The Weight Of A Wrong Choice

Honey For the Heart - 2

“I made a choice,”
Pooh said, his voice barely above a whisper, eyes tracing a spot on the ground as if it might offer him a way out.
“A wrong choice.”
There was a tremble in his words—not loud, but achingly real. As if something inside him had broken long before he ever found the courage to say it aloud.
“And now,” he added softly, “I don’t just feel regretful… I feel like I am the mistake.”

Piglet didn’t rush to reassure.
He simply sat beside him—the way one sits beside an open wound: gently, quietly, lovingly. The silence between them held more comfort than any words could offer. Then, in that small voice of his—wise as ever—Piglet finally spoke:
“Pooh… we all take wrong turns now and then. That’s how we learn. And grow—from the pain we pass through.
But guilt—the kind others throw at you when you’re already hurting— that’s not a lesson. That’s the worst kind of pain masked as punishment.”

He paused, his gaze lifting to the woods ahead, as if gathering his words from the wind itself.

“You are not your mistake, Winnie. You are the ‘you’ that came after. And that version—the one who knows better, feels deeper, and walks wiser—is the one I trust even more. Because growth doesn’t come from being perfect.
It comes from making mistakes, and meeting them—with more heart than before.”

Pooh didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
But his shoulders relaxed—just a little.
And the ache that had wrapped itself around his chest like old ivy, began to loosen—at last.