In a few weeks I’ll be 30 and lately I’ve had a looming sense of regret. Regret for all the things not accomplished, not tried. When thinking about regret, this question came to mind:
How Accurately Are You Remembering The Past?
When I was about 18 I would frequent this christian bookstore and look through the newly released cd’s… In those days Tooth & Nail was leading much of the heavy/alt scene and anticipating a release or finding something unexpected was a great joy. (i miss that).
Anyway, every time I’d have great banter with the girl who worked there. We were both the artsy kid from very conservative, christian families. We both occupied this very unique space of being high in openness yet respecting the structure we existed in. There was a moment in one of our conversations where it felt like I was supposed to make the move and ask her out. I didn’t. Told myself maybe she was just a cool person. Who was I to assume it was anything more? It’s one of the biggest regrets of my life.
Here’s the problem with this story though: there are a few details my regret leaves out.
Even if I had made the move, I was in no position to turn that into a sustained healthy relationship. I was years away from a basic understanding of myself. My brokenness would have translated it into a suffocating, awkward cycle of worship, neediness, worship. I wouldn’t have ever even seen her as her. I would’ve idealized her into a transcendent archetype. In her I would’ve hoped to escape from the wounds of my father, of my own cowardice, of malevolence itself.
In fact, if we’re being truly honest, I cannot say with certainty that today’s version of me could even handle it. 18 year old me never stood a chance.
Earlier I stated “We were both the artsy kid from very conservative, christian families.” but that may not even be true. It’s a quick deduction of seeing her wild colored hair, piercings, while working at a christian bookstore.
I’d say the odds are good; but the point is, our regrets contain many self-filled gaps which simplify the stories we tell ourselves and help them reach peak self-loathing melodrama.
Are you truly a permanently worthless failure? Or are you a wounded, self pity prone, decent human who overestimates themselves to preserve a perpetual cycle of failure; because in doing so, you get to enter into the dark romanticism of self sabotage?
In one way, it feels better to ruin your own life and fulfill “fate” than to reveal the small but true person you were/are.
May God grant us the courage to present him our broken pieces without self protecting lies and sleights of hand. And may he grant us the humility to pick them back up and continue to iterate.
I don't know, I started to kind of embrace regret. It is about opportunities not taken, and your consciousness tells you about this. You shouldn't beat yourself up endlessly, and that's how I read your article, but I am also not for trying to make the regret go away, because this is not how "we" are, where the "we" is well-educated city-dwelling atheists, i.e. liberals (in the American sense), if I may say so. I wholeheartedly agree with Mow Money below: "for me, remembering the past accurately is sometimes difficult but critical to going forward and making better choices in the future".
Thanks for sharing Zach! It’s definitely a good reminder when regret creeps up to remember there are a lot of details I don’t know, and that I am assuming.
Also, here’s a substack I wrote when last thinking on regret.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jamjarjar/p/to-the-moon-and-beyond?r=z5p5e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web