No Regrets

If you want to trigger me arguing with you or just not talking to you ever again, tell me you have no regrets. The people in my life who have said things like this are often people who have taken advantage of me, have used my time and energy for themselves without acknowledgment or thanks, and who are not particularly self-reflective. If you want less reaction, you can try something like, “you wouldn't be who you are today if you hadn't had every single bad thing happen to you that you wish hadn't happened in your past.”

I am more interested in this conversation, so I'll pretend for the rest of the essay, that this is what we're talking about. And yes, this is absolutely true. I agree that I wouldn't be the person I am today if I hadn't been abused throughout childhood by my father. I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't been raised Mormon. I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't lost my sixth child to stillbirth in 2005 and then started doing Ironmans to try to deal with the grief. I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't taken twenty-five years off to be a stay-at-home mom and a writer. I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't written The Bishop's Wife and torched my entire life.

Here's the problem: I wish that I wasn't the person I am today. And I don't understand how other people are so happy with who they are today. It makes me mad in the same way that it makes me mad (I know this makes me a bad person, but it's true) when other people tell me how sad they are that their dad died and how much they miss him. I cannot imagine what that feels like. I do not miss my father. When I think of his death, I feel only relief. I hear his voice in my head all the time still, thanks. He installed himself there and as much as I try, I haven't been able to fully throw him out of my psyche. He is still here in all the ways I wish he wasn't.

Nice to be you, though, if you like yourself and are happy with how you turned out. I really wish I didn't have my father commenting on how skanky I look in a tank top while exercising. I wish that I didn't feel overwhelming grief around my daughter's death. I wish that I wasn't facing the reality that I'm in a job that is mostly for people half my age, and that retirement may never be secure because I was out of the workforce so long. And yes, I wrote some great books and yes, I became a deeper and more empathetic person because of my daughter's death? But I sometimes wish that I hadn't. Yeah, I wish that I was still oblivious and unenlightened. Because it was easier.

I wish that I was one of those people who has no regrets. Because that seems like a nice life you have there, a nice brain that isn't so mean to you in your head. I wish I could get one like that.