Finally, the end of the three straight post of 300 words, a triumverate as deep as The Lord of the Rings, as entertaining as the Deptford Trilogy, and as offensive as a joke I once made about the Holy Trinity.
No more silly penis jokes, no longer questioning my sanity, I finally get to what has been bothering me the last three decades, which has a nice circularity to it, with all the threes and shit.
REGRETS, I’VE HAD A FEW, BUT THEN AGAIN, MOSTLY ONE ABOVE ALL OTHERS
The person who says he or she has lived a life with no regrets is either lying or delusional.
In terms of pure selfishness, I wish I’d bet the farm on Buster Douglas and had actually asked out a certain gal in college (who, it turns out, had the hots for me), but most of all, I wish I had never hurt myself in eighth grade.
In an empty gym before P.E. class, I climbed a chair and dunked a volleyball. I hung on the rim a few seconds, and when I landed, I blew out my knee.
That was 29 years, two operations, and a parade of orthopedic surgeons ago.
I spend an inordinate amount of time wondering what my life would be like had I not committed that act of profound juvenile idiocy. The typical fantasy is that I would have been able to play football in high school, become a star, and instead of being a total Nerd-Gantua, I would have been popular. Or at least I would have kissed a girl before I turned 30.
That this particular notion is pathetic doesn’t obscure the fact that it is persistent and occupies a portion of my brain far greater than the likelihood it would have happened. It also assumes that I could travel back to that eighth-grade gymnasium and relive the last three decades with the knowledge and wisdom I have accumulated since then. (I mean, think of all the money I would have made on gambling, or all the fumbling around in bed and bad sex I wouldn’t have had to endure until I got, like mediocre at sex).
But despite its stupid pedigree and flimsy degree of pleasure it provides, this idea — that there is a singular event that defines us in ways physical, mental, and spiritual — informs my writing in ways I don’t even understand, much less want to admit.
Do you have similar life-changing events caused by a seemingly simple act that you wish you could take back? How did it change your life?
And, most of all, does that event shape your writing?
The three days is now officially over. Like you or anyone else was counting.
Excellent post and my favorite of the three.
To answer your question, of course I wish I’d dropped my baby at my sister’s house instead of driving her to the babysitter’s that day. I’d give anything to have that day back as a do-over. How has it shaped my writing? I write more now about seemingly trivial acts that change life for the worse, still in search for my own redemption.
Yes, great post. I don’t have any big regrets, but many, many
medium-sized ones that seem to gather weight as I get older.
Shouldn’t have said that to that person. Shouldn’t have taken
that job, shouldn’t have quit that one, should have recognized
what was happening with that friend, ought to have been kinder then.
I think now that I’m approaching 40 I’m facing the idea of
limited options for the first time. Old mistakes that never really
bothered me before have come back to haunt.
I was drafting a post earlier about regret, so I think we’re on the same wavelength. Like you
I don’t really believe anyone who says they have none. Come on, I regretted having too many vodka
lemonades the other night and that was just for starters. I like to think that most writers have short
term memory, which of course translates to No, I don’t have any regrets. I also think writers like to do freaky shape shifting things with memory so that over time it softens and becomes more pleasing to the eye (or ear). Sometimes the opposite is true and sobbing family members will confront one asking why, why?? Never fun when that happens. Anyway, my point is that regret should almost always be put on the back burner in favour of other stuff that’s happened as a consequence of stupid actions. Who knows what would have become of you had you kissed more girls and played professional sports?
I regret not formatting my response. There.
Altho I have many regrets in life, I don’t think any one event stands above the others as particularly influential. I do think the mere fact that we have *experienced* regret influences our writing.
Conventional wisdom holds that we most regret what we didn’t do rather than what we did do but that is something that we as writers can rectify in our work: we can have our characters follow the path we wish we did – or not. We can experience what it might have been like to try something new that we never did – we can, in effect, go back in time.
My biggest regret is leaving Husband No. 3 – not that he was my
soul mate – just that if I had stuck out the bad years maybe there
would have been happy ones – maybe I would be living them now.
I used to have lots of regrets. What a wasteful time suck!
Yeah, let this one go BF. I doubt having a perfectly good knee would have gotten you laid any sooner.
That time I slept with someone I KNEW was going to suck in bed.
…wish I could take all those 3 minutes back.
Every life experience plays some role in my writing, for good and for bad. And you’re right about regrets: to live life without them, though ideal, is a delusion.
fringes: i know you’ve written about that at length, and it still breaks my heart. it’s the seemingly trivial acts that are the most awful, in a way, for we cannot anticipate the results of them.
rellis: your regrets are generally good ones – they affect other people. me, i’m just selfish.
just wait until your in your mid-40s. then things get really limited.
kallioppe: i know what would have happened if i had kissed more girls and been a professional athletes. i would have been a total playa, that’s for sure.
leigh: you are right, the mere fact one can feel such influences our writing; and, i feel, some of the best fiction transverses what could have been, what should have been.
and yes, characters can take the paths we did not. i know that’s true for me.
oh, the “conventional wisdom holds…” line reminded me of a butthole surfers’ song, “sweat loaf.” heard of it?
five husbands: but if the bad years were bad enough to have left him, maybe it wasn’t meant to be.
i’m not dr. phil here, i know.
anti-wife: “wasteful time suck.” i’m going to use that in a story, steal it right from you, no regrets.
collin: right you are, but, geeze, give a guy a break here! of course i would have gotten laid sooner, probably by a couple of days.
j.: ah, but bad sex is like bad pizza. even when it’s bad, it’s not so bad.
except for that time i slept with a totally inappropriate woman from work, after getting dumped by someone else. yeech.
thirdworstpoetinthegalaxy: so you agree with me! finally, someone with some sense. though something tells me i’m going to regret saying that.
What do I regret? First, that I joined the Army instead of the Air Force. Second, that I didn’t go to the Defense Language Institute. I actually turned that down to become an MP, which I wasn’t overly fond of doing once I got into the job. Live and learn! Third thing I’d have changed is to not have gotten married and invested heavily in Microsoft. If I hadn’t gotten married I’d have had the money to invest in Microsoft! (Do I sound bitter? I’m really not.) Oh, and in high school I’d have chased after my brother’s best friend, Mr. Hottie McHotHot.
When you hit that 40-something stage you do start wanting a do over so you can go back, knowing what you know now, and make different choices. I’m quite happy with the way things turned out for me, overall. And no matter what you would do different, you always have to consider where would you be without the mistakes.
Whenever people talk on this subject, I’m reminded of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (because I am a geek in good standing) when Sybok has “taken away” Bones’ “pain” and Kirk says: “Damn it, Bones, you’re a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They’re the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away! I need my pain!”
I think you’re right that people who make the statement that they have no regrets and seem to do it without irony are very delusional. But there are those who, I believe, can make that statement and won’t seem delusional at all.
I regret a great many things, both that have happened to me and that I have perpetrated upon others. Would my life be different if I’d made a better choice? Fallen in a happier direction? Maybe. But I certainly wouldn’t recognize myself. I may even have become a worse, more selfish, and self-absorbed person. (not that I’m not those things anyway).
That regret, and the struggle to place it, come to terms with it, is the subtext of nearly everything I’ve written in the last few years.
I regret…
Every word of impatience with my kids.
Every minute I am not creating something–be it clean clothes or award winning paintings or provocative prose.
Every snide word I’ve said to my husband (the know-it-all snot)
Every ignorance, no matter how small.
Every moment I am not open to learning.
Every moment I am talking instead of listening.
A pivotal moment that informs my writing? It’s not my own. It’s my father’s betrayal of me, of parenthood. Fathers magically seem to be of the wrong sort in my writings–that’s the way I lean. I’m learning all I need to know about fatherhood from my husband. What I’ll write about when I’m over that crisis, I have no idea.
Well, for another perspective, you might be comforted by Beth Orton’s notion in her lyrics (“Sweetest Decline,” Central Reservation): regrets are just lessons we haven’t learned yet. Anyhow, it’s a lovely song (hear it on last FM, if you don’t know it, http://www.last.fm/music/Beth+Orton/_/Sweetest+Decline).
writtenwyrrd: you should have joined the navy, and you could have sung that village people song.
i agree that when you hit 40, it’s do-over time. mid-life crisis, questioning one’s life choices. not that it does us any good.
quinn: damnit, i’m just a country blogger, not a miracle worker!
there are very few people who don’t have regret. those make for extremely dull characters in fiction. either that, or they’re delusional. it sounds like we’re on the same page, in terms of the writing.
sexscenes: that’s a mighty long this thar.
a parent’s betrayal is the worst of all, and it sounds like your fiction is formed by it.
bellascribe: i don’t need no stinkin’ song! i’ already have this figured out.
i’ll give it a spin at my earliest convenience.
I regret all the love I haven’t given yet.
Great post!
I know its crazy but I regret having regrets.
I guess I believe that all events (small, large, regret-filled, wonderful) shape our writing to some extent. I suspect the bigger, more emotional events latch on to our memories for longer than the others and might come out in different ways as we work our way through them from different angles in our fiction.
I like the idea of a singular event, however…and will have to think a bit more on it having significant power over our writing