To Wish Away is Tragedy

As a single mother I have tread through relationships carefully and in many cases ended them before they could ever flourish. Do I regret this? In all honesty, I don't. I do not know regret. It is one of a few emotions I just do not feel or understand. But I am not going to discuss my emotional spectrum today.

I want to talk about regret and life. My life has been touched by a multitude of people. I have traveled and experienced more than most people twice my age and I don't regret any of it. I do not regret being homeless, suicidal, a drunk, or any of the other awful shenanigans I would get myself into. My life was a colorful one. And for every awful thing I found myself tied up in I had an amazing and beautiful experience as well. I have seen beautiful things and amazing people.

Everything I have seen, felt, and been through has made me who I am. My sense of humor, my adaptivity, my cunning, my wisdom, my will, and every other component part that helps to create the person I am has grown from one experience or another. It doesn't matter if it was good or bad those moments make me.

Maybe I am blessed for not knowing how to regret things only to see the value in them. It's not to say that these things do not cause me pain or that looking back an ache for the event doesn't happen. I am actually not happy about the tragedies of my life, but I can't think of a single thing I would go back and change in my life. The moments in time have shaped a person that can survive.

I do at times look back at a situation and realize that I could have handled things better or differently. This does not mean I regret the event only that I am learning from it. Knowledge and the ability to grow and use that knowledge is what our life experiences are for.

Regret makes people blind to the beauty of what a life has sculpted. Would any of us be who we are without the events of our past?