for some reason.

Surely in that amount of time they can get all the information they will ever need in order to prove that I am, indeed, that guy that entered the winning code into the website and that said code is, indeed, a winning code and the odds against me having just made a lucky guess are astronomical.

The actual game piece is merely the delivery mechanism for the all important code.

So really, no harm done. Yeah, it made me feel kinda stupid, but that’s as far as it needs to go. I did it, it was dumb, but no harm was done, so it’s over.

Conclusions drawn from this data point about my fitness for being alive and other negative extractions from the date are neither warranted nor justified.

And really, what do incidents like that matter compared to the beauty and magnitude of my abilities? It’s not like a prediliction for certain kinds of mistakes invalidates anything else I can do.

I mean, think of any person known to have an extraordinary talent. As an example, I choose Tiger Woods. He’s arguably the best golfer there has ever been. Sure, his career ended on an embarrassing note, but nobody really gives a shit about that in the long run. He will always be the greatest.

But for all I know, he’s even more absentminded and clueless than I am,. I don’t know what he’s like at home. I don’t know what kind of shenanigans his loved ones and servants have to put up with. I don’t know if his personal assistant has to juggle like a madman just to keep him from wandering into traffic.

And the thing is, it doesn’t matter. He’s an extraordinarily talented golfer and made a lot of money for a lot of people, including himself, with his skills.

Compared to that, whether or not he has top notch life skills is so trivial it barely exists.

So yeah, I’m a bit of a goof because I’m a head in the clouds thinker and dreamer who is too absorbed by the world inside his head to pay sufficient attention to the world outside it. So what?

So was Sir Isaac Newton, and he practically invented modern science.

So really, what is needed here is perspective. One of the many ways depression fucks with you is that is shrinks your perspective down to a pinhole size, and that can’t help but make small problems look very large and keep you trapped in a world where the simplest of things are enormous challenges.

And it is possible to fight that, but only when you are ready. It’s not a step the average depressive can take until they are quite a long way down the road to recovery like I am.

But me, I am crazy for perspective. I want to see things from all the angles so that I can get a sense of what is really going on and, most importantly, get a sense of the true scale of things so that I can prioritize.

And so it is good for me to gain some perspective at this point on my journey. These little errors of mine are not important enough to even count against my self-esteem, let alone devour the whole thing.

I will continue to be my sweet and  funny self no matter what, and in view of thing, my error prone nature is merely a charming eccentricity.

Nobody cares if a person of great talent can balance their checkbook.

So who cares if I launder my money now and then?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.