chettriyuvraj

Regret

I am staring at the half-closed curtain to my balcony window. The sun is shining brightly outside. From where I am sitting, it feels just the right amount of far to prevent me from making the effort to go out. Maybe tomorrow, I tell myself. You won’t see this sun ever again, I counter.

A quick snap of his fingers brought me back. I missed out on most of the talk but tune in just in time for the climax. I just hope you don’t make a decision that you end up regretting is what my father ends our conversation with. Just to be clear - if politeness got tired of life’s drudgery and tried to disguise itself with a fake voice once in 12 months (but failed even then) - that is my father. What he said did not have the slightest hint of snide in it.

I am in the process of making a decision that feels particularly life changing. I felt quite sure about what to do just a couple of weeks ago. Not so much now. What changed? I just had the word regret thrown at me quite a lot. All those alternate-mes from different points where my life divereged into it’s current path suddenly felt like they were were conspiring to show that they become better than me.

But here’s the thing: regret is just a conjuring. I once read that the mind is excellent at winging answers to any question that you ask of it. Ask how did I get so bad? and it will rattle off a list of the people that you could have been. If in the mood it will even make one of them a celebrity. Ask how did I become so good? and it will reel off all that you are and all that you could be. We think that regret is like longing for a love that you were never able to have. That if you get to rewrite the story and be with them, you will finally be the whole that you were before you met them. Regret is not that. It is pining for a lover who never existed in the first place; a breath never taken, a child never conceived, a time that never was, a tide that never formed. And if you cannot die without living, how is there any worth to regret without ever having had?

Regret is not a parallel universe for this universe is kind enough to give you the time and the patience to be most, if not all of what you want to be. You just have to give it to yourself first. It is not in regret that you suffer the most, it is in your imagination.

I am staring at the half-closed curtain to my balcony window. The sun is shining brightly outside. You won’t see this sun ever again, I tell myself. It’s completely okay, I counter - to no response from the other side :)