What do you feel badly about? Have you done things in your life that you regret and wish that you could make right? (that question is probably redundant, because unless you’ve been living beneath a rock somewhere or in an igloo in the far north, you most likely have done things that you feel bad about) I most certainly have. I’ve always been grateful that I haven’t had any sort of addiction that has resulted in me ending up in a treatment program – for a bunch of reasons, actually, but mostly because I would be petrified of the whole ‘making amends’ thing. Don’t get me wrong, I would very much like to make amends to the people I have wronged in life, but…the idea of having to face them and apologize? Oh hell no…. I can’t even imagine.
Here, in no particular order, are five things that I feel badly about:
1) I didn’t spend more time with my Dad while he was alive.
I did my best, I was there for him as much as I could, but…it was hard. He developed Alzheimer’s so early in life, and I was SO young…the whole thing is just a shame. He told me once to get moving and get on with my life – which I did, eventually, but…it’s still hard, and it still haunts me. Probably always will. What I wouldn’t give for just one more day with him – the way he was before he got sick. 
2) I’ve made stupid decisions because of the men in my life.
Until recently, I’ve made some pretty dumb decisions in regards to men. These stupid choices haven’t just been in the men that I chose (although I picked some real friggin’ winners, let me tell you…I was world-class at picking fools), but life decisions I made, too. I would choose a job because I thought it would allow me to stay with the idiot du jour that I wanted to be with, instead of choosing the job that was BEST FOR ME. I would make all sorts of idiotic choices because I thought it would help me to ‘keep’ my man – when in reality, I should have been choosing what was best for me, and any man worth my time would be okay with that. I can’t even believe the time I wasted, the money I threw away, the time I lost…all because I thought I was choosing love – and every time, I was choosing to try to love someone who was absolutely unworthy of me. Any man who is worth my time would support me, believe in me, and not be threatened by me and the type of person I am. What a stupid, stupid girl I was. I wish I could go backwards in time, pick better men (major understatement there, folks) – or, actually, instead of picking better men, I wish I had picked ME. It would have been time much better spent. The good thing is, though, that all of these idiots and the experiences I had with them have made me better and smarter, so…I guess that’s something, right? 
3) I made some big mistakes in my career.
I’ve moved around a lot, and while that has given me some excellent life experiences, it has hurt my career track record. Some employers shy away from hiring rolling stones, and while that hasn’t been terribly good for me, I do understand it. I always thought that my wide variety of experiences would be desirable, making me a sought after employee – apparently, I thought wrong. While I remain very ambitious and eager to advance my career, I am going to do my best to stay put in my new job for a while, and hope like hell that it’s enough to challenge me (or that I can find enough extra-curriculars to stimulate me and keep me motivated). I think I need to stop moving around so much – for everybody’s sake.
4) I always run away from my problems.
For pretty much my entire life, when the going gets tough – I get going. I either move away, change where I live, change my friends, or change every damn thing that I can…all the while, never changing myself. That’s probably somewhat of a problem, don’t you think? Since my Wee One and I settled here in San Antonio in 2007, we haven’t moved…it is the longest that I have lived in one place since 1989 – no joke. Don’t get me wrong, there have been plenty of times since then that I have wanted to pick up and go anywhere but here, but…I’m trying. I’m staying put. I am struggling every single bloody day to give my little girl a stable, positive home life. She’s already shown a big passion for writing – I don’t want her writing a novel or a screenplay in 20 years about what a massive screw-up her mother was. I shudder to think what that book would be like…eek! 
Seriously, though – I want to start being more direct with confronting my problems and issues head on…and stop running. As that picture up there says – it’s a race that I will never win – and, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before…I do not like losing.
5) I don’t always tell people what they mean to me.
For a person who is so full of words and conversation, I can frequently clam up when it comes to really expressing what I feel. This is quite surprising, because I’ve not been blessed with much of a filter at all, so you’d think that I would shoot words of love out of my mouth like word vomit…and, since I tend to LOVE big, I should be really good at this. Yeah – nope. Not so much. I need to stop hoping that people know how I feel about them – I need to tell them. I need to stop assuming that my meaning is clear and people understand me – and I need to explain. I need to be sure that not a single day passes without everyone around me knowing how precious they are to me. Who knows…I may get hit by a bus tomorrow, and I loathe the idea of perishing with things left unsaid. (FYI: I have no plans to get hit by a bus tomorrow and am hoping like hell that I don’t!)
These are just the tip of the iceberg – there are a bunch of other things that I wish I had done differently, that I could have handled better, but…I am a firm believer in two things: 1) we do the best job we know how to do at the time we are doing it; and 2) when you know better, you do better. Every single day, I feel myself growing and changing as a person – so every day, I am starting to more and more know better…and hopefully I am doing better. One day at a time, friends…one day at a time.
xxx
