On regret - YOLO doesn't exist

Compodulator

On regret - YOLO doesn't exist

Regret.

It's a tough topic, a tough subject. It's tough in general. It's a uniquely human concept that has not been observed in any other being on Earth. A dog will not devote a whole day to lay in a corner and ponder what would its life be if it was to successfully catch that pesky squirrel that hangs around the back yard, nor will a cat fall into depression because through all its life it never pooped into your right shoe, only the left.

To live without regret, as many songs suggest one should, is an insane idea - every single thing, every single mistake and fuck up, and none of them brings any form negative idea. Perhaps you've stepped on a dog's tail, or perhaps you've hurt your SO, and yet... feel nothing about it.

That would be some psychopathic life.

Today I'd like to talk about three types of regret that, if you let them, will eat you alive.

Relevant XKCD comic
Relevant XKCD comic

Regret over things you didn't do, but could have.

There was a girl back when I was in grade school. She was in fifth grade, I was in third. We just kind of... hit off. Kind of.

We would hang out around school, talk, she'd occasionally kick someone's ass, and then we talk some more. And that was it. Just talk. She announced one day that she'd be my girlfriend for reasons I don't remember, nor are important. We started hanging out more - every recess we'd meet under a wooden structure and just sit there through the whole thing, sometimes in silence, sometimes talking until our voices turned into something you'd expect from a middle-aged couple who smoke thirty packs a day. I've never really taken her declaration of girfriendship seriously, it sounded just like another kind of her jokes.

And then she went away. Much like with a lot of cases of this kind of relationships, until very recently, she never came back into my mind. I remembered her name, but not surname. It's a common name, so Google wouldn't have helped much anyway. Besides, after another ten seconds of thought, the only ever-so-vague connection we had was about a year of school. Twenty years passed since.

"Hey, so do you remember this kid you used to hang out with twenty years ago? Yeah, I'm that kid. Small world, eh?"

What can I say anyway? No matter what I send her, I'd come off as a creep, and besides, twenty years have passed. That's a lot of years for a human.

I've concluded that, while the time we had was nice, chasing her would be sub-optimal. Throughout the years I have changed quite a bit, and so did she. There's no "probably" here. I'd hope she stopped kicking so many asses on a daily basis - it's a little bit difficult to find a job when your first reaction to dishonor is to nearly murder somebody.

Still, she "evolved", I suppose, into crush status. What would happen to my life if I were to actually ask her out? If I were to get more serious about dating her? If I were to accept her offer?

Compo, circa 1996, Google's rendition. Kinda
Compo, circa 1996, Google's rendition. Kinda

Regret over things you did do, but could have not done.

I have only one vivid memory of my time with my mother.

That memory haunts me and is one of the many, many reasons why I have issues with myself.

Back when I was a kid, my mom would cook for us. There is nothing she couldn't cook. She made broccoli, the white kid's nightmare delicious. I'm not talking about "steamed broccoli" or whatever, I'm talking just plain old (key word: old) broccoli, thawed, thrown into water and had some spices sprinkled over it with scientific precision. And yet I would scarf that down as if it was a lucrative, five star, twenty-thousand dollar gourmet meal. Every single time. She could cook a turd and it'd make Gordon Ramsey salivate like a Pavlov's dog.

You know, mom, everything is delicious when you're hungry! :D

"Colon-capital-English-D" is implied, not spoken.

I said that to her. In my eternal six-ish year old wisdom, like some kind of mighty wizard/prophet/cleric. To my own mother - the greatest chef to have stepped foot on this godforsaken planet.

That's my most vivid memory of my mother. My parents exchanged a telepathic "this little piece of shit has some serious balls!" and continued their meal silently.

Quite some time has passed before she was killed afterwards, and yet this memory remains. This specific memory, perhaps as punishment for my stupidity.

I could have just, you know, keep my mouth shut. I could have not said that and maybe, just maybe have a better memory of her, like us playing something, her trying to teach me to cook, her teaching me to be a proper man, something, any goddamn thing except for that. Anything.

But no, no, that's all I have. Vividly, at least. The rest is kind of blurry, like if you open your camera and focus on the nearest object. The rest turns kind of blurry. That's the rest of my memories with my mother - it's all a blur. She's there, but... what's happening? All because I couldn't keep my damn mouth shut.

Sometimes you just can't.
Sometimes you just can't.

Regret over things you just couldn't do no matter what.

There was this other girl in my life for a while...

Yeah, women. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

There was this other girl in my life for a while. We met through the internet. One day she messages me something like "Hey, so I'm coming to the country you live in. Wanna hang out?"

I nearly shat my pants. On the one hand, a pretty (she sent me selfies before that, and I sent her some of mine) girl wants to hang out with me. Me! You probably haven't seen me, so you underestimate the gravity of the situation!

On the other hand, it could be one of those Chinese kidney thieves.

I mean, yeah, it's a joke, but who knows, every joke has some grain of truth to it. Maybe there are people waking up in bath tubs full of ice and a polite note to visit the closest hospital at their leisure.

Does the potential of getting another shot of getting into a relationship outweight the risk of having my kidney stolen?

I was a young man in the army, I slept in barracks with 20-30 other guys, the whole place reeked of feet and gunpowder, and most importantly, I had a penis.* Yeah, the potential of getting a girlfriend and finally joining the "relationship club" is worthy cause to pin against a kidney.

* For clarification, I didn't lose my penis there, it's still firmly attached.

Obviously, being a young, testosterone filled man, I had to impress her, and since she's American, and Americans love guns, I had to show up armed to the teeth. I indeed have.

The next three months were the happiest I've ever been in my life up to that point, happiest I've ever been since. We got drunk, we visited places where we got even more drunk, I nearly commited a hate crime because I was (and still am) a dumbass, we consumed a plethora of assorted drugs, we went through adventures you see only on Instagram lifestyle stories, and then her tourist visa ran out.

Shit.

I went to the airport to say my goodbyes. It was an awkward moment, kind of like a funeral, except all parties involved are still alive. Doesn't make it hurt any less, though, if anything, it was more painful.

Hell, her leaving is what got me into Facebook. I had to have some kind of connection left with her, Facebook, Skype, we even tried snail mail for a while... but then... life. She got married and I turned epileptic.

Shit.

It'd be absurd to think she would wait for me to immigrate, even though I mentioned that's my plan more than enough times to drive the point home.

But what if... what if what, exactly?

Risk desertation and imprisonment? It's not exactly a risk per-se, that's plain insanity. I would've been caught and deported within five minutes of setting foot off the plane. What could I do in the situation?

I couldn't do anything but hug, say my goodbyes to her family and go back to base.

I know I could have led a good life with her - we clicked like... I don't even know a good enough comparison. We were insaperable. Her mother joked we should marry. I awkwardly replied that I'd be glad to. We chuckled. Back in base I weighted the positives and negatives of setting my gun on burst and deepthroating the barrel.

But again, it's beyond my control. I'm not a governing body, I'm not in control when her visa runs out, I don't decide when and who she marries... I don't decide anything. I'm just some guy. I'm a nobody.

And yet, what would happen..?

So yeah, regret. I'm full of it. Everyone is full of it. Life lessons are built on it. It's a human concept, uniquely so, which will not go away, not in this flawed world. There's no happy ending here, just thought. Thought that will eat me alive eventually. In the meantime, though? In the meantime it'll just nibble. Here's hoping the last bite won't hurt too much.

On regret - YOLO doesn't exist
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