my cousin's married now officially and i gave her wedding toast. i wrote something from the heart. something i practiced for hours because i hate speeches, God knows i loathe speeches and public speaking. but i did it because i love her...and i had to. it was a fucking great speech. but when i got up there to give it, my heart was pounding. 150+ people, the largest crowd i'd ever spoken to. overall the speech went really well...maybe better than i expected in a way but not to my satisfaction. i paused TWICE. i lost my spot when i was reading. it may have been my nerves or the booze...probably a combination of the two. but nonetheless, i froze and in that moment i knew i fucked it up. everyone told me how much they loved the speech and i know they really meant it because i'm the best writer i know, probably the best they know too. but the fact that i butchered it by freezing...the fact that it wasn't perfect irritates the shit out of me still. maybe it sounds crazy but i can't get over it. i can't let that one little thing go...it ruins the whole thing for me. the whole experience. i felt like the whole night people were looking at me like "theres the maid of honor who paused during her speech" but i know that they weren't really..right? right. i asked my sister about a million times how my speech was and she said she could tell i was nervous but that's because she knows me. no one else knows me. on that note, some family members asked my dad if he helped me write the speech because it was "amazing" but he told them that i'm an amazing writer and that he didn't help. but they wouldn't know that because they don't know me. anyways, i guess i really just need to learn to let go if that's not already clear via all the previous entries i've written. i can't be perfect and maybe i just expect too much from myself and that in turn, makes me one who expects a lot from the people in my life. a lot more than they can probably give me. people aren't perfect...they fuck up all the time. maybe we'd all be much happier if we could learn to embrace our mistakes and failures instead of only basking in the glory of our [perceived] successes. maybe our biggest mistakes ARE our biggest successes and we just don't know it yet? i really hope so because that would make me one of the most successful people i know.