Before I dive into this post I want to make one thing perfectly clear and that is the fact that I am a fairly contented person. Life is life. I get it. I understand the concept of making choices based on what you are capable of at the moment. Of course, regret is going to come into play as you gain more understanding and perspective. That’s just a natural part of life. But no one should beat themselves up too much with the sometimes heavy bat of regret. Sure, there are things that could have been done better but no one has a time machine DeLorean* so we just have to learn from it and keep moving on by doing better next time. I get it. I get all that. That being said, I must admit recently, I have started to let a couple of my biggest regrets occupy more space in my mind than I normally do. So much space they have moved south to my heart to inflict some wounds. It seems like I have entered the age of regret. In an effort to minimize them to more manageable sizes, I’m going to share them with you.

The Regret of ‘I Can’t’

Unfortunately, I have cut short or not even attempted many things in my life because I told myself early on ‘I can’t do that.’ And I naively believed myself. That is the downside to an over(re)active imagination. Before I ever did something I played it out in my mind and if my mind saw it ending negatively I pulled out the ‘I can’t’ card. Again, I understand the concept of accepting choices made based on the person I was at the time and realizing she did the best she could. But dang! Did she have to be such a big chicken?

Even so, out of all the times I played that card, the time I am now regretting most is when it came to teaching. Originally, my plan was to become a teacher. One semester of college though and I changed my mind. I never did figure out an alternative and I only received an Associate of Arts degree. Now, I’m not saying I would still be a teacher if I had followed through. But I would prefer to have had the choice. I love teaching. I love presenting. I didn’t like the idea of all the politics and diplomacy that goes along with it. Dealing with parents and administrators is what flipped the switch for me and illuminated the “I can’t” card.

I regret not following through and getting my Bachelors so that I could make an informed decision. However, if I would have done that, my life would have been vastly different than the one I have lived so far. It would be interesting to see my Sliding Door** version and see where she is at this moment.

The Regret of Routine

Let me stress this: I hate routine. That being shared, I should also mention I need routine. And one more thing, I hate that I need routine. As someone that does not fall directly on the neurodivergent spectrum but more hovers closely to the border, there are certain spectrum attributes I possess. One is my need for routine to get through a project, assignment, or even the day. That’s who I am and I (now) accept it. There are certain things I feel I must do every single day. If I miss doing them, my world doesn’t end, I just feel ‘behind’ the next day.

I guess my daily routine is where this regret falls. Years ago, my mom volunteered at the hospital every Monday. While she was still a volunteer, I started work at my job and the office was right in front of the hospital. To this day, I regret that I never met my mom for lunch at the hospital on Mondays. I’m not even exactly sure the reason because I would drive home for lunch. I drove home instead of going to the building right behind me to meet mom for lunch. I can’t even begin to explain my thought process on that one.

There was a bit of an overlap of mom volunteering and me working in that office. I can’t remember how long we were both in the same vicinity at the same time but I do know we could have had more than a few lunches together. If I did have a time machine DeLorean, this is the time I’d visit and kick my younger self in the pants because I can’t do this moving forward. There is no possibility to have a lunch date with mom. The best I can do is make sure I make time for someone else.

My biggest regret is getting so tunnel visioned by routine that I didn’t make some memories with my mom.

I get that regret is an important part of life. It means we are learning and growing and not stuck in the same thought process all our life. In that regard, some regret is probably healthy if we do not let it consume us. The trick of it all is to learn from it so that we don’t make the same mistakes. That’s the part I haven’t quite figured out yet.

* Back to the Future (1985)

** Sliding Doors (1998)