regret

I will be away this week, vacationing in a land of sun, sand, and questionable Wifi. If it’s not two gerbils running on a habit trail unreliable, I will post something NEW.
Otherwise, every day there will be one of the six most popular posts from the past few years in no particular order.
I hope you’re all pigging out and having fun. I know I am!
Carry on,
xox

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oh, Ralph. Or do you want me to call you Waldo?
How did you get so smart? So enlightened? After all, you lived during the nineteenth century, a time of immense intellectual and industrial expansion; yet it was also the time of corsets, slavery, the horse and buggy, The Civil War, and before the use of the electric light bulb.

You went around espousing and developing certain cutting-edge ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Holy cow R.W.!

With this quote you give those of us in the twenty-first century, an era whose technological advances you could scarcely have imagined in your wildest dreams—permission.

Permission to make mistakes;
Permission to get over ourselves;
Permission to be high-spirited, unencumbered;
Permission to start the fuck over!

Thank you Ralph, Waldo, Wally? We really needed it, because in that respect—humanity hasn’t changed a bit since you walked the earth.

Nearly two centuries later we have yet to master the art of forgiving ourselves and employing The Start Over.

“Blunders and absurdities” not only creep in, they set up camp and ruin our sleep as they set fire to our lives; and after we clean up the mess and re-group, we have a hard time letting go of the past, the old nonsense—and an almost impossible time forgiving ourselves.

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.”

I don’t know about you guys but you may as well be asking me to get into a shark cage in infested waters, or eat just one Lays Potato Chip—it’s simply not going to happen.

Then I remembered this, something I haven’t thought about in eons:

Years ago a friend posed this amazing question to me after too much wine and not enough cheese. (Remember the Sheryl Crowe song My favorite Mistake? It was playing in the back round),

“What would you say is your favorite mistake?”
I watched as her IQ rose several points just in the contemplation of such a thing.

Me: A Favorite Mistake? Really? I, I, uh, I don’t know. (tens of IQ points evaporating by the second.)

I suppose it was the word favorite that initially hung me up, but the more I thought about it, the more I LOVED the concept.

If we could deem a mistake our favorite, it would release the charge, the tug in our gut.
It would become the path on which we could meet up with “high-spirited and unencumbered”.
It could become old nonsense and jumpstart THE START OVER.

I was willing to give it a try.

“I suppose my favorite mistake was my marriage at twenty. We were way too young and not a good match, and after the divorce we both went on to live happy lives with other people—and we’re still friends” I admitted, feeling lighter by the minute.

Hers was an unplanned pregnancy, a son she had at nineteen. A favorite for obvious reasons.

Thinking about this again, all these years later, my heart started racing as I ran through twenty plus years of memories and they started to look less like a Tela Novela and more like a situation comedy.

Starting my business, my store, is quickly becoming my latest favorite mistake due to all of the internal growth it’s caused. I can finally be done with it. It has become old nonsense, and now I have this (the writing) and SO MUCH MORE. I can say that now.

As I lay in bed the other night it dawned on me that since the beginning of time, humans have tortured themselves over their mistakes to the point where perfectly lovely people lead lives of quiet disappointment trying to avoid another.

What is your favorite mistake? This needs to be a mandatory question on any employment or dating application.
The answer changes people.
It changed me.

Okay, you knew it was coming, Tell me, What’s your favorite mistake?

Then you can Carry on,
xox

“If you build the guts to do something, anything, then you better save enough to face the consequences.”
― Criss Jami

Things that never happened because I didn’t have the guts.
The list is long. Like longer than Taylor Swift’s legs long.

How do I know for sure what could have happened?
I don’t. But my regret does.
I’m sure you know what I mean.

My regret is an artist who paints with broad strokes. Large, majestic scenery, filled with full-color landscapes of stories that never happened.

It also is a master in the art of persuasion.

Those stories look spectacular.
They seem amazing.
They are fucking fairy tales.

In these scenarios, my gutless self is replaced by another person. Someone who is risk averse; the acrobatic chance taker/failure dodger. For instance:

I’m a Broadway actress with a shelf crowded with Tony awards.

I’m a rock star, or the wife of a rock star (take your pick), who continues to tour and performs to sold-out crowds.

I’m a mother. Twin boys and a girl.

I’m an entrepreneur who shattered the glass ceiling and owns six companies that are all publicly traded.

I’m a seasoned lecturer and public speaker.

I’m someone who looks refreshed and rested, at least ten years younger (but whose wallet is twenty-five thousand dollars lighter.)

I’m the winner of Dancing With The Stars, The Voice, the Apprentice, and Jeopardy (the celebrity edition).

I’m a mentor on America’s Top Model after having my face grace more magazine covers than any other living human being.

I am resting on my laurels.

~OR HOW ABOUT~

I’m an aging hippie who lives off the land up in Oregon.

I’m an aging New Ager who lives off tips in Hawaii.

I’m the aging owner of a brothel somewhere tolerant of that sort of thing.

I’m busking on the corners of Santa Cruz.

I’m the ex-wife of seven men.

I’m someone who never married, looks thirty-five and owns dozens of Siamese cats.

I’m living in a Villa in Italy after cashing out, buying a one-way ticket, and hooking up with a guy named Paulo.

I have photo albums filled with pictures of me bungee jumping, sky diving and formula one racing, climbing Mt. Everest, Deep sea diving and waving my certificate that states I am the top of my class in NASA astronaut training school.

I’ve changed my name to Solange.

After surveying this list. The list that was supposed to summon that pit in my stomach. You know, the one that makes you feel bad about yourself and feeds regret?

Instead I had an epiphany.

What if those things didn’t happen not so much because of a guts deficit — but due to a keen sense of the obvious as far as knowing what I was capable of — an inkling of my life’s trajectory — a ginormous helping of common sense?

Ha! Take that regret!

P.S. I HAVE done many things in my life that required a shit-ton of guts, and so have YOU—but THAT my friends, is a list for another day.

Got any regrets?

Carry On,
xox

I LOVE This. Amen sister, Amen. Happy Sunday fellow juicy, creative, life liver’s 😉

Xox