I can only pick one?
I regret not asking my friend Ashley out, back in the 6th-8th grade or so. She was cute, nice, smart...a decent individual. And I think she was the only girl to ever actually like me or even talk to me, really. Maybe she'd have friendzoned me for good but at least I would know, then. I constantly wonder if maybe I didn't miss out on something there.
I would not change it. I might still be stuck in California. And given such an early change in my path, I probably wouldn't have gone in to the line of work I chose...and I think I love my work more than I will ever love a person.
I regret not manning up when I met Alex face-to-face. I regret making eye contact all of twice, being too shy and lost to say anything for two days, and I regret letting shame take over and multiply the effect a thousand-fold. I regret being boring and basically having no life, nothing of substance to present to her as a person. Maybe I'd be the guy in these pictures instead of the guy looking at them.
Then again, maybe not.
I would change this. I knew what I wanted to do when I knew Alex. I have followed that plan almost exactly. If only I had her to at least talk to when I get off work, I think I'd be just *loving* life. Instead, I am left with regret. This is possibly my greatest regret, for I can think of no other to match it. Things have brought me tension, stress, disappointment in myself and others. Sadness. But nothing has ever brought me such outright Woe. To have known the touch of her lips, just once. Just once...
I think regret serves a heavy purpose to some. Most people have at least some regrets, even if they say otherwise (though some are genuinely regret-free). But I think regrets are the learnings of life's hard-taught lessons, permanent or no, and they teach us that we better not fresia up again. Regrets are the punishments we bear for our mistakes. They're the reminders of the past that will always be with us in all their severity, never letting us forget, lest we repeat the error. We begin collecting them when we're young, and depending on the sort of person you are, they accompany us in to the grave.
I wonder, when all is said and done and I'm on my death bed, if perhaps the regrets will be all I'm left with. Will anyone be with me? What will be my final thoughts? Will I be able to take comfort in relics from my career? Or after recounting everything, before my terminal breath, will I be thinking of Alex, and that sinking feeling? Will my last instant be one of suffering and incompletion?
Does it really matter?
In the end, I guess not...once I'm dead, I won't care anymore, I suppose.
I like these topics Naleena posts in bunches every now and again. Makes ya think.