On regret

As I approached the age of 35, I made an earnest effort to reflect on the parts of my life I am most grateful for, and to consider how differently I have turned out from the way I imagined myself when I was a girl. With much relief, I concluded that life has been a cornucopia of people and experiences that have brought profound joy and astonishment. But I also have regrets…deep, weighty errors of judgment that haunt me still. Where do they fall on the scale of self-reflection?

There’s a part of me that would like to subscribe to the idea that there should be no regrets in life. The truth is, I don’t think it’s possible. Sure, I can metaphorically bundle my regrets, put them in a box adorned with beautiful wrapping paper, and call it a gift: “Here’s your opportunity to turn something terrible into a positive life lesson!”…but deep down, I know that once I have stripped away the fancy packaging, I will still be left with something I don’t want. The contents of that box will be just as ugly on second glance as it was the first. 

No, regret is inevitable. Certain mistakes cannot be corrected. Missed opportunities can rarely be subsequently seized. I think it’s ok to grieve those parts of life. The challenge for me is not to linger on loss. On a cognitive level, I know that I cannot recapture wasted time, that the minutes I spend counting lost minutes will bankrupt my future. Regret begets regret. But sometimes the decisions we make, the paths we choose lead us to discover parts of ourselves that do not coexist peacefully with the parts of ourselves we love. What, then?

I think the answer is to make an affirmative choice to acknowledge the things I regret, make amends for things that I can, and accept responsibility– even unpleasant truths and consequences – for everything else. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I need to remember when I am faced with the choice between two paths, to pick the one with the least regrets.

The First Step

At some point, my inner voice became an insufferable nag, obsessed with a need for me to be too many things to so many people. I struggled every day to juggle more objects than my limbs could possibly manage. As things dropped one by one to the floor, so did my sense of self-worth. Instead of simply trying to reduce the competing demands, I would pile on existential crises and guilt. I convinced myself that by not being able to complete everything flawlessly I was just not good at anything. I can’t satisfy five demands at once? Well, then I must be failing at all things. 

One night, as my sanity trickled away into a stream of alternating panic and sense of doom brought on by an impending deadline at work, I realized that this vicious cycle I had created for myself was actually causing damage. I became a blob of stress. I was irritated that my oldest son needed my help with his homework when I really wanted him to just go to bed already. I was frustrated that my younger son needed to nurse because it interfered with my ability to concentrate on work. I was paranoid that I would reach the wrong conclusion in my legal analysis because I was not knowledgeable enough about the subject matter, or nimble enough to master the material in an abbreviated period of time. I was physically exhausted and facing the inescapable certainty of a sleepless night ahead. After I finally got both children to bed,  I collapsed into my workspace, littered with crucial documents I would likely have time to skim no more than once. In that quiet moment, I  looked around, and saw toys askew, dishes unwashed, clothes in need of laundering, and my co-parent conspicuously absent –away on a work assignment of his own. I can’t do this. I can’t. I can’t do this. I argued into the silence, each “can’t” more forceful than the last. Overwhelmed and under siege by my sense of impending failure in each and every way, I started sobbing. There was no humble cry, no graceful release of emotions. It was a full-throttle burst of tears, a capitulation to the boundaries of my capacity; lines that had always been drawn, but that until that moment I had refused to recognize. 

After five, or possibly twenty-five, minutes, the emotional storm eventually blew over. I made peace with the temporarily-messy house and my partner’s absence. Rather than begrudging my baby’s need to nurse at inopportune times, I welcomed the excuse to momentarily climb out of the piles of work papers, with their foreign terms and befuddling concepts. Early into the morning hours, as I finished writing the legal memo that had drained the charge out of almost every last brain cell in my head,  I held my baby close to my chest.  He had already finished nursing for what could have been the hundredth time that night, and I cuddled him a little longer than he needed. “Why am I doing this to myself?” I asked him. He didn’t hear me. Or if he did, he didn’t answer.  The question haunted me for months after that night. For a while, I didn’t even know what “this” I was talking about. Maybe it was motherhood. Or work. Or the prospect of not having both.  Yes, that was it. I was torturing myself over a fear of failing at either or both of these important parts of my self-identity. Eventually, I recognized that I feared failing at all the other parts of my life, too: my roles as friend, partner, daughter, sister, confidante, alumna, mentor, mentee…I mean, the list of opportunities to fall short of expectations was endless. Still, the harder part of the question was  “why?”  It turns out the why is really a two-pronged question. First, why did I fear failing? More importantly, what is failure, anyway?  To understand my fear of failure, or even my definition of failure, I felt that I needed to understand success. How should I define success?

Trying to unravel the answers to this inquiry has been a difficult process, and I have been working my way through it for some time. I wish I could reveal right now that I have sorted it out. Unfortunately, it's all still a work in progress. Nevertheless, it has been an interesting experience for me, shaded by public dialogues on having it all, leaning in, kicking back, and a dozen other, similar musings and pontifications. Maybe the last thing the world needs is another blog examining the great working mom debate. Luckily for all of us, this blog is not one of those.  No, this is a blog about my personal quest for success -- wherever it may lead.

 Ultimately, I decided to share the journey for two reasons. For starters, I decided to write my way through these internal struggles. Writing is a salve for me. It is more than cathartic. It is resuscitative. Relatedly, letting others read my writing is and always has been a challenge for me. By going public with some of my most vulnerable thoughts, I feel empowered. It's a way of conquering the insecurity and self-doubt that lurk over my shoulder. That's got to take me one step closer to success, right?