I have remarkably good "gut" instincts and the two times that I didn't follow my good gut instincts, were the two most disastrous times in my life causing me and other people harm and hurt, and I regret it to this day. I can't change the past, but I ALWAYS listen to my gut instincts now and while I've made mistakes moving forward, they have been mistakes that I can live with. :)
I know exactly what you mean I didn't trust my gut didn't listen to my gut and allowed these doctors to talk me into this invasive procedure and it almost killed me and I've never been the same since. I am deeply angry about this. I guess the gift in that wound is that I will never ever ever not listen to my gut again. I trust my gut today as never before. it has never failed me (although I have failed it when I chose to override it usually when I was in fear). Thanks for sharing that.
I'm so sorry to hear about your medical problem :( Gut instincts are there for a reason; it's when we don't trust them that gets us in trouble. Thanks for sharing about your gut instincts.
I deeply regret impulsively leaving my beautiful pink Spanish house with the tile roof and the wood floors and the ocean breezes & a lemon tree up on a hill in Santa Monica three blocks from the ocean.
I then spent 20 miserable years on the East Coast in a climate that does not agree with me, and I've suffered terribly. Regrets? I've had a few. But this was the stupidest thing I've ever done.
I plan to move back to California before the cold comes but it's going to take some mighty magic to find a place to live that I can afford. I trust the universe has my back because I know I'm supposed to be there.🌊🐬☀️🌈🙏🎵
Oh, wow. Yes. We all made these decisions to give places up before we realized that real estate would skyrocket in price in so many places. Good luck with your return!
Thanks Sari. Of course California has changed too and they have gridlock there. I can't go back to what I had. This will be more like going to some new exciting people and things I'm involved with and they are all based in Los Angeles. I'm not sure exactly where I will live but I don't need to know that yet. It will all work out. Then after I'm settled there it will be a hop skip and a jump to go over to Hawaii another place that feels like home! It's important to live in a place it's a match to your frequency and where you feel good in your body heart and soul and mind. There's no point in going against ourselves. Toward the end of her life my mother used to say "It all goes by so quickly.." I want this next chapter of my life to be a life that I love and adore and to wake up each morning excited to be alive!
I did that many times, too. I think many will be able to relate to this. Thanks for sharing. The good news is you are now available for someone who's a better fit. I hope they come along...
I regret not having kids sooner. I was 41 when I gave birth to our son Patrick. Within weeks I knew I had made a terrible mistake to wait so long. I had thought being a mother would be limiting, but instead I found it opened me up. We tried to have a second child but I suffered a miscarriage after a miscarriage. I was so mad at myself. All those years of good eggs going to waste and now I only had duds left. We ended up adopting and so managed to be a family of four after all, but as a 65 year mother of a teenage, I am tired! Should’ve started earlier!
I wish I'd known: It's okay to be a beginner. I wish I'd known it was okay to say "I don't understand, can you tell me more?" I wish I'd realized that people actually like to give advice to young people. I was trying to stay afloat in the movie business where it was intensely competitive and there was (at the time) no training. I felt like I had to pretend I knew what was going on and learn as I went. Even before that, I'd always felt naiveté was embarrassing. I think I was overly influenced by the idea of "fake it 'till you make it"; and by Rogers and Hammerstien's advice to whistle a happy tune. I spent so much of my life being afraid NOT to already know things. If I could talk to my younger self, I'd just say: "Ask for help." The insight didn't come to me until I was in my fifties and got a job doing knowledge translations (from scientists to decision makers), so that the scientists work could be understood by decision-makers in a way that lead to actionable choices. Even in that position, it took me a full year before I realized my actual job was to say, "Can you explain that again? Because I couldn't understand it, and if I can't understand it my audience won't." Not understanding and asking questions was, ultimately, my whole job.
I hadn’t learned how to work with my ADD, and I 86’d some good things in my life(relationships, jobs, creative projects, places I lived), a habitual reaction to my restlessness. I regret the ways in which that destruction hurt others. I’ve learned to channel this hunger for novelty into writing and other pursuits, but it’s taken me decades to figure that out. That said, many good things were created in the fever of impulsivity, and I am grateful for them—like my three beautiful daughters. Thanks for the spark!
ADD as " hunger for novelty". Wow I've never considered that before. I get bored very easily myself and it's hard to stick with things. I was diagnosed with ADD once back in the 90s but I never did anything about it. Thank you for pointing this out. Would like to hear more about your book. Dr Edward Hallowell is one of my heroes. He understands that ADD is very common in highly brilliant and creative people and I do fall into that category!
Hi Rainbow, You too, huh? ;) I really like the Youtube channel How to ADHD, so very helpful. Also the book, Is it You, Me or ADD? By Gina Pera. I published a story recently that expresses how I try to channel my restlessness into my creative work, the link below. It's not easy to live with such an active mind, but I'd rather have it than not. xxx https://hiddencompass.net/story/finding-valentina/
"Mystery is a refuge, spangled with possibilities. When the siren calls, I say yes."
Wow. You write beautifully and I love the feeling of forward movement in your words! I enjoyed this thoroughly. Actually I'm still reading it lol but I just wanted to stop and tell you how much I'm enjoying it - you're really good! And you manage to convey your thirst to know Valentina and make her come alive for all of us. spectacular writing! Thank you !
Mine is a real estate one, too. When I first moved the city for law school in 2001, there was an open one-bedroom in my aunt's building near the promenade in Brooklyn Heights. My dad offered to help me buy it and I turned him down because I didn't want to live in Brooklyn. Brooklyn Heights was "too far" from the city in my opinion. LOL. I think about that all the time. I am with you -- I love living in the HV for many reasons, but also miss being in the city. I still somewhat get my fix with commuting in for work twice a week, but it's not the same.
OH I so relate to that! When I first got an apartment in Manhattan in 1980, my stepmother said why don't you move to Brooklyn? And having grown up in Manhattan, I said "Brooklyn! I'm not living in Brooklyn!" I moved into a disgustingly ugly crappy walk up on York Avenue and 73rd and lived there for 10 years. Eight years in somebody invited me to Brooklyn Heights and I was stunned by how beautiful it was and of course by this time rents were untouchable. but in 1980 I could've afforded a lovely apartment in Brooklyn Heights so there is another regret and I really understand where you're coming from!
The irony here is that my mother and her people were from Brooklyn ( near Park Slop ) and that's where my mother was raised -- I am very proud of my Brooklyn roots and if I ever decided to live in New York I would absolutely live in Brooklyn. Hindsight 2020
I regret not buying an original piece of art by Miles Davis. We saw him perform in Redondo Beach in 1989, a sublime concert in an intimate setting. He was dabbling in painting and had a few pieces for sale at the entrance. $200!! I hesitated and before i knew it the valet had our car ready and we left. It pains me to even write this. *Sigh*
I regret not supporting my kids when they were bullied, just telling them to "ignore it" which was something my mother taught me. It doesn't work and it teaches the kid they are not worth supporting. Writing my second novel now about learning to love oneself. Congrats on your memoir!
I actually don’t have any regrets in my life. Sure, my life has truly sucked at times. And I’ve made some poor decisions. But I’m human, no one is perfect. I like to approach my life with curiosity and openness and discover things about life that I hadn’t anticipated. Dwelling on the past isn’t helpful. What is done is done. I could have left my bad marriage earlier than spending 28 years with a man I was fundamentally incompatible with, but if I had left earlier I might have wondered if I had done enough to save the marriage. I could have taken fewer risks while dating in midlife and perhaps not been raped, but now I’m in a wonderful relationship with someone who I happened to also meet online. I guess in thinking about regret and having the perspective of being 66 years old and seeing how f…cked up our country has become with our democracy on the brink, our seas rising and the horrible gun violence that we’re in danger of becoming immune to… I regret that I voted for Ralph Nader instead of Al Gore in the Bush/Gore race. That was a very stupid decision I made. (I truly think our two party system has to go.) I can only imagine how the trajectory of our nation would have been different if Gore had been awarded the presidency. We have no idea, but looking at the big picture I think it could only have been better than what we’re living through now.
Well said. You live, you learn. And (especially as an indecisive Libra) no matter what I choose, I always wonder if I should have chosen an alternative. And boy, that 2000 election. I regret campaigning for Nader. (In the end I voted for Gore.)
Many regrets in my long life, but like you I really regret leaving the far more urban city apartment, (in Oakland CA) for the suburban North Bay. The only affordable option for my sister and I was a mobile home. My sister passed last year and the heartache for city life returned. Mainly because I always felt less isolated in the city I think. Of course now it would be impossible to find anything affordable in the old hood, so here I stay for the time being.
I could have kept the log cabin, five acres at the base of the Bitterroot Mountains, Montana in my divorce from my first husband. We paid $30,000, probably worth at least half a mill now.
I was so in love with Andy Williams.
And so excited for your book. I'll make sure our local bookstore, Fact and Fiction has it.
September 1986: I chose to drive a stolen motorcycle and crashed within minutes a couple of miles away from my home. I almost died of my injuries. And that was just the splash debut!
Nevertheless, I view my subsequent wayward life as a massive Bonus Round.
I feel like I crashed my whole life and I'm now in the bonus round and I won't tell you how old I am but it would take you a long time to count on your fingers!!
I should have waited in line longer during my first week in college for that work study job in the library. After a poor career choices in radio and wine retail, about 20 years later I started work in a public library. If I fell into library work then, I could be retired by now with fewer crazy bosses.
Apart from the decisions to marry husband No. 1 and 2, I regret not pursuing a creative writing path in my college years. Instead, I took the practical route becoming an accountant and CPA. Later in life I pursued my creative dreams, obtaining my MFA at 66. Yay, me! I also regret delaying retirement until age 70. Sometimes your ego gets in the way, hard to let go of the highly respectable, what you know and do very well. An Oldster, I now cherish every day I work with words, putting my thoughts onto paper. Or maybe the things I have to say are only available to me now, at this stage of life. Thanks for letting me share. Xoxo
I regret my terrible rebound relationship with a toxic abuser while separated from my ex-husband that had ugly consequences with a very long tail. I also regret leaving my stable place of employment back in 2011 to go into business with a friend without have done the research or had any real game plan. Ended in bankruptcy and destroyed the friendship. But my current life is amazing so I guess maybe those huge blunders were all part of the process?
I have remarkably good "gut" instincts and the two times that I didn't follow my good gut instincts, were the two most disastrous times in my life causing me and other people harm and hurt, and I regret it to this day. I can't change the past, but I ALWAYS listen to my gut instincts now and while I've made mistakes moving forward, they have been mistakes that I can live with. :)
Well put, Gayla. And so relatable. Glad to know it's been instructive.
I know exactly what you mean I didn't trust my gut didn't listen to my gut and allowed these doctors to talk me into this invasive procedure and it almost killed me and I've never been the same since. I am deeply angry about this. I guess the gift in that wound is that I will never ever ever not listen to my gut again. I trust my gut today as never before. it has never failed me (although I have failed it when I chose to override it usually when I was in fear). Thanks for sharing that.
I'm so sorry to hear about your medical problem :( Gut instincts are there for a reason; it's when we don't trust them that gets us in trouble. Thanks for sharing about your gut instincts.
I deeply regret impulsively leaving my beautiful pink Spanish house with the tile roof and the wood floors and the ocean breezes & a lemon tree up on a hill in Santa Monica three blocks from the ocean.
I then spent 20 miserable years on the East Coast in a climate that does not agree with me, and I've suffered terribly. Regrets? I've had a few. But this was the stupidest thing I've ever done.
I plan to move back to California before the cold comes but it's going to take some mighty magic to find a place to live that I can afford. I trust the universe has my back because I know I'm supposed to be there.🌊🐬☀️🌈🙏🎵
Oh, wow. Yes. We all made these decisions to give places up before we realized that real estate would skyrocket in price in so many places. Good luck with your return!
Thanks Sari. Of course California has changed too and they have gridlock there. I can't go back to what I had. This will be more like going to some new exciting people and things I'm involved with and they are all based in Los Angeles. I'm not sure exactly where I will live but I don't need to know that yet. It will all work out. Then after I'm settled there it will be a hop skip and a jump to go over to Hawaii another place that feels like home! It's important to live in a place it's a match to your frequency and where you feel good in your body heart and soul and mind. There's no point in going against ourselves. Toward the end of her life my mother used to say "It all goes by so quickly.." I want this next chapter of my life to be a life that I love and adore and to wake up each morning excited to be alive!
Good luck!
Thanks!
Stayed in very mediocre relationships too long for security, never really felt loved. Now alone at nearly 60.
I did that many times, too. I think many will be able to relate to this. Thanks for sharing. The good news is you are now available for someone who's a better fit. I hope they come along...
I regret not having kids sooner. I was 41 when I gave birth to our son Patrick. Within weeks I knew I had made a terrible mistake to wait so long. I had thought being a mother would be limiting, but instead I found it opened me up. We tried to have a second child but I suffered a miscarriage after a miscarriage. I was so mad at myself. All those years of good eggs going to waste and now I only had duds left. We ended up adopting and so managed to be a family of four after all, but as a 65 year mother of a teenage, I am tired! Should’ve started earlier!
<3 Thanks for sharing this, Ann.
I never had any kids the fact that you have them is a blessing even if you are tired and even if you wish you had started earlier… You did it! Yay.
Thanks! It’s true!
I wish I'd known: It's okay to be a beginner. I wish I'd known it was okay to say "I don't understand, can you tell me more?" I wish I'd realized that people actually like to give advice to young people. I was trying to stay afloat in the movie business where it was intensely competitive and there was (at the time) no training. I felt like I had to pretend I knew what was going on and learn as I went. Even before that, I'd always felt naiveté was embarrassing. I think I was overly influenced by the idea of "fake it 'till you make it"; and by Rogers and Hammerstien's advice to whistle a happy tune. I spent so much of my life being afraid NOT to already know things. If I could talk to my younger self, I'd just say: "Ask for help." The insight didn't come to me until I was in my fifties and got a job doing knowledge translations (from scientists to decision makers), so that the scientists work could be understood by decision-makers in a way that lead to actionable choices. Even in that position, it took me a full year before I realized my actual job was to say, "Can you explain that again? Because I couldn't understand it, and if I can't understand it my audience won't." Not understanding and asking questions was, ultimately, my whole job.
Oh, my god. This. Me, too! I be a lot of others can relate to this, Kate.
I hadn’t learned how to work with my ADD, and I 86’d some good things in my life(relationships, jobs, creative projects, places I lived), a habitual reaction to my restlessness. I regret the ways in which that destruction hurt others. I’ve learned to channel this hunger for novelty into writing and other pursuits, but it’s taken me decades to figure that out. That said, many good things were created in the fever of impulsivity, and I am grateful for them—like my three beautiful daughters. Thanks for the spark!
Well put. Glad there have been pluses to balance out the minuses.
ADD as " hunger for novelty". Wow I've never considered that before. I get bored very easily myself and it's hard to stick with things. I was diagnosed with ADD once back in the 90s but I never did anything about it. Thank you for pointing this out. Would like to hear more about your book. Dr Edward Hallowell is one of my heroes. He understands that ADD is very common in highly brilliant and creative people and I do fall into that category!
Hi Rainbow, You too, huh? ;) I really like the Youtube channel How to ADHD, so very helpful. Also the book, Is it You, Me or ADD? By Gina Pera. I published a story recently that expresses how I try to channel my restlessness into my creative work, the link below. It's not easy to live with such an active mind, but I'd rather have it than not. xxx https://hiddencompass.net/story/finding-valentina/
"Mystery is a refuge, spangled with possibilities. When the siren calls, I say yes."
Wow. You write beautifully and I love the feeling of forward movement in your words! I enjoyed this thoroughly. Actually I'm still reading it lol but I just wanted to stop and tell you how much I'm enjoying it - you're really good! And you manage to convey your thirst to know Valentina and make her come alive for all of us. spectacular writing! Thank you !
Thanks for the kind words, friend.(°◡°♡)
Thanks, Melinda. I'll check it out. 🙏
Mine is a real estate one, too. When I first moved the city for law school in 2001, there was an open one-bedroom in my aunt's building near the promenade in Brooklyn Heights. My dad offered to help me buy it and I turned him down because I didn't want to live in Brooklyn. Brooklyn Heights was "too far" from the city in my opinion. LOL. I think about that all the time. I am with you -- I love living in the HV for many reasons, but also miss being in the city. I still somewhat get my fix with commuting in for work twice a week, but it's not the same.
Oh, I feel this one! <3
OH I so relate to that! When I first got an apartment in Manhattan in 1980, my stepmother said why don't you move to Brooklyn? And having grown up in Manhattan, I said "Brooklyn! I'm not living in Brooklyn!" I moved into a disgustingly ugly crappy walk up on York Avenue and 73rd and lived there for 10 years. Eight years in somebody invited me to Brooklyn Heights and I was stunned by how beautiful it was and of course by this time rents were untouchable. but in 1980 I could've afforded a lovely apartment in Brooklyn Heights so there is another regret and I really understand where you're coming from!
The irony here is that my mother and her people were from Brooklyn ( near Park Slop ) and that's where my mother was raised -- I am very proud of my Brooklyn roots and if I ever decided to live in New York I would absolutely live in Brooklyn. Hindsight 2020
I regret not buying an original piece of art by Miles Davis. We saw him perform in Redondo Beach in 1989, a sublime concert in an intimate setting. He was dabbling in painting and had a few pieces for sale at the entrance. $200!! I hesitated and before i knew it the valet had our car ready and we left. It pains me to even write this. *Sigh*
Oh, wow! Well, you got a good story out of it...
I regret not supporting my kids when they were bullied, just telling them to "ignore it" which was something my mother taught me. It doesn't work and it teaches the kid they are not worth supporting. Writing my second novel now about learning to love oneself. Congrats on your memoir!
Thank you, Linda! And glad you are putting those regrets to creative use. It will likely help others to choose differently.
I actually don’t have any regrets in my life. Sure, my life has truly sucked at times. And I’ve made some poor decisions. But I’m human, no one is perfect. I like to approach my life with curiosity and openness and discover things about life that I hadn’t anticipated. Dwelling on the past isn’t helpful. What is done is done. I could have left my bad marriage earlier than spending 28 years with a man I was fundamentally incompatible with, but if I had left earlier I might have wondered if I had done enough to save the marriage. I could have taken fewer risks while dating in midlife and perhaps not been raped, but now I’m in a wonderful relationship with someone who I happened to also meet online. I guess in thinking about regret and having the perspective of being 66 years old and seeing how f…cked up our country has become with our democracy on the brink, our seas rising and the horrible gun violence that we’re in danger of becoming immune to… I regret that I voted for Ralph Nader instead of Al Gore in the Bush/Gore race. That was a very stupid decision I made. (I truly think our two party system has to go.) I can only imagine how the trajectory of our nation would have been different if Gore had been awarded the presidency. We have no idea, but looking at the big picture I think it could only have been better than what we’re living through now.
Well said. You live, you learn. And (especially as an indecisive Libra) no matter what I choose, I always wonder if I should have chosen an alternative. And boy, that 2000 election. I regret campaigning for Nader. (In the end I voted for Gore.)
I agree. Regrets are really touchstones for learning to love ourselves better.
Many regrets in my long life, but like you I really regret leaving the far more urban city apartment, (in Oakland CA) for the suburban North Bay. The only affordable option for my sister and I was a mobile home. My sister passed last year and the heartache for city life returned. Mainly because I always felt less isolated in the city I think. Of course now it would be impossible to find anything affordable in the old hood, so here I stay for the time being.
I'm so sorry for the loss of your sister. And your preferred place to live...
I could have kept the log cabin, five acres at the base of the Bitterroot Mountains, Montana in my divorce from my first husband. We paid $30,000, probably worth at least half a mill now.
I was so in love with Andy Williams.
And so excited for your book. I'll make sure our local bookstore, Fact and Fiction has it.
Thank you, Frances! I so appreciate that. Oh, that cabin... And Andy Williams was dreamy (...until I learned about his politics later in life).
Haha
Regrets? Ding! Gen X? Ding! Late bloomer? Ding!
September 1986: I chose to drive a stolen motorcycle and crashed within minutes a couple of miles away from my home. I almost died of my injuries. And that was just the splash debut!
Nevertheless, I view my subsequent wayward life as a massive Bonus Round.
Congrats on the book, lady. Bloom on.
Thank you for the good wishes, Cabot. And for sharing this. Glad you found a better way forward...
I feel like I crashed my whole life and I'm now in the bonus round and I won't tell you how old I am but it would take you a long time to count on your fingers!!
Hahahaaa! Three cheers for bonus rounds!
I should have waited in line longer during my first week in college for that work study job in the library. After a poor career choices in radio and wine retail, about 20 years later I started work in a public library. If I fell into library work then, I could be retired by now with fewer crazy bosses.
Thanks for posting this, Ed. I hear you. Glad you at least get to work in a library now!
Apart from the decisions to marry husband No. 1 and 2, I regret not pursuing a creative writing path in my college years. Instead, I took the practical route becoming an accountant and CPA. Later in life I pursued my creative dreams, obtaining my MFA at 66. Yay, me! I also regret delaying retirement until age 70. Sometimes your ego gets in the way, hard to let go of the highly respectable, what you know and do very well. An Oldster, I now cherish every day I work with words, putting my thoughts onto paper. Or maybe the things I have to say are only available to me now, at this stage of life. Thanks for letting me share. Xoxo
I regret my terrible rebound relationship with a toxic abuser while separated from my ex-husband that had ugly consequences with a very long tail. I also regret leaving my stable place of employment back in 2011 to go into business with a friend without have done the research or had any real game plan. Ended in bankruptcy and destroyed the friendship. But my current life is amazing so I guess maybe those huge blunders were all part of the process?
Sorry you went through these things, Katie. But, yeah, I guess all the things we regret are part of who we are now...