Regrets, I've had a few

The other day, Dooce opened comments on her website to ask people about their big regrets in life. My dictionary tells me that regret means to mourn the loss of or to be very sorry for. To me, that implies one can regret things beyond one's control, but I always think of regret as being related to things I could have prevented. There have been lots of things in my life that I wish hadn't happened, but that doesn't mean I could have prevented them from happening. There are also bad things that I had control over but that ended up being important learning experiences or precursors to other, happier times, so it's hard to have real regrets about those events.

Of course, I have regrets about times I was needlessly unkind to others or thoughtless of others' feelings. I have a regrettable (ha ha) tendency to speak without thinking, so I have more regrets than I should along those lines.

In terms of big life regrets, I have two. One is that I did not study abroad when I was in college. I didn’t realize then what a unique opportunity it was, that I would never again have the freedom to do such a thing. I thought I would miss too much at home by going away. The stupidity of that line of thought is truly stunning.

The other big regret of my life is that I have lost each and every one of my journals. I kept journals all through college, wonderfully detailed diaries of the ups and downs of my life during those years. Somehow they got lost in our move 12 years ago from our apartment on Connecticut Avenue to our current Capitol Hill house. Everytime I think of this loss, I could just cry. Adding insult to injury, when my parents moved to Florida 4 years ago, somehow the journal I kept in junior high (which was hidden at the bottom of a box of shoes stashed in the back of the closet in my old room) disappeared as well. It’s hard not to view this as somehow part of a vast conspiracy to rob me of my memories of teenaged angst, drunken revelry, and good old fashioned lust. And every time anyone anywhere was mean to me.