Regrets?

     I feel so full. Just finished reading "Wild". I'd watched the movie first and I'd say they are equal, although the movie is graphic in a way letters on a page simply cannot be. SPOILERS AHEAD! This woman, Cheryl Strayed, has done little remarkable in her life except to hike the Pacific Crest Trail (a monumental task), yet her story reaches in and touches something so deep and intimate within myself.

     Well she did something else too. She wrote about it. She wrote about it and then a movie was made about it.

     We've been told in many ways how love hurts. This young girl, young woman, experienced a love from her mother that shaped her, formed her. Left her full yet always able to receive more. This love never hurt her. But as her mom got sick, she began to hurt like never before. With her moms death now a part of history, her life began to unravel. She'd had it all. An amazing mom, a loving step-father, brother and sister both close. But now that all unraveled and her life flew off the rails.

     As we often do when we hurt we seek to feel even more pain. To simply feel anything. So she hurt herself. With men, with drugs, eventually pushing away the husband who loved and adored her. Somehow I resonate so deeply with that desire to destroy myself. Why? Geez, who knows. Just part of my inner demons I guess. But what forever is ringing in my mind of her story is not the pain. It is at the end of the movie when she says she regrets nothing. Everything she did brought her to where she is now. Every piece was needed. No regrets! How would that change our lives if we had no regrets? I think that's worth a second. How would that change your life if you had no regrets? Think about it. Really think about it.

     Have you ever imagined being able to go back in time? A time travel device of some sort allowing you to fix mistakes of the past. I do this. What if stopped myself from the disaster of my first marriage? Then my oldest son would not be. What if I had tried harder with that certain girl? Maybe just maybe we'd have made a life together. Then my kids and Chris would not be. Every positive change and every tragedy avoided would rob me of what I have now. I have yet to come up with any thing I'd be willing to change. When I begin to regret things I run through this time machine scenario once again and remind myself how good I have it. I have it good, beyond good. I have it great!