REGRET.
I
hate that word. HATE. It creates a thunderstorm in my body. Pressure builds behind my eyes, inside my
head, my throat, my gut. And I want to
throw it up, but it just sits there and churns and boils and it feeds on
itself. In my mind it is the single most
horrible thing I can feel. It’s worse
than anger and sadness and jealously.
And fear. I can accept, and even
embrace, being angry and sad. And
although I find jealously and fear a bit more difficult, those too I can acknowledge
with grudging acceptance. But not
regret. Because regret, in my mind, means
I was wrong. It means I made the wrong
choice. And, oh, how I hate being wrong.
And worse yet, the fact that it has
appeared here, in this space I have always so adamantly maintained was a place
where it did not belong…
So,
what do I regret?
I
regret not reaching out to him more.
I
regret not sending him letters every single chance I had.
I
regret not pushing for more contact after we were reunited.
I
regret not trying harder.
Then,
in the midst of writing this this, I decided to look up the actual definition. Rather eye opening.
From
Merriam-Webster.com:
· Regret: to feel sad or sorry about (something that you did or did not do): to have regrets about (something)
-used formally and in writing to express sad feelings about something that is disappointing or unpleasant.
This
is so very much better than my definition.
This definition does not limit regret to wrong vs right, one thing over
the other. It does not enforce a dichotomy. Instead it allows for an inclusiveness I have
been lacking. It enables me to say
something I have NEVER uttered before:
I
regret placing my son for adoption.
And
under this new-found definition I can regret placing him for adoption while
still maintaining it was the right choice.
Because I desperately need to continue to believe it was the right
choice.
