Regret is a funny thing. There is no shortage of perspectives on how to deal with it. Some people adopt a no regrets! policy. You live and learn, so don't dwell on what you didn't get right but instead just take the lesson on the chin and move on. Others drown in their regrets, consumed by them, unable to relinquish the vice grip hold they have on all that they didn't get right.
I'm probably a mix of both of these extremes at times, and only with age and wisdom am I learning to land somewhere in the middle. On one hand, I'm getting better about simply letting go of whatever it is that I thought I got wrong. I'm getting better at just simply owning it. It happened. It's over. Carry on. On the other hand, it's very easy for me to wallow under the weight of self-condemnation, telling myself all the things I should have done differently or better, a lot of which can be chalked up to my perfectionistic tendencies. If I'm not careful, I can dwell in that space for a very long time.
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| If only... |
I regret not taking a single photograph with my friend Jonathan while he was alive. This regret is actually a profound one for me. I have pictures of him, but not with him. After he died, I realized this, and it has bothered me ever since. I also regret the moment I decided not to go visit him in the hospital. A winter storm had rolled in, the roads were a mess, I was a mess. I should have gone.
I regret writing a letter to this boy I was crazy about in college. Gah, do I ever regret that letter. I wish it had spontaneously combusted in the mailman's bag. What I would give to take that letter back. It wasn't anything crazy or over the top. I just should have left well enough alone. But I didn't. It was the beginning of the end for that relationship.
I regret putting so much pressure on myself to perform and be perfect when I showed horses. Perfection never came and it haunted me for years. That self-imposed pressure robbed me of just simply enjoying the thing I loved more than anything else at that time.
(I may regret the carpet I'm currently having installed in my house. Should I have chosen a different color? Should I have picked a different company to install it? Shopped around more? Gotten more quotes? Did I get a good enough deal? What if I hate it? WHAT IF I CHOSE WRONG? #OhTheAngst #FirstWorldProblem)
The list could go on. And it's not confined to just seemingly inconsequential choices, but also over sin and rebellion and words spoken in anger and pride. I'm sure you could draft your own list of both big and small life choices, whether done in sin or not (or maybe you're one of those people who abides by the no regrets! policy?).
But here's what I'm learning:
Maybe we need to allow our regrets to shape us rather than hollow us.
Teach us rather than scar us.
Soften the edges of who we are rather than leave us jagged.
Compel us rather than condemn us.
Move us rather than paralyze us.
Because ultimately?
I think regret is just grief masquerading.
Regret is grief wrapped in sorrow and sadness and a thousand if only's. And it's grief that we ultimately have to wrestle down, not merely regret.
Consider the quote from which I pulled the name of my blog:
"There's a trick to the graceful exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over — and to let go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on, rather than out. It's hard to learn that we don't leave the best parts of ourselves behind, back in the dugout or the office. We own what we learned back there. The experiences and the growth are grafted onto our lives. And when we exit, we can take ourselves along — quite gracefully."
Somehow we have to let go of whatever it is that happened, but not so much so that we deny its validity or its past importance in our lives.
I can't go back to that moment in Russia and buy that hat. But my cousin did get one for me as a gift one year for Christmas, knowing I had this lingering regret.
I can't go back and take a photo with Jonathan. He's gone and there's nothing I can do about that. But is a photo the only way I can remember my friend? No. I talk about him with his parents and I remember him. I listen to songs by the Civil Wars and I remember him. I drive by a Jeni's Ice Cream or a Jason's Deli and I remember him. A photograph - or the lack thereof - didn't define our friendship. It didn't then. It won't now.
I can't go back and unwrite that letter I wrote to The Boy. It's spilled milk. The good Lord saw fit that it still be delivered, despite my foolishness, so I am going to have to trust in his sovereignty. The Boy has since moved on and gotten married. We've both moved on with life. I have learned to be more judicious in my letter writing efforts, especially to boys.
I can't go back and relive my horse show career. But those years profoundly shaped me, sharpened me, made me. Yes, I could have done things differently, but the end result of those years was a perfectionist who has been a little more tempered by prolonged failure.
So, allow your regrets to shape you, not hollow you. Teach you, not scar you. Soften you, not harden you. And grieve. Grieve whatever was lost or whatever it is you think you lost. And then take yourself along - quite gracefully.
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This recent article by Melissa Urban - co-founder of Whole30 - was also a tremendous help to me. "You could not have done anything different. You could not have done anything better. Do you know how I know that this is true? Because you didn’t."
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