REGRET

REGRET:

We all would like to live our lives without regrets. We all pause and contemplate our decisions in order to avoid regret and its sickening baggage. But sometimes it isn’t so easily done. And we’re left looking back on miserable moments in our lives wondering why we did what we did or what why it all turned out the way it did. We try again and again to leave these moments in our past. To keep it from affecting our present. But some regrets cling tenaciously and violently. Tooth and nail they dig into the soft meat of our emotions and memories. Like frantic feral children holding tight to their parents. And as hard as we try to life; it trails not too far behind. Bound to us by an emotional tether of “what if, maybe, should have, could have, why”, and a myriad of other self debasing doubts. And every time we glance behind use we see regret red eyed, angry, weeping, and howling as it yanks on its tether. Trying its hardest to stall us, pull us backwards, knock us down, and gnaw at whatever it can until we scramble to our feet.

Regret is the great devourer. The virulent destroyer of our sense of self and sense of confidence. It lurks beneath everything we decide and everything we do. Sending sparks of misery and pain whenever we make decisions. And at the same time regret manages to be one of our greatest teachers.

Regret is the bastard child of pain and despair. The grandchild of experience. Long ago I heard the saying, “Experience isn’t the best teacher. It’s the harshest of teachers”. And since then I’ve learned that this is true.

Here is where I shift from “we and us”, to “me and I”.

I have tried so much to live my life without regret. But at the same time, as much as I would love to do so regret will try to live its life with me. There are many lessons that I have learned so painfully through experience. There are three regrets that I have. Three that continue to tear and claw away at me. I’ll not go into what they are. To me they are too personal and important to simply post and share with the entire internet/world. The truth is that these three cling to me and I cling to them. I have to admit that I am not done learning my lessons from them. I hold onto them because I need to completely understand what happened and what went wrong. Why I made the wrong choices. But at the same time they rip, claw, tear, and murder who I am.

Right now I don’t who I am and what I’m doing. I’m constantly questioning what I’m doing with my life. And I can’t tell you anything absolutely definite about me. All I can say is that I am and I have regrets the haunt and gnaw away at me. I am like you and I am not you.