Do you have regrets? With the passing of a close friend, there was suddenly plenty...
Grief and Regret
With the sudden passing of my dear friend (and once girlfriend), Sally, all sorts of emotions hit me. Shock for the first two days, then constant grief. Crying ten times a day. A feeling of emptiness and like a chunk of my body/soul/existence had been ripped out. You know how it feels.
One of the more significant emotions for me, was regret. Why hadn't I made more effort to see her in recent years? Or even a phone call? (She got married in 2019 and I wanted to stay clear but we still messaged a lot). Still, she had invited me down to see her before then and I never went. (Parental responsibilities, distance and work made that difficult. Excuses though, right?)
Why did I break up with her in the first place? She was the best person I've ever been with, but I was too inexperienced, really just immature, to know how good she was. I mean, of course I knew that she was awesome or we would never have gotten together at all. (We lived together for three years). I was selfish and stupid. She wanted marriage and children. I didn't. It didn't work out but I will always have regret.
Do you have regrets?
Can we live a life without them?
Some say that you should have no regrets. But how can that be? Is life lived perfectly? If you're a decent human being, surely you regret something you did or said. Or didn't say or didn't do. If we don't have regrets, how can we learn to approach a situation differently the next time around?
I've got a stack. I wrote this poem while I was in Tasmania, two nights before I went to Sally's wake.
Face the Foe, Not Forego
Why does regret sting like defeat?
Its tendrils digging deep as death.
An apt comparison
As it sits alongside the unchangeable
The finality of dying
Is the same
As the passing of time
Memories
Are of moments passed
Actions unalterable.
Yet, it’s the emotions
That continue to flow
They can be relived
Prompted
By a smile in a photograph
The laughter in a video
These have the power
To reignite the same.
Feelings
Of events long solidified
Have the ability
To shift and grow
And carry to fresh heights
And crush to unfamiliar despair.
Regret lives on
Able to re-punish
In the way
That mourning
Never ends.
We are unwise
To turn our backs on regret
And for that matter,
It’s sibling, guilt.
They flex and merge
And resurge.
When you think
They’re not worthy
That is when
They are at their strongest.
Regret runs deeps
Entrenched firmly in your soul
Listen to its language
Unravel its message
Or suffer its strike
In surprise.
3.2.22 12.15 am
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