What do you do with regret?
What do you do with that thing
That thing you wish you hadn’t said
Hadn’t done
Hadn’t sent
Given
Taken
Repeated
What do you do with it
With the regret
The stomach churning discomfort
The dialogue that is on repeat, in your mind
Over and over
You rehear it
Re-say it
Remember it
You can’t take it back
You can’t make it not happen
You can’t change anything
So, what do you do?
I try to deeply breathe
I try not to cry
I try to tell myself, it’s not that bad
I try to give myself some grace
I ask a lot of questions
Mostly to myself
Did I mean to do it?
Did I hurt anyone?
Did I realize how I sounded?
Did I maliciously act or was it unconsciously?
There’s a big one to digest and metabolize
Acting unconsciously
How can I learn from this?
How can I not feel like this anymore?
All completely valid and also useless in a way
Because, we all screw up
Drop the ball
Act out
Say the wrong thing at the wrong time
Hurt the ones we love
We betray them and ourselves
We are prone to this behavior
All of us
Maybe screwing up is like a guard rail on a highway
We are veering off the road and luckily we have something to hit
Before we go off the cliff
It’s a reminder
It’s a second chance
It’s there for our protection
The guard rails are always dented and warped in some crazy ways
They show that cars have plowed into them and have not gone off the side
Or into the water
Anyone that’s hit one
Wakes up
Really wakes up
No coffee needed for days wakes up
So, whatever you did
I did
Let’s use it as a metaphorical guardrail
Let’s bang into it and not careen down the mountain
Let’s get back on the road, aware this time
Careful this time
Gentle this time
Grateful this time
We can all get another chance
Live another day
We should all set our eyes on the horizon and smile
We don’t control very much in this life
We can control this
Play your favorite song loudly and sing it even louder
Tomorrow is another day and we get another chance
Let’s go, do it again
And this time
We will be better
And very, very grateful