I’m not a fan of regret. In my understanding, regret comes with a built-in sense of looking back. The dictionary says it means “to feel sorrow or remorse for (an act, fault, disappointment, etc.)” which indicates the reason has already happened, or “to think of with a sense of loss,” and they include this example: to regret one's vanished youth. If that’s not past, I don’t know what is. (At least for me.) But generally I try to be more of an “in the moment” type of person.
It’s not that I’ve never felt remorse for something I’ve done, or opportunities I’ve missed, but I try not to dwell on them. Especially the big ones. I do seem to be stuck with a great sense of regret that I didn’t buy a second pair of my favorite shoes when I had the chance. At the time, my shoes were fairly new, and buying a second pair exactly like them seemed redundant. Now, I’d like to have three pairs of them, one for house shoes (which is how I wear them now), one for in town, and one for out of town, but of course the company isn’t making them anymore.
Sometimes I’m asked if I regret moving. My immediate answer is no. I learned during college that there’s a charm to small town life. Plus, I’m part of a community that feels pretty much the way I do about the environment, and I had a safe, beautiful place to hunker down during the pandemic. I do miss seeing my family and my Dallas friends regularly. This past year has been exceptionally difficult, but I’d like to believe we’re beginning to see our way through. I’m sure all of us could regret not buying stock in Zoom.
A very dear friend of mine recently died of cancer. I made the trip to Dallas to see her about a month before she passed. We had conversations about work, and about our weddings, which were on the same day. (Marti had settled on her outfit early, and while the rest of us worried over details like music and flowers, she just repeated, “I’m wearing black.”) She told me she was going to keep fighting, but as is often the case, the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. Marti was very instrumental in my writing career, but we’d been friends for decades even before that. Sometimes she told big tales about herself, with occasional corrections from her wife, which were just as funny to the listeners as the stories themselves. I once described her as the type of person who would willingly give the shirt off her back to her friends, but if a stranger tried to take it, she’d get out her gun. Her wife expressed some sadness that they hadn’t done the traveling they’d always said they would do, but from my view, they had a good life in their almost 40 years together. In the big picture, I don’t think Marti would have any regrets, which would be my definition of a life well lived. Vaya Con Dios, my friend.