All these places I remember...

Of all the things I’ve done, there are of course things I regret.  And I know there are things that people assume I regret.  They’re mostly wrong.

I don’t regret getting pregnant at 20, unmarried.  I can’t, because that would mean regretting my son, my sun, my reason to breathe.  I don’t regret dating his father for the same reasons.  Perhaps I should.

I don’t regret moving from Atlanta to Mississippi.  There were some rather lasting effects that I wish weren’t the case, but those weren’t my decisions.

I don’t regret my divorce.  It was the best thing that could have happened to that marriage.

I do regret getting married.  It was awful.  That’s all I want say about that.

I regret dropping out of school.  I regret thinking that in order to be a mother I had to give up my life.  I regret that it’s taken me five years to figure out just how wrong I was. 

I regret not trying harder to stay in theatre.  I like to blame circumstances, but I could have tried harder and I would have found ways if I had.  I chose to eat rather than to breathe.

And I’m doing it again, still.  I’m choosing to eat rather than breathe.  I’m getting bogged in the responsibilities and forgetting to live in the moment… forgetting to take the opportunities that I have every day.  I’m forgetting to enjoy the small things.  Because of all the things I regret, it’s not the big stuff that gets me.  It’s the small things, the small every day simple things that I let pass by without reaching out and trying to grab hold of.
 

Life is in the details.