No Regrets

I heard an interview on NPR a few months back with Lee Kravitz, former editor of Parade Magazine. After losing his job he began to reflect on his life and decided to make amends for the wrongs he had committed in the past and reconnecting with people in his life. This included his family that he had ignored for years because of his job. One of the people he reconnected with was a college chum who he borrowed $600.00 from and never paid back. When he contacted the friend, the friend had forgotten all about the loan.


It caused me to reflect back on my own life to see where I may have some unfinished business that should be taken care of before its too late and to identify any “regrets” that may be eating away at my subconscious. In all honesty, I couldn’t come up with too much. Does that mean that I’ve lead a good life or a boring one?

I didn’t have that many close friends in high school, yet have maintained contact with several of them. There were a few working relationships that occasionally went sour, but I either have lost contact with those folks or am totally at ease that these either never developed into true friendships or went by the wayside.

My first marriage was a disaster, but I have long ago come to accept my poor decision to marry this person and the life we had together for two years as a learning experience. I really don’t regret this relationship although I am sorry for some of the pain that I caused my family because of it. The silver lining to this saga was my daughter, Lauren, my life’s joy.

There is one debt that remains unpaid. That was a $1,000 balance on a lawyer’s bill from the lawyer that handled my divorce. I was receiving $12.00 a week in child support from my ex, paying $240.00 a month in day-care, plus rent, and was making about $18,000 per year (is this justification enough?). There was no money left to pay that bill. I have been thinking that I should take the money and make a donation in her name to some charitable organization.

I also feel badly that I never really understood how I contributed to the atmosphere in our home during my second marriage until after my husband had passed. I took the time to work this out and truly believe I did what I could at the time, and came to terms with my inability to handle things differently. I try very hard not to practice passive-aggressive behavior now, and believe that I am not repeating all of the same mistakes I made in those years.

Some folks suffer regrets over luxury-type things that one wishes they should have – or things they should have done, like buying that Porsche or traveling to some distant place, going skydiving or some other exotic adventure. I never had the desire to do anything exotic (would love to have had a little black Carrera), but did want to get to Italy, which I did. Thierry and I will be visiting the Grand Canyon by rail in November, and we will continue to look at the list of places we’d like to see while I still can. But in all honesty, I will not be sad when reflecting on my life that I never got to see some of these places. In the grand scheme of things, these things are not important.

So, is having few regrets due to living a boring life, a good life, or just learning how to deal with and accept those things that we did in the past, and putting them in proper perspective?

I returned home from Maine on Wednesday and got right back into my throne at the infusion center on Thursday. It took a wallop out of me, but I have bounced back today and took advantage of my renewed energy level and got some stuff done. I go for scans on the 11th, and we’ll see where things stand and hopefully identify some of the pains I have been feeling.

It’s been a good day, and I can honestly say, I have no regrets, and just a little bit of business to take care of.