'Regrets Collect Like Old Friends'

Regrets collect like stars on a clear night. They are bright and visible to the eye but disappear when another brilliant light decides to come in to view. Yet no matter how often we forget their existence, they still come out to frolic in the darkness of the night.  

Regrets are born out of our actions. We approach situations incorrectly or don’t approach them at all and when things go south we blame ourselves and are doomed to forever live with the consequences of our choices or failure to make a choice.

Doing or saying nothing is by far the biggest regret we tend to find ourselves reliving 10 years down the line. We find ourselves in situations which warrant action to turn the tide in our favour but fear acting upon our desires. As a result things don’t work out in our favour and we find ourselves sitting in the dark wondering just how stupid and pig headed we were. Had we just opened our mouths and said the words we feared to utter out loud, we may be in a vastly different situation than the one we find ourselves in.

This brings me to the main point of my ramblings. Why do we keep things in? Why don’t we articulate the thoughts we keep to ourselves? We can’t expect people to read our minds and if we want things to turn out differently we will have to say what bothers us. Yet we are only human and live in constant fear of the repercussions of our words. We fear what will happen should we say what we feel and it mostly comes down to fearing the unknown. What happens once those words have been spoken is unclear and so we think of every possible outcome and our fear grows.

What we fail to see is that most times the other person is waiting to hear what you have to say. They want you to tell them not to go, or not to do what they were planning. They need to hear you say those words so that they can do the right thing by you. We are so caught up in fear of rejection that we forget the other person has fears too and all they may need, and you come to think of it, is just to hear you speak the words to put their fears to rest.

However, in my current dilemma, as much as I want to say what is on my mind I fear by doing so I am being incredibly selfish. To ask him not to leave, to ask him to stay by my side, serves only me. I can’t impose my desires upon another who wants something else. I am not the object of his desire nor am I what he wants so why do I feel like I should be telling him about the going-ons of my complicated mind? It won’t change much and it will most likely just cause tension but keeping all these thoughts inside scares me. My greatest fear is that when he leaves I will find myself submerged in regret for not speaking my heart’s desire. I can’t help but hope that if I was just as important and above all, if he desired the same as me, he would say it. However, hope is for the foolish and since nothing has been said the answer is as clear as daylight.

Sometimes we need to speak our minds, despite the fear that accompanies the action. If we don’t we will find ourselves living with the regrets and ‘what ifs’ for the rest of our days. We have to face our demons and if we get rejected at least we won’t have to deal with remorse. As for me, well I have never been very good at following my own advice and in 10 years, when grappling with the regret of not having spoken my mind, perhaps I will look back at this moment… or maybe not.