Each year that goes by, I stop at this time prior to the Holidays of Christmas, and think back and wonder, what could i have done differently. What would have made my life and those I love better for all of us. These are called regrets and things many of us think about as we get older I guess.
Regrets come in many shapes and sizes when you get to your late fifties or sixties I would bet. Mine piled up in my forties because it is when all my decisions to preserve my sanity and life began. We all make mistakes and have regrets don’t we folks, Lord knows it and so do we.
As a child I have regrets because i was young and stupid and innocent and let events go by I never said Thank You for. As a teenager the regrets involve people you never say you care about until it is far too late. Opposite sex , or romances that could have been are always on this list as I sit back and go what could have been, or what would have happened if I told her back then. We all know you can’t go backwards no matter how hard or bad you want to, you have to live with those decisions and carry on.
Then comes your twenties when your full of energy and have to hold a job and nothing goes right and you stumble past too many things just trying to survive. At the same time mother nature has your sex drive at its peak, your need to reproduce comes out, love happens and bam, you have children before you know it. Amazingly you will now do anything you can to provide and protect your children and you get in debt too. We somethings rush things in life not for ourselves but for our offspring so they can have a better life than we did.
By the time you hit your thirties you realize damn what happened to my youth, and start to feel pressured and pushed by society and family. You love your spouse and your children and the home you built, but the bills build up things get in danger, you’re so busy you drift apart from the spouse and the world starts to crumble around you. Next thing you know the spouse is asking for a divorce, custody of the kids and child support till they hit eighteen. And the courts force you to pay or go to jail. Regretting the divorce and failure of your part in it all, you try to deal with it the best you can and survive.
The Forties brings regrets of not seeing your children enough due to work, distance, divorce and more. They drift from you as their lives go on and on and they grow to become their own persons. You work now to save your own life and what remains of it and rebuild with another spouse and settle finally into a routine that works for all. The kids from the first marriage show up finally, wanting to know you and why you left. They have children already born and growing of their own suddenly you’re a grandparent and shocked.
The Fifties you start paying bills off, the home is closer to being done financially, your children are now in their 20s and 30s and their kids are now anywhere from 10 to 3 and so many it is shocking for both you and me. You meet the grandkids and you love them much and provide the best of things and a hug and a touch. Saying and telling them each time you see them how much you love them so. You try to tell your own children how much you love them and things they didn’t know, but they don’t listen, they are too busy too.
So yes regrets we all have more than a few, I regret many things in my life.
1) I regret not being a better kid as a kid for my parents sake, although I tried my best.
2) I regret fighting and rebelling as a kid against everything and everyone I could, I never knew why?.
3) I regret never saying I love you to my parents or them ever saying it to me.
4) I regret not paying better attention in schools, but I overcame that.
5) I regret that society and medicine didn’t know I had ADDHD as a child and misdiagnosed me.
6) I regret dropping out of High School at Junior Level and going to work early.
7) I regret not telling my first wife and my kids how much I loved them and still do to my kids.
8) I regret not being a bigger part of my kids lives as they grew up.
9)I do regret being injured in the service and never able to recover and losing my service career.
10) My biggest regret is, not being able to fully convey, and converse with my eldest daughter and make her understand I always loved her and always will.
Regrets yes, we all have a few and yes we all work at trying to erase them the best we can. As you can see, I get melancholy on Holidays and the Holiday Season, I look back and try to remember my blessings and my regrets and hope one day to make it all work out better. , As you shop and run about this Holiday Season, stop and count your regrets and your blessing and lets hope that when you do your blessings outweigh and out measure the list of regrets.
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