Regrets

You know, there's not really a lot that I've done or not done that I look back on these days with regret. I've made some mistakes that have had a pretty significant impact on my life, and it's taken a lot, but I've learned to live with them, knowing that I made the best decisions I could based on what I knew and felt at the time, and I've come to realize that 1) it's not my fault I didn't know everything I ended up needing to know, 2) all I can do, any given day of my life, is my best. If I do my best, and it doesn't work out, that may be cause for frustration, sadness, even grief. But not regret.

I can live with the things I've done, for the most part, without regret. There's just this one thing. What bothers me isn't missing out on the chance I had. I wish I had done things differently now, but it's a pretty fair chance that things happened for the best. What bothers me is *why* i missed the chance. I could have decided to stand back because of a million reasons why it was the smart thing to do. Not that the smart thing to do has much pull with me. After all, the smart thing, as I've found, isn't always the best thing. But I didn't decide to pass. I missed my chance because I was... afraid.

By the time I got things sorted out in my own head, and realized that I was stalling, not deciding, and that I might decide to do things differently, well, my chance was gone. Or at least greatly reduced. Or just much more complicated. I don't know. I'm back to sorting, because things changed. Life didn't wait for me to make up my mind. It moved on without me. I understand that happens. It's my job to keep up, not the world's job to wait.

So this time, I'll stay on the sidelines, I guess. And I imagine it's for the best. Things tend to work out the way they're supposed to, whether I'm out there trying to make them, or just letting them make themselves. But I hate that it was fear, uncertainty, insecurity, and lack of confidence and self-knowledge that made me miss my chance.

If I'd made an actual decision, I'd be better with living with it. The fact that I pretty much just dithered and waffled away my chance...

That's what I regret.