So today Kat Mcnally’s prompt concerns grieving and Project Reverb asks about hindsight.
Funny how these seem to be working together from the beginning—one influencing another, informing another, enhancing another.
I am grieving the loss of time. Time given to dead ends. Time spent trying to mend the twisted and burned skeleton of relationships that I should have stayed away from. I’m grieving the loss of self to that process and the loss of self to my own dear J and E. In trying to fix what is ragged I had less for those that asked no such thing, that wanted only my presence and not the hollow and tired thing I had become.
I am saddened by the twists and turns in the road and the missteps I have made along it. I am ashamed but determined. I do not know why I forgot that it isn’t just the task, but the people surrounding the tasks. I wish sometimes I could go back all the way to 2009 and start again—and go in an entirely different direction.
But I would miss have missed regaining my competency. I would have missed meeting some people that influenced me  and helped me learn some old lessons again.Â
And I always wonder…does it take all that to get to here, where things are getting better?
I regretted my first marriage but I celebrate the loves that came after that. Did it take that twisted thing to bring me to the better place?
And while I am saddened by the tearing of a family fabric again—I can say we tried. We failed, but we tried.
I don’t know if what was takes us to what is…or if something better might have been. I’ll never know. So I’ll need to learn to be content with understanding the lessons that sorrow teaches and that in looking back I should only hope to learn how not to make the same mistakes not  be overcome with regret at the mistakes.Â
I love the way you honour your grief, open the the pain, open to the gifts, but without regret.
What more could anyone ask for in life? x
Thank you Kat. I think because there was so much sadness when I was younger I’ve had to learn to see the value in sorrow. It’s still easy to get caught up in the should haves and could haves during the initial aftermath but doing that doesn’t really get you anywhere. I just hope I can learn enough not to repeat some of the last year!
I’ve often fantasized about being able to go back and selectively “delete” things from my past. Things I’ve done, said, events that happened to me. The idea being that if those things had not happened, or if I’d made different choices at what turned out to be critical junctures, I’d be happier today. But what else would change? As you say, do we have to go through the bad stuff? I’m not sure anymore whether I even trust myself to make a good decision, as my track record is not great.
Oh darlin, I do too. Still at times. I had a wonderful professor at SFSU, tell me you don’t get to selectively delete–you’d have to delete EVERYTHING –the good with the bad. That pulled me up short. Because then how would you let go of the wonderful things? If I could have deleted the bullying and trauma that I faced as a kid–I wouldn’t have known to do what we’ve done for Em. And if it saved her even a moment of what I felt, then every single bit of it was more than worth it.