Actually, I was meaning to write a full-length post on the topic of regret.
Then it started to feel like way too much up-close-and-personal.
Bumped into this song and – as sometimes happens with songs – it seems to say what I meant to say, without me having to get all embarrassingly self-exposure porno-artist type thing. So we'll make do with the song instead of a long post in words. As for what I wanted to convey, it was something like I don't regret being where I am, but I do regret a lot of the way of the stuff that got me here. Sometimes I also regret the way I have become on the way, or the way I've been.
In a sense I also think it's better to regret than not to.
At least, it feels better that way to me and for me.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Regrets? I've had a few
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5 comments:
Regret. (Sigh) Old friend at this point. We all have it, I've spent years wallowing in it, assuming my mistakes or wrong turns far out number and out weigh any one else's. Then it occurred to me that regret is an absolute waste of the current time. Someday, I'll be out of time, look back and realize...with tremendous regret...that my biggest fuck up was wasting the time I had fussing over the time I had already lost. So, at this point, I've bagged my many, many...many...regrets and chalked it up to bad timing, bad judgement and often plain stupidity. I say this with a laugh. I managed to get my own life in such a tangled state that it's taken years just to find the road again and I'm still not quite on it. But who cares? I could lay down and die over it or I can turn my music up, go catch a movie, read a book or do anything to keep the dark thoughs out - I've decided to take seriously the fact that I'm not where I want to be and recklessly just try to change it. I have nothing to lose at this point...and it's fun to live in this crazy space of chasing down life before it's too late. Lol. Sorry for turning this into an Oprah level personal journey but I've become an evangelist when it comes to regret. It's just a waste of our (rather limited) time.
Ah, Anonymous - all true. I have spent an awful lot of time regretting that I have spent an awful lot of time regretting that I have spent an awful… you catch my drift … an ongoing spiral. And we share the recklessness of trying to change where we are, and the enjoyment of the craziness of it all, too. Snap, my fellow ether-spaceman (woman?), way to go.
However. Had I (we?) not spent all this time worrying about the fuck-ups and wasted time, would we have found the wherewithal to go reckless into that good night and start running like buggery, after the things we actually want to achieve? I don't know about you, Anon my friend, but I certainly wouldn't have. Had I blithely just sat around saying, "this is my life and I refuse to regret any of it", I think I would have felt it was my (non-regretting) duty to just be pleased with every bad choice, every wrong turn, every stupidity. So this is what I mean when I said it is better to regret than not to.
Also, on a more Oprah level (and no apology needed, Anonymous, evangelical self-exposure text is perfectly welcome around these parts), I think it doth improve a person's soul to admit to and suffer from the knowledge of one's fuck-ups. Do you see what I mean? It puts a bit of healthy humility into the mix that is a human soul, and, well, I think it's a good thing.
All this applies, of course, if one has a life containing things that need regretting. Of the other type of person, I cannot say.
Hope you've had a pleasant mid-winter fest, of whichever denomination. Very nice to hear from you. Give us a name to call you, next time you turn up, please? I am guessing we've met before, and that you have indeed given yourself a name then, but just in case I'm wrong, I'm not going to start haphazardly calling you something I think you might be called.
Take care. And hope 2012 is brilliant and causes no serious regrets for you.
x
A bit late to this, but - why are we being deprived of a full-length post on topic of regret? We like the close-up-and-personal, we do. Just saying. And also, I am not 'Anonymous' - as you probably know - but just saying that too.
What I actually came here to say was that I am sat here watching Frozen Planet and some ill-informed person has been saying things to the effect that penguins are only ever found in the southern hemisphere - which is just not true, and I have had conclusive proof of this.
But yes, regret. Many is the time that I have dreamed back to a day in 197-something - me crossing a road between Swiss Cottage and Chalk Farm. Someone in a pale blue Triumph pulled over. I turned and looked, went over to say hello, climbed in beside him. We talked about this and that, what we had been doing since last encounter.
I was wondering, he said, if I could see you again - if we can see each other.
I said no.
He took a big breath and tried to smile.
I thought you might say that, he said.
I have retraced each step away from his car many times, directed my feet back, climbed back into the car. Changed the 'no' to 'yes', which is what it should have been.
But my whole life would have been different, unpeopled by the people I have now.
And I wouldn't want that.
Sometimes I wonder about destiny.
That is a very beautiful and poignant tale and full of the sort of stuff that dreams/regrets are made on (cross out as appropriate), my dear. Thank you for sharing.
As for arriving a bit late to this - well. Not quite as late as might appear, for I had started to write the post on 3rd December (I wrote the title and the tag. What more do you want? Blood? Text?!). Then I didn't do anything else with it for two or three weeks. However, blogger in its infinite smoothness always picks up the date when a post is started, and unless you go and manually change it, you can mess with the heads of your esteemed readers and make it look like you published something three weeks ago. But shhh, that's one of my cunning tricks of the trade. We don't want everyone doing it now, do we?
And hush, calm thyself. There might still be something up-close-and-personal, one day, you know. It has been known to happen.
And one more thing - will this silly "no such thing as Arctic penguin" never stop? But, well, never mind. We know better - and I am a shy creature after all, not much given to the paparazzi bumbling around my igloo trying to catch a fleeting glimpse for their cameras. So let's just smile sweetly and say no more about it.
x
Forget what I said about disappearing blog posts - because this is the one I was referring to, and clearly it has not disappeared. Or it did for a few minutes and has now miraculously re-appeared. As you were, Ms Mr, as you were. I'll just tiptoe away before I make an idiot of myself.
(We are still liking the close-up-and-personal - and the fact of your posting again).
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