Regret

What a horrible thing regret is, absolutely horrible.  It makes you feel so helpless, powerless and filled with despair.  Why? Because there is absolutely nothing you can do about the past and how you have behaved, what you have done or said, what you have not done or not said, etc.  How do you deal with regret?  The short answer is to acknowledge it, accept it, and move on.  Really, what else can you do?

I guess it comes with age, the whole concept of looking back at your life, analyzing it to death, dwelling over every single decision you've ever made and picking at every road you have chosen and all the ones not chosen at the crossroads of your life.  

I myself acknowledge the right decisions and feel grateful for the correct roads that I've taken, but the dwelling and obsessing is mainly over the wrong decisions and the wrong roads taken.  Why do we do that to ourselves? The regret over the bad overweighs the gratitude over the good.  Too many points are taken away for the wrong doings and not enough given for the jobs done right.   

Regret is the worst feeling because it comes with blame, blame of oneself.  That's why it eats at you and eats at you until you are drained and all that is left is self doubt and perhaps even self hate.  

Sometimes its as simple as I should have ordered the hamburger instead of the pizza or  I should not have worn these shoes to this event or why did I just waste my time on this shit movie.  Sometimes its a bit heavier like I should not have let her treat me that way or why didn't I speak up when I should have or I wish I hadn't taken that time for granted.  Then it becomes heavier and heavier like I should have been a better daughter or I should have choses a different career or I should have should have should have should have.  Should have, could have, would have, the past is gone, that chance is gone, all that's left is regret.

You may not get a chance now to speak up when you should have many years back or go back and not take that time for granted, but on the other hand now you know to order the pizza instead of the hamburger, wear different shoes next time, or even become a better daughter if you still have a chance.  I guess what comes out of this is that perhaps regret gives way to learning and adjusting and changing where and when possible.

Perhaps most of our regrets are from early on in our life because we were inexperienced and didn't know any better (I mean how could you know? Listen to your elders? oh please!) As time goes by new regrets over big things become less and less because we have learned and adjusted and even grown.  Therefore we make less mistakes.  We end up actually making the right decisions more and more.  Yes, the daily low level regrets still exist such as I should have eased up on the botox a bit or maybe I should not have watched nine episodes of Outlander in one day (sometimes we just never learn).  But regret over major decisions and just bad behavior or which road to take become less and less.  This is due to wisdom and experience.  

So if it makes you feel any better, know that you have already made your biggest mistakes and have already gone down the wrong roads a long time ago.  It's less likely that you'd repeat it or find yourself picking the wrong roads to go down on again.  Your new mistakes will probably be too small to make you filled with regret and dwell and obsess over it later.  As for me, I plead young age and ignorance for all of my early mistakes and the regrets that come from it.  However, as for my new mistakes I can only pledge insanity because as we all know, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

What's in a name

When I told him my name I didn't see any reaction in his face, not one which I was used to anyway.  No look of confusion or struggle or annoyance.  His reaction was of a matter of fact as he had heard my name a thousand times before.  He simply and happily repeated my name with ease and did so exactly how it was meant to sound.  The feeling that those ten seconds of interaction gave me was so overwhelming that it brought tears to my eyes and warmth to my heart, which later gave way to sadness and longing.  He was just an old jeweler at a small store taking my name down for an order I was putting in.  He wrote down my name without asking me how to spell it, without a hint of trouble, he just knew.  What a pleasant feeling I had at that moment, what a sense of comfort, a sense of... belonging.  I had said my name to him and he did not ask me any questions about it.  He knew it, he knew where it was from, he knew how to say it, he knew it's meaning, he knew how to spell it.  And I did not have to explain any of that to him, other than what my name was! I felt so connected to him at that moment that I forgot he was a stranger to me and I a stranger to him.  

Ever since I was twelve years old I dreaded the moment when someone asked me what my name was.  From teachers who found it a nuisance to have to pronounce it to office receptionists to sales clerks to baristas who butchered it without caring.  The back and forth that followed, how I had to repeat it a few times, say it slowly and not exactly how it was meant to sound, how I had to spell it slowly and multiple times.  How I had to answer a series of questions about it to the curious ones.  Where was it from? What did it mean? And the one that I hated the most, Do I have a nickname that they could use instead? or even worse, can they give me a nickname? Some people would just not even bother and call me by my last name instead, and without even a prefix in front of it.

I guess I could have changed my name or given myself that highly demanded nickname everyone was desperately asking for and make everyone's life easier.  Sure, I gave in and became "Sherri" or "Jackie" at times but that was mostly when I was interacting with someone who I'd never see again like when picking up my coffee or ordering Chinese food.  Neither myself or the busy delivery guy had time for the dull and annoying name dance.  But when I met someone who would be using my name more than once to address me I tortured them with the real one.  Why did I always refuse to make the change? Was is pride? Stubbornness? Was it to keep the only connection I had to my origins? Maybe it was because my name was who I was.  It was what my mom and dad called me from day one of my life, it was what my first friends called me.  It was one of the first things I learned how to write which I wrote on top of every drawing I did as a little girl and every assignment I completed in elementary school.  It was on all my hard earned degrees! Calling myself anything else would have made me an imposter.  I guess I preferred to deal with the struggles of keeping it rather than changing it to a something else which would make me a stranger to myself. 

The struggle with my name became a norm to me.  It wasn't until I was in my native land for a visit and came across people who I had never met that could pronounce my name perfectly and had no questions about it.  I was surprised at myself by the way I reacted to it with such intense emotions.  It was then that I thought about how even those who had known me for years and called me by my name never really said it right, never said it with ease.  I was faced with some questions of my own,  could I ever feel close, really close, to someone who can't say my name right, the way it was meant to be said? That's not fair to those who try so hard to understand and pronounce it.  Do I really feel closer to this man in the jewelry store taking my name down for an order than to a colleague of many years who I've shared so much with just because he knows of my name and pronounces it right? Could this be the reason why all the people who I have chosen to be friends with are native to my name?  Would this be why I never even imagined marrying a man who was not native to my name?  To think, being married to someone who doesn't say your name exactly the way your parents intended for it to be said! 

This could be called "the diary of an immigrant"as I'm sure it isn't specific to just me.  It's an identity crisis, the feeling of loss and longing and belonging.  The struggle of fighting to keep a shred of who you are.  The man in the jewelry store could say my name perfectly and beautifully.  He knew what it meant and it didn't make him think twice about the kind of person I was.  It wasn't odd or exotic to him, it didn't bother him nor did it have him make assumptions about me.  He made me feel at home, yet not a home that I had known for decades, not a home which would ever really be home to me.