I didn't save money in my youth. When I think of how long I lived with my parents (yeah so what?!?) I cringe at the money that I might have accumulated.

Sigh.

Haha, it's funny to read my old post now! I AM going to law school, in about 6 weeks, and I am totally unconcerned about my late-bloomer status anymore! Truth is, it took me exactly as long as it took me to get to this point. And now I'm ready to start a new life. Yay!

Well you know what FINE means? Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.

I have so many regrets. My life is SNAFU. I would have to think of the worst thing I screwed up and regret. That will take all evening.

Mindy, I am on my 7th year of college and still do not have my bachlors. But I am getting closer. However there are days I think of everything I could be doing or working on if I did not have class, the money I would have for trips and such, it does make you sad and tired. But in a year or two I will be done, till I decide on a masters, lol.

Mindy wrote: I think I have made a decision to go to law school, to go into human rights policy work, next year, which means I wouldn't be a lawyer till I'm 40. When I whined about that to friend recently she said, "Mindy, you'll be 40 anyway." Yeah, but I'm so tired. AND (here comes the regret), now that I feel like I do have this sense of a long-term plan/direction, I don't regret my past so much as I am just frustrated that it happened the way it did and that it took so long for me to make it out and find my way."

Can you explain this to my relatives??? You hit it exactly, lol. This is also the reason I want to move out of the city I have always lived in. I want to experience something else for a bit, if I hate it and want to move back,okay but atleast I tried.

Lori wrote: In my opinion, especially for women, being alone for a period of time without any guy is crucial. Then you know who you are, what your needs are, and fulfill yourself without anyone else. Only then are you ready to share. Cause I believe a true relationship is sharing, not giving up any individualism."

Lori wrote: "I finally had the chance to read each and every post with the time it deserves - I'd been waiting til I knew I could ponder.

Thank you. Unfortunately, now it's time to vacuum, but I will certainly..."

Exactly, lol. Had this comversation with a girl my age at work a few months ago. But I have several aunts who did not marry till they were in their 40s, so I do not know. For me it seems to be the fact that I do not do a ton of social things outside of my friends, hince don't met alot of people but I am working on that.
I get ragged alot for living alone (with a dog, lol)and being happy with it most of the time. When I bought my own house and move out I constantly got questioned and ask about living alone. No one seems to believe a 20 something single girl would choose to live alone.

Brooke wrote: "Many of my regrets revolve around the guys I chose to date in college...I graduated 4 years ago, and I still look back in amazement at all my friends and sorority sisters who found someone in colle..."

i concur
i spent way to much time regretting what i didn't do or letting circumstances get me down
i've been amazed again lately by the loveliness in the world
the sweetness of everything
even the pain
it's life and the only response is keep calm and carry on
or maybe keep calm, cry and laugh and sing and carry on

Excellent mug. That may actually be my life motto.

My mug at work has a British slogan from WWII,
"Keep Calm and Carry On", which is basically OnBy, but with an English accent.

:D

Deirdre, many of us feel sympathy and empathy for your struggles. You're doing well to share and even to recognize these regrets and difficulties (said the old lady). A hug and hand-pat from me as well.

And OnBy works great; as Bun said, better than my standard "Onward and upward"--less pressure, more acceptance. Bun, I knew we were friends!

BunWat wrote: "OnBy is terrific. I would like to adopt it. Much better than onward and upward, which is what I usually say to myself. "

Please do, if you wish. I have no copywrites to it or anything :) lol. It's a simple yet helpful message.

OnBy is terrific. I would like to adopt it. Much better than onward and upward, which is what I usually say to myself.

Jackie "the Librarian" wrote: "Deirdre: It's taken me a long time to stop feeling guilty for those things. I read once that they teach sled dogs "OnBy" as a command to keep moving forward if anything may detere them. So now I te..."

Thank you. I readily accept that hug. Sometimes hugs from stranger help the most. They are reminders that people do care, even if they don't really know you. It gives hope.

Deirdre: It's taken me a long time to stop feeling guilty for those things. I read once that they teach sled dogs "OnBy" as a command to keep moving forward if anything may detere them. So now I tell myself that. Onby. Keep pushing forward, don't let myself get stuck in the past.

You are very brave to share these things, Deirdre. If you don't mind a hug from a relative stranger, have one from me.
And I think that's a good motto to have, Onby. Sometimes you just have to keep moving.

I have many regrets in life. Nothing that I can do about them now, but move forward and not let them define or direct my life...

* Not getting my mother away from my father when I was younger. I love my father, but even love can't justify the situations he put us through. When I was given a number as a 5 year old, I should have called. Perhaps then, my mother wouldn't have suffered so much for so long. It wasn't until I was 16, that I stood against him.

*I regret the scars. I should have found better ways to cope with life, with pressures, pain, etc. The scars will fade with time, but for now they serve as reminders of those mistakes.

*I regret being a coward. For backing down from my convictions because I was too scared, and because I was betrayed. I had an abortion, which I've always been against because I couldn't be a mother alone, because I didn't have insurance to pay for the bills or the money to be able to take off from work to have the child and adopt her/him out. Because I was told that I would be alone in raising her if I had her, which I didn't want their life to be like mine was. It's a sad excuse, but it cost me more than I was willing to give, and nearly destroyed me. I've forgiven myself, and am trying to move on with the obstinance to remember never to back away from my convictions again, no matter what. Perhaps someday I'll be blessed with that child again. However, if I'm not, I understand why.

It's taken me a long time to stop feeling guilty for those things. I read once that they teach sled dogs "OnBy" as a command to keep moving forward if anything may detere them. So now I tell myself that. Onby. Keep pushing forward, don't let myself get stuck in the past.

do it now

It is beautiful. How about giving yourself the best of yourself - and not worry about giving others! Maybe then you shall give still - but like a flower whose fragrance comes from its very existence without the flower having to bother about itself and its fragrance!
Try it. It may help. If you are worried about not finding someone like that - I guess that there always would be someone who understands you. If you know what I mean? Every flower needs a fence around itself - that fence is mostly within. Have that around yourself and give yourself the best of yourself. Who knows that you may be the tallest tree in heaven's eyes? Without your worrying about your wanting to share. Yes, there is always someone, somewhere who can understand you - including what it means in what you have shared here.

interestingly enough
i have been reaching out more and more to people
i have been reading john in the bible and it's all about brotherly love
and i've been living with this whole slew of people i love who drive me mad
because i want what i want
i want them to be the parents, children and friends i want
and they aren't and shouldn't be
i spent the afternoon with several new friends and the late afternoon with my most beloved recent ex
and there is only giving them the best i have
and letting god sort out the details
we are friends because friendship is a special joy
me and the ex are no more because we wanted too much
and today we had the good fortune to be able to say those things needed and to send each other into our evenings with some gentleness
this little thread on regrets helped me make this little piroutte of grace
and as long as we keep trying i think that's all that counts

Yes, Elizabeth, you nailed it. I'm so tired of the fears I have and the time I waste.

i should pay attention to what i said

very good topic

thanks to all of you and to eric for bringing it up

Beautiful, Elizabeth. We should all pay attention to what you said.

everything
i wish i were a better person in every way
but mostly i wish i didn't waste so much time
death is fearful in it's rending

time is running out
time to love mostly
love well so the other is eased and there is no regret
but we only have the time we have
and we can not determine the length of a moment let alone the length of a life
i wish i loved better
i wish i weren't so selfish
wanting something
always wanting something in return
always wanting more
i wish i were a pure chrysalis of love
that those i love imperfectly
could feel the perfection that is at the core

but in reality none of it is of any consequence
whether i experience marriage or parenthood, learn to play the violin
paint a masterpiece, the center is not me
so what i can attain, what i can gain
is more a hindrance than a help
when the real regrets descend
i regret speaking harshly
i regret loving stingily
i regret letting moments that could have been lovely turn to anger, or despair, turn to guilt or shame, turn to dross

i regret wasting time in regret that could be spent loving those i love




irk-good topic

dementia is so cruel and there is absolutely nothing that can prepare you for it, there is nothing in the way we learn to respect both ourselves and others that applies.

the person doesn't die, but becomes someone else. i can't know for sure of course, but i'd bet that the person she was would be the first to encourage you to be gentle with yourself now.

I will always regret not having more patience with my mother as she sank into dementia. She had always been so sensible, and we had always gotten along so well, that I spent way too much time trying to force her back into being the woman she had always been.

I should have realized it didn’t matter if she thought the hospital starved my father to death. Why did I spend an afternoon trying to talk her out of that notion? If I’d just left it alone she probably would have forgotten the idea anyway, and if she hadn’t nothing I could say would have changed the way she thought.

What did it matter if she thought the doctors were spending their golf dates talking about her? What did it matter if she said I stood in the way so she couldn’t see the clock the doctor wanted her to draw? (There was no clock.) What did it matter that she thought the trees were going to fall on the house? Or that the DMV only took away her driver's license because she had white hair? Or that her reading glasses were distance glasses? Or that I lived with her when she was a little girl?

I’m talking myself into a corner here. Of course it mattered. But there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing. Reason and argument only made her more unhappy. I should have just shut up.

omygoshandgolly digress away!
you know i have been starstruck by your ISB proximity - and so yeah pretty much you - ever since i got here & i don't care who knows it. ( but perhaps you do. whoops;>!) boorishly yours, j

Goodness me, you're quoting an Incredible String Band song! Which is my very favourite musical combo of all time. I could say a lot about them, but I think it may be a little inappropriate. However, The Hedgehog Song is the one which the Archbishop of Canturbury Rowan Williams chose as one of his eight Desert Island Discs on the BBC, which led to a guy called Adrian asking him to write the forward for the one and only book about the ISB, which let in turn to him coming to the book launch, which is how I came to meet him.
But I digress!

Lori, thanks for your comments. I personally wouldn't want to be married right now myself, but the numbers of my peers who are and have been for a few years is just overwhelming, and if I'm not careful, it can easily creep into my head as a, "Well, what's wrong with ME?" thing. I know I'm a little selfish and the day I have to fully share my life with another person is going to require major changes in my thinking, so I try to be positive and focus on the fact that I can do anything I want right now.

And I don't think it's cynical to wonder how many of my peers will be divorced young as well as married young - I wonder that, too, from comments they've made to me that make the marriage sound obligatory, not chosen. I don't voice that sentiment very often because it seems bitter coming from my singledom, but in all honesty I do hope for all of them that they've chosen well and are happy.

And Lori, I don't think your regret about your cat sounds crazy at all, I love all my animals more than life itself and your story really tugged at my heart.

Lori, cat stories will get to me harder than anything :) Now I need tissue.

Learning to listen -- ongoing. Takes effort.

Goodbyes -- I try to be very conscious of partings. I didn't get goodbyes to most of the people who left my life one way and another, so I find I get jealous (this is sort of sick) of those who lose someone to a more lingering illness. I don't like the sensation -- it's not "better", or "luckier" or anything. I just imagine everything I would have asked if I'd known what was coming. Now I make a point of asking, because it is coming. I make a point of saying, because it is coming.

Now I have to go hug all my cats and my husband.

Yeah. That's what I got out of it. And it makes me regret how long it took me to learn to listen, just listen without my contribution, now I love to listen. I've finally gotten past myself.

Ginnie, please feel free to write about whatever medical stuff you are going thru, your fears, your hopes, everything and anything you feel comfortable with sharing. I really want to hear it all.

I have 2 major regrets. One is that I ever took up smoking. It's been the curse of my life, the dark cloud.

The other fits more into all my other regrets, in that I know it's helped me be a better person. But I really REALLY wish I hadn't been so impatient, angry, anxious with high expectations when Jake was a baby and a toddler. I hadn't been around babies much before, and just never enjoyed his it seems, was always looking to the next step. There were so many times I lost my temper, when he was just acting in a perfectly age appropriate way. And I took everything so personal too. I'd go cold when I was hurt. And he would always ask me if I loved him til he was 7, I think he was unsure because of that time period of his early childhood.

Then one day he stopped asking. And I knew he didn't need to anymore because he knew it. Around the time he was 3 or 4, I had gotten it all together, growed up myself - broken the legacy of what my mother did, and also realized that the things he did that pushed my buttons were the things I hated about myself.

Now I don't know if I really was responsible for all those "do you love me", it might be his termperament, and of course we had our great times when he was a baby. But I regret that I kind of wasted that time of my life. Now I know that every moment is precious, and I live by that - I have reached a time of contentment. Yes, I stop to smell the roses. And could I have achieved this without that ultimate slap in my face, ie I will not do to my child what my mother did to me? No. And thank god he's a confident kid with self-esteem now, so the damage wasn't permanent. But it's a deep regret.

Now this last regret is going to sound crazy. You've already gathered I had a lousy childhood, and when I was 12 a kitten found me, my guardian angel came to give me and teach me about the love I wasn't getting anywhere. Well she lived til she was 20, and I had settled down with Richard. The morning of the day she died, she was all over me, purring, wouldn't leave my lap, winding around my ankles until I was tripping, in my way! I was late for work! I flew out of the house.

When I got home late that evening, she had died in her sleep. Very peacefully, she had never been really sick, just old. And she had known that was her day to die, and was bidding me farewell. And I didn't give her that, I didn't give her any time, I was late for work. My heart aches right now all over again, just thinking about it. But she forgave me, I know, because 3 days after she died she appeared to me, I swear she did. And we just gazed at each other and then disappeared. But I still wish I had said a real goodbye to her, she was telling me.

Or perhaps the hedgehog is telling the narrator that the narrator never quite managed to learn the songs of the girls he tried to love. In the sense of everyone has their own personal song. He tried to know them and he went through the motions but he never really clicked.

edited. i really think this is relevant but feel very self-conscious about the punctuation & gender issues that came up for me. sigh. so i put them all at the bottom.

this is one of the jewels of relationship/regret songs.
The chorus just grows with you - male or female - for decades.

__________________________________________
The Hedgehog's Song

I'm not the kind to complain
That I never had a girl to love.
Many a fine girl I tried hard to know,
But I think I never tried enough.

Sitting one day by myself,
And I'm thinking, "What could be wrong?"
When this funny little Hedgehog comes running up to me,
And it starts up to sing me this song.

Oh, you know all the words, and you sung all the notes,
But you never quite learned the song, she sang.
I can tell by the sadness in your eyes,
That you never quite learned the song.

Every day when the sun go down,
And the evening is so very still,
Many a fine girl I've held in my arms,
And I hope there's many more that I will,
But just when everything is going fine,
And absolutely nothing is wrong,
This funny little Hedgehog's always around
And every time he wants to sing me this song.

Oh, you know all the words, and you sung all the notes,
But you never quite learned the song she sang.
I can tell by the sadness in your eyes,
That you never quite learned the song.

One day when the moon was full I thought I might settle down,
Found myself a pretty little girl,
And I stopped all my running around;
But just when the preacher come along,
And he's just gonna pop on the ring,
This funny little Hedgehog comes
running down the aisle,
And I don't have to tell you what he did sing.

Oh, you know all the words, and you sung all the notes,
But you never quite learned the song, she sang.
I can tell by the sadness in your eyes,
That you never quite learned the song.

I'm not the kind to complain
That I never had a girl to love;

Many fine girls I've tried hard to know,
But I think I never tried enough.
But now I'll be looking all my days,
And it isn't just me I got to please,
There's this funny little Hedgehog
Who's always around,
And the only words he ever sings to me are these.
Oh, you know all the words and you sung all the notes,
But you never quite learned the song she sang.
I can tell by the sadness in your eyes,
That you never quite learned the song.

Incredible String Band

________________
If Paul has perspective I hope he'll chime - there is a punctuation in the printed text that reveals a song i had never heard before, if you know what i mean.

This is what i heard, and sang and lettered:

" But you never quite learned the song she sang."

and this is what is written:

" But you never quite learned the song, she sang."

so in what you just read, i dropped the comma from every other verse so you could hear both.

and most confusing - the Hedghog is refered to as "he"

In the end i think the comma makes it more a universal statement (sung by a female hedgehog:>) about not understanding what love is, but take it away and it still sorta does - the song one sings and the other fails to hear...

I totally agree about being able to be certain about what you want. I think in our twenties we get together and make these commitments based on nothing very specific, just these desires for big, diaphanous (probably somewhat biological) things, especially "family." But we do change SOOOOO much. I'm only now at a place where I have very specific criteria about what I must have in a partner, and I wouldn't have been able to formulate those criteria if I hadn't had all those duds to use to add to my checklist.

I will not regret the duds, I will not regret the duds, I will not regret the duds.

:)

I finally had the chance to read each and every post with the time it deserves - I'd been waiting til I knew I could ponder.

Thank you. Unfortunately, now it's time to vacuum, but I will certainly be back tonight to share my own regrets, and respond to some of yours.

But I could NOT put off telling Brooke that I think it's crazy when people marry so young! The 20s are all about exploring yourself, and your relationship to other people and the outside world. And truly learning your needs, not what you think you want but what you NEED from another person, and that you are completely entitled to that. I wonder how many of your married peers will be divorced or grow out of their marriages but be stuck because of children. Sorry that's very cynical, and I can only speak for myself, but in no way was I ready at your age.

As for spending time with guys you should have dumped more quickly, that is exactly what you had to do to learn your needs, and what you do want in a relationship.

In my opinion, especially for women, being alone for a period of time without any guy is crucial. Then you know who you are, what your needs are, and fulfill yourself without anyone else. Only then are you ready to share. Cause I believe a true relationship is sharing, not giving up any individualism. Oh sure, many compromises have to be made, but for instance if my husband comes home from work and snaps at me, I no longer take it personally. Instead I say to myself, OK he needs time in his "cave" to get centered again, I'll see him later!

My greatest regret was being too critical and judgmental of people who could not help what their lives had become, and that if I had been more compassionate instead I might have been able to help them.

I wonder how much of that is the impetuousness of youth. As I near middle age, I find myself softening, as opposed to hardening, my heart towards others...

Edited to add that, like Randomanthony, all my 'mistakes' are part of the path I'm on and I wouldn't have the great I have now (poetry, excellent child, partner, good job, good life) if I didn't go through what I had. So, in that way I have few regrets, just more of a wish that I had slowed down - not tried to be such a jackrabbit sometimes, and just participated more in my own life.

much love, sweetheart. glad you know where to look for what you need and want. keep talking.

Hugs Ginnie.

Ginnie

Hugs to you and some hope. Know you can talk here and be heard.

Many of my regrets revolve around the guys I chose to date in college...I graduated 4 years ago, and I still look back in amazement at all my friends and sorority sisters who found someone in college to marry, and all I found were, well, I don't know this group's policies on foul language, but insert the appropriate words here. Given how dried up my dating life has been since then, and how most people my age seem to already be married (the trend seems to be to marry young, while my cousin who is 10 years older than I am thinks everyone my age is just insane), I often think I missed the boat by spending too long with guys that I should have dumped immediately.

And then there's the whole flip side to that, where I know that every bad experience has taught me what is really important in a relationship, when I'm not sure that some of my friends who married their first boyfriend ever really know why they chose the spouse other than, "We'd been together for a long time, it was the next step." And my disastrous college relationships led me to three years in Chicago by myself, which was the best three years I've ever had.

Those who have commented on the single/married thing being a grass-is-greener situation are so spot on.

Ginnie-

bravissima, Bella!

this is a rich thread in its own right.

& getting "the look" means you ASKED, yes? xox

Oh, that was beautiful, Ginnie. Thank you for sharing that.

A peripheral but/and amazing friend will die very soon. and the heart she has brought to this part of her journey has me thinking of Jeffrey.

In 2001 my brother-out-law died at 49. When i did a show for him, my understanding of an old beloved text by Ursula LeGuin changed for me. The text says "the dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss," and i realized that the abyss is not death, or our fear of it, but our fear of a life un-lived, un-felt, a life asleep and far from the dance floor. That is the fear that so many transfer to death - and i think it is why the american way of death - from palliative care to funerals - is often such a grotesque betrayal of the life that is passing.

Anyway - Can't recall exactly what i wrote, but i know the notion was that for someone like J - someone who has danced every moment of his life with joy and passion and curiosity- death is not something to fear - it is the next partner.

Yeah, Sherri, I agree with Bunny on this. My own father died of cancer. I was living in New Orleans and headed to New York, so I just stopped off at home to help Mom nurse Dad to death for a few months. Throughout the process, I really had to learn to respect his wishes. Essentially he died of starvation, and I kept trying to get him to smoke dope for an appetite, but he was such a law-abiding kind of guy that he wouldn't do it, not because he thought marijuana was inherently bad but because there was a law against it. The other thing that he told me that meant a lot to him was that I told him it was okay to die, the family would be fine. He said he was relieved to hear it. The point is that I think we really have to let the dying have what they want, even when it's death. A good friend of mine recently died of lung cancer, and she smoked all the way home. People kept telling her to stop smoking, and she said, "Why quit now?" I'm with her. She was dying, so why quit what she loved? And I think we have to get over our obsession that death is the worst thing that can happen. I was sad that Dad died, but in his final condition, death was not such a bad thing. It could have happened months earlier, and it wouldn't have been bad. Anyway, thanks Noran and Sherri for your words. And thanks, too, Bunny. You should holler if you're one of those Manhattanites who bikes up to Nyack every weekend. My wife, son and I will have you over for some carbs.

Mindy, Bunny, Jessica -- thank you. In the end, I know I did right (the only request I didn't follow was to put him in a pine box in the back yard).

Mostly the recriminations come up to echo how much I miss him, which is mostly about *me*. He's not there for *me*. Confusing, that part of grief which has a greedy sound.

Much easier, in a way, with my mom. Her instructions were explicit and oft repeated (do NOT let them keep me on machines) and her condition so extreme, the choice was a non-choice. I merely repeated what she had said.

Noran, I hope you can come eventually to a reconciliation with your feelings.

Sherri, I agree with Bunny, who's very eloquent btw. My dad also died of complications with congestive heart failure. It's a progressive disease as you know, and his ability to move and even speak were very much curtailed by the end...He was so weak, as fragile as a bird. Your dad was spared that, and perhaps more.

Sherri, I think your father was clear as could be about what he wanted from you and I don't see anything wrong with respecting that. As you say, his life and his death belonged to him, and so did his choices. One of the things that is hardest for some people to bear as they get older is losing the right to have their decisions respected. I hate it when old people are treated with the same casual disregard for their dignity and their will that we also visit on children. Actually I hate it when it happens to children too. Respect is a big deal for me, and it sounds like it was for your father too. Taking that from him in the name of prolonging his life - seems to me like it would have been really hurtful to him. And who knows if it would have made a bit of difference to his longevity.

Well, I'm glad you shared it, Sherri. Thank you. I like taking the "supposed" to out of it. That outside shit about what is "proper" drags me down more than any of my own individual imperfections. It sounds like you father did things the way he wanted to do, and you honored that.

And I think we also cling to "I could've done something" because that feels more powerful than "there was nothing I could do," which is totally yucky (and probably a very old feeling), and needs to be grieved too, I think.

I'll go along with that one, but I'll take it a step further (and I'll put right up front this has to do with my own belief structure, which I do not expect others to share nor do I insist mine is the best or most accurate) to say there was nothing I was SUPPOSED to do.

I'll cough up my own example. My father died of congestive heart failure, alone, over a weekend. I talked to him on Saturday while driving to spend a day with friends at a local theme part. I found out he was dead on Tuesday when the police called me at work. We had planned to have dinner with him on Friday and I was to call him Wednesday (he lived about 30 miles away).

He had hid his condition from everyone, especially me. I was the only family member to live close to him. One of my uncles once called me after my dad had visited him, and got all over me about how I wasn't doing my duty as a daughter and taking care of my dad, that my dad had a bad heart, etc. etc. So, I called my dad (I was 34 at the time) and, in tears, asked him directly if it was true, if he really did have a heart condition, if he needed more help. He flatly denied it. Then (I found out later) he called my uncle and balled him out up and down. Neither of my older brothers were aware. That's how Dad wanted it.

Should I have pushed the issue? I sometimes think so. I could have gotten more involved. I could have gone around my dad's denials and insisted to know. It was obvious his health was failing, but he was nearing 70 and had a history of lung problems (pneumonia and pleurisy) and he blamed that. The particular weekend he died, he told me he had a cold. I asked if I should postpone my plans and come over to his house, but he said no, he didn't want me to catch his cold.

So, should I have let my dad have his death his way, or should I have done all in my power to maintain his life? My dad had spent the previous three years reconciling with my brothers, getting his affairs in order,and visiting family he hadn't seen in a while. He hadn't retired yet, either, because even though he talked about it, he loved working and his job. He never did well when he was just hanging around the house -- no real hobbies, nothing like that.

I go back and forth on this whenever I find myself missing my father. In the end, I have to accept that for all the woulda, coulda, shoulda I can create, in the end he would die regardless (maybe later, maybe after a few more good years, or maybe in a gradual, miserable decline -- I can't know). The point is, he didn't WANT me to intervene. Not a lot was left unsaid, surprisingly enough.

It's 8 years this month that he died, and I miss him terribly when I let myself dwell. I sometimes fight with regret over it. And each time I circle around to the idea that his life belonged to him, and his death also did. I can protest it, I can rail and cry, but in the end I must accept and in that acceptance find my comfort in the idea that there is more beyond and I have no duty nor even the right to interpose my will.


And I'll probably think better of this vomitous confession and delete it, but for now, it stands.

Oooh, Bunny is very wise, too!

And I agree about trying to avoid the pain, the sorrow... But sometimes, too, I think there's just a faulty coping mechanism and we get stuck in this feedback loop of self-flagellation. Though there is in that also grieving to be done once we begin to recognize it for what it is, and that is surely an awful pain--to have to see what we have done to ourselves, often the recipients of our worst abuses, non? And I think we also cling to "I could've done something" because that feels more powerful than "there was nothing I could do," which is totally yucky (and probably a very old feeling), and needs to be grieved too, I think.

((Noran))

And thanks for that lovely poem, Jude.