Mistakes cannot be taken back, and they cannot be forgotten, but they cannot define you.
Mistakes are like rain drops; they may help make up the water, but they don't make up the depths of the ocean, they do not make up the salt, the coral, and the sand, and they do not define the wonders of the water, just as mistakes do not make up who you are as a whole.
Sometimes we mess up, it's our small reminder that we are not perfect, and we all have flaws. Those mistakes can feel as though they are haunting us and changing us, defining us, making us forget who we were before that mistake had happened. Mistakes make us forget that we still have our whole lives ahead of us, where we have plenty of time to mess up and fix things. We have a lot more to us than a few bad mistakes.
We manage to forget that our past belongs in our past and that we are growing every day from the lessons we've learned. Sure, maybe you've lost some people along the way from the choices you made, maybe you replay that mistake over and over again in your head, and maybe some people look at you differently because of it. But those people have forgotten that they too will have their fair share of mistakes, they too will think their mistake will define them forever, and then as time goes on, they too will realize that that mistake was just a snippet of them as a whole.
I hope your mistakes make you look in the mirror, I hope they make you question the path you are on, I hope they make you open your eyes to the people who are in your life, both the good and bad, and I hope your mistakes fill your body like a hot burning fire in your soul.
Because I hope your mistakes can make you see who you can still become. I hope they bring you to new beginnings and dreams, I hope your mistakes make you appreciate those who stuck by your side through it all, I hope they enlighten you, motivate you, and I hope they never define you.
Mistakes are beautiful reminders that you are imperfect and that nothing can hold you back. They are a part of you; they are the flame that reminds you that your darkest moments can be conquered, and that nothing can define you.