Right, now mountains have been conquered, Danger has been massaged, boys and dogs are bedded down for the night...
Six things I wish I'd done differently/handled better.
1. Divorcing Bryan as soon as we split up, not waiting months and damaging my relationship with John. Yes, there were reasons, but I wish I'd done it differently.
2. Refusing to go to my Mum's last wedding. It was stupid. She would have appreciated it, and it wouldn't have done me any harm. I should have gone.
3. I should have gone left, but I went right. Literally. Thought instead of filtering between two lanes of traffic I'd do a proper overtake. Van pulled over and knocked me off. Was off work for weeks.
4. Wish I'd never told myself he would change. He didn't. It just meant I blamed myself more.
5. Wish I hadn't repeatedly told Steve it would be okay when we all knew it wouldn't. Wish I'd talked to him about his fears, tried to help, instead of denying him that chance.
6. Wish I hadn't made every single mistake I've ever made as a police officer. Each one of them damaged someone irreprably.
Back to London tomorrow. It's all gone very fast. I...hope we all got something out of it. I'm definitely glad I met John's parents.
14 comments:
6 is the reason I personally think you're amazing but worry about your long term state of mind.
1 well you needed a reason, John gave you that. It might not have been the best way to do it but you needed someone by your side to be able to do it.
A couple of your others are the reason I can't do this one so I consider you very brave to put yourself out there like this :-)
I hope you sleep well once you get there and that you and John get some good talking time over the next few weeks to organise all that's gone on on this trip :-)
Anonybob
6...yeah, I know what you mean.
I think everyone's found this one a bit difficult. Day six should be easier all round.
I'm glad that you feel it's been a useful trip, Lestrade, although you definitely sound a bit ambivalent. I hope that John's feeling OK about it all.
I'm definitely glad I met John's parents.
If you're glad you met them, then I'm glad we came.
Three days isn't very long to get to know someone, but it sounds like a good length of time to make introductions. Hopefully in the future John's parents can come down to London for a bit, so that Sherlock and Mycroft and you are all "home ground" and not tired out from a nine hour drive.
I've been thinking for a bit about how to respond to the idea that your mistakes have caused "irreparable" damage to someone. I don't want to belittle the damage or the mistakes, but I think that most people have a capacity to recover a surprising amount of lost ground, even after a tragedy. And also that the only mistakes which are irreparable are the ones which were never detected or acknowledged.
You've also got me thinking about the power of mistakes. There's a reason that the scientific method is essentially "trial and error", with a lot of emphasis on the "error" part. So if you made a mistake about which person was guilty during an investigation, and then changed your mind when the data proved the hypothesis was false, that's a mistake that didn't do irreparable harm, isn't it?
I'll probably be offline most of the day tomorrow so I'll hope your drive home isn't too full of yellow cars (or is, depending on how much entertainment they provide) now.
Sleep well, and sweet dreams!
...ON home ground...
(I swear, computers eat words!)
Did my six things on John's blog, I just wanted to say have a safe drive tomorrow and I hope the boys stay entertained on the way (we're now playing yellow car driving around town - loud, but fun).
You know, Sherlock, between the four of you, I bet there's quite the supply of foreign animal sounds, like in "Johannesburg." How many rounds of "Went to Mow a Meadow" do you think it would take to get from Scotland to London? And could you make it without repeating an animal in a particular language? (Meaning you could do a dog in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Chinese, and Tagalong, but not a French dog twice)
RSF - well, I suppose every one of them hasn't caused irreparable damage. Some of them have, and I suppose it's those which I remember best.
There are times when my actions have impacted severely on people. From eroding their trust or faith in the police, to leaving someone walking free who has gone on to attack or assault another person.
You remember all your cases then, Greg?
Not all of them, no, not now. Some of them, though, very clearly.
The world is not a straightforward place, and actions based on currently available information can appear monstrous when more information is available. It would be simplistic to say that as long as you acted in good faith then the fault is not yours and it certainly wouldn't make you feel any better, but the fact that it does worry you is what distinguishes you from someone just doing the job.
Yes, I suppose it was the "every one" which struck me as problematic. I do know that your position gives you too many chances to make negative mistakes as well as positive ones.
But your very concern tells me that you don't make those mistakes out of carelessness or malice. And caring shows, even when people are very unhappy with us.
How was the trip home, Lestrade? I'm on hour 42 of my journey home for the first time in three months, going 20 mph on the highway/motorway when we move at all and I think I might either scream or swear soon...
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