Shtick this! Regretting my regret.

Regretfully, I must admit that regretting is my biggest regret. Sometimes, regret consumes me, and I feel extremely depressed. I get mad at myself for wasting my time, my energy, and my thoughts on useless regret, but Regret just laughs at my anger and takes another spin through my mind.

So, in an attempt to reprogram my brain and to expel Regret from my life, I'm going to put a different spin on my regrets and turn them into warm fuzzies (I'm a child of the 80s when that term came into vogue).

The biggest regret I have and that I can't quite seem to rid my psyche of is that I stayed married as long as I did. I think about all those years that could have been spent without him. I'd have far less debt burdening my life, that's for sure, and I could really use less debt right about now. Long ago I stopped regretting marrying him outright because then I wouldn't have my two kids, but I can't seem to stop regretting staying with him as long as I did. Making this giant regret into a warm fuzzy of some sort continues to elude me, but I'll give it a try. 

Hmmm , , , , , , , , , , , , without those agonizing twelve years, I wouldn't truly appreciate every day of freedom since our split? This is true. Not sure if it makes me feel all warm, though. Let's try another approach. In the nine years since he moved out, I no longer live under a soul-crushing sense of dread, I am free of his extreme narcissism, and my world has expanded in ways I could never have imagined or experienced with him. I've traveled more, I got a motorcycle, I met Kim, I've seen my kids work toward their dreams, I have time for new hobbies like painting, etc. That's much better, and I sense Regret wincing a bit at my new outlook. 

When Regret visits me, I find myself first getting so despondent at the feelings he brings. The main one is total disappointment in myself for wasting those years. I dwell on where I could be now if I hadn't stayed in a horrible marriage so long. That disappointment almost crushes me at times. Even when I look around at all I have and all I've accomplished, I get caught up on the wasted time, and then I get even more mad at myself for wasting more time fixating on the time I wasted. Aargh, it's a vicious cycle. When I'm not disappointed in myself, I'm angry at myself and at him. Naturally, I'm angry at myself for staying so long, but I'm angry at him for becoming someone so different from the person I married, or at least the person I thought I'd married. Then I get mad at myself again for wasting time being mad about it all. Aargh! Vicious cycle strikes again.

The second biggest regret I have is that I didn't leave teaching sooner to focus on writing. I don't regret teaching, but I do regret the last four years of it. Financially, I couldn't leave sooner. Financially, I still shouldn't have left. Psychologically, emotionally, mentally, etc., I should have left four years ago or even longer ago. I look at what I've managed to do in just under two months, and I know that if I'd had those four years under my belt by now, maybe I'd be a firmly established author. I'll never know because I didn't give myself those years to write. It's easier to turn this regret around because I did do some good things at school the past four years, and I needed the money to help my kids and my friend, Silvia; but, I still feel Regret niggling at my brain when I think about the time I wasted. Then, again, I get mad at myself for wasting my time, and Regret sits back and laughs and laughs at me.

So, I'm writing this post to effectively tell Regret to take a hike, to go fly a kite, and to take a long walk off a short pier. 

From this moment on, I regret nothing! Nothing! 

All the extra weight I'm carrying? Ha! It shows I'm not starving. It's extra protection against a lengthy illness. It makes me super buoyant when swimming. Everyone should be so lucky as to be chubby like I am!

The friends and family I love who have passed away these past few years? Hmmmm. Well, I certainly don't regret a minute of time I spent with them or that I knew them. I'm a better person for knowing them. They live on through me because I still talk about them. I miss them, and missing someone simply shows that you have a great love for that person, so I'm lucky to have loved them and to have been loved by them.

The books I should have written by now? "Come on," Regret whispers in my ear, "don't tell me that you don't regret that you're not the established writer you wanted to be by now? After all, you're over 50, for Pete's sake. You should have accomplished more by now." First, allow me to duct tape his mouth shut. There.

Part of the beauty of writing a book is that the book can live on long after you're gone, so I'm hopeful that some of my books will still be read years and years into the future. With luck, I have years of writing ahead of me, so I'll be established enough by the time I'm old. Well, by the time I'm older, at least.

Those twelve years I wasted? All right, let's tackle that big regr . . . uh, dilemma. I understand and have a level of empathy for others that I might not have had if I hadn't suffered. I now know everything I don't want in a significant other. I have fodder and material for, like, a million stand-up comedy bits and stories should I choose to milk my experience. Many of his own friends and family like me better. If I can survive marriage to him and come out of it stronger, wiser, and happier, then I can survive other bad things.

So, I hereby renounce Regret. I permanently kick it out of my life, my mind, and my heart. I'm this guy with better spelling and a better choice of tattoo placement.