In a conversation today with elyrie, I mentioned that my life is nothing like what I expected 10+ years ago when I graduated from college. I guess the first clue that I was going to have a somewhat unconventional life was marrying Marv only a week out of school then leaving for the East Coast to live separately from him for the next four years. Then, instead of continuing with my career after graduation, I joined Marv in Asia and dropped out of research soon after. When most people hear my story, they usually say, “It’s ok as long as you’re happy and have no regrets.” But what’s life without regrets?

I’ve been lucky to have had a life of choices. To eat this or to eat that? To wear this or to wear that? To go to this top-ranked school or another? To take this job that pays less but is less demanding or take that job with the opposite situation? To marry this fantastic man or to have an equally fantastic life without him? To have children and gain in love, but lose in sanity or to refrain and enjoy the status quo?

Every time I made a choice, I created a regret. I regret all the times I made my sister cry because I was so mean. I regret ever getting involved with that guy. I regret not taking my studies seriously enough, and wasting my parents’ investment in my music lessons and tuition. I regret not continuing on in medical research despite the opportunities and grants my grad school gave me. I regret wasting a part of my potential.

The trouble is that we can’t have it all. Everyone likes to think so but everyone’s deluded. And even if we did have it all, it wouldn’t be what we expected. People and situations change. I’ve changed so much I wonder if I’d recognize my 20-year-old self if I bumped into her on the street.

The best we can do is to make our choices and live with them. If we don’t choose well, we’ll most likely get to choose again. That is, if we’re lucky. And plenty of people aren’t.

In No Regrets, Dr. Hamilton Beazley wrote:

Regrets are inevitable in life, because each decision represents a road not taken. We cannot know what that road would have brought us. Likewise, the big events of our life send us down certain roads that deny us other roads we might have preferred. No one escapes regrets. Some people, however, let them go shortly after they occur and re-focus their lives on the present. Others hold onto the regret and sink into the past.

My grip has loosened on many of my regrets, has yours?