I've been thinking a lot lately about the things in my past that I regret. Up until now, I had considered my life as... well I guess the word I'm looking for is complete. But now that I think about all the things that I could've done that might have made a difference, I realize how little I have truly accomplished. I just wish there was some way I could go back and take advantage of the opportunities that I have let slip by for no other reason than fear of the unknown or the unexpected.
When I was in junior high, I had these two friends, Brian and Curtis (they were twins). We spent a lot of time together. We would hang out on the weekends and all the time during school (we had almost all the same classes). After eighth grade, though, we kind of started falling apart. We had gone to different high schools and made different friends, and after not too long, we fell out of touch.
I walked home from high school every day with several of my friends. Every day we went right past my old elementary school, where my younger brothers now attend. One day, as we walked along the street behind the school, we noticed an ambulance and several police cars parked to the side of the field behind the school where a small grove of trees stood. We thought nothing of it, and moved on to our lunch plans. We had just finished midterms that day and were going to meet some other friends to celebrate.
I found out later that day that a high school kid had committed suicide by hanging himself in those trees. I got a call the next day from a friend of mine. The kid was Curtis...
I had no idea what to do with myself. The only thing I could think about was that I didn't have time to cry. I had too many friends who needed someone strong to be there for them for me to be weak. To me, crying has always seemed like a weak action. I bottled up my emotions the same way that I always do. That is not to say that I didn't have moments where I was tempted to cry, just that I was always able to fight back the tears. I told myself that there was too much going on for me to break down now. For a while I was certain that I would be able to walk away from this without shedding a single tear.
They held a memorial service for Curtis the very next week. His whole family was there, including his brother Brian, along with his older brother and sister. People went up to the podium, they talked, and people listened and cried. It was kind of hazy to me. I was sitting there still thinking that I would never cry over this horrible loss.
When the service ended, I stood up. I was standing there for a few minutes, just staring at this picture of Curtis that was being projected onto one of those big white screens at the front of the room. I think that was when it finally hit me. He was dead. I could feel the tears coming, and I knew that I would have no chance at stopping them this time. Curtis' family was receiving people in the next room - people were shaking their hands and giving their sympathy at the loss his famliy had suffered. My only thought at that moment was that I couldn't bear to let Brian see me weak. I left without saying a word to them.
Looking back on this moment, I feel like such a fool. To think that it would have made Brian feel any worse to see someone like me mourning the death of his brother was idiocy. I left because I was weak. I wasn't weak because I cried, I was weak because I gave in to my foolish fears. It is said that "Courage isn't the absence of fear; it is the presence of fear, yet the will to go on." I think I would be correct in saying that courage was one of the qualities I was lacking at that moment.
I have heard from friends that Brian is no longer quite the same as he once was. Who could blame him? It's understandable. I wouldn't know, however, if he truly is or is not who he once was to me... I haven't talked to him since that service. It's been a year and a half.
I will end my monologue with this... don't ever let the chances that life offers you pass by... because no matter how much we long for it... all too often we find that those chances have disappeared by tomorrow.
"Regret for the things we do can be tempered by time. It is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
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I used to be able to handle it when I was younger, until my grandma's brother died, I felt as if anyone understood me, it was him. I was 9 or 10 and that was the first time I cried over a death. He meant the world too me and it was really hard. It takes time to get over things like that, and until you let it go, it won't go away. This is a good blog, thanks for writing it.
-Caity =)
I guess it's just one of those things that you wonder about for a long time. I ask myself if he might have made a different decision if I was able to talk to him about it or something. But even then, it's not so much that I feel guilty about not being there. It's not really as if I could have forseen his suicide. I think that what keeps me thinking about it is that I cannot understand what could have driven him to end it like that. I mean, what kind of experience could cause so much pain that the only way to escape it is death? I just really wish that I could find some answer to that question, because maybe then it would be easier to look back on this without regret.
Thanks for the comment.
Well, sometimes people just feel so out of control, that they'll Do ANYTHING to try to be in control. That's the same with a lot of people that cut theirselves, take it from me, I used to cut myself and believe me your not in control, the razor is and it screws up your life even more, to the point of suicide. Maybe he thought that was the only way to end whateverm pain he was feeling inside. Who knows. No problem, =)
Yes, I agree that we have regrets because I would sometimes regret things that I've done while I was still in college, etc.
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