I Live In a World of Regret

I’ve done alright in my life, nothing fancy but no known murders either.  I said known.

I don’t have any regrets related to food or eating that live much longer than the tummy ache after Thanksgiving gorging.

Only a few moments in my life come back to me as still entirely shameful after an extended period of time.

Once in 1988, yes 1988, I was ice skating and crashed into a young lady from Arkansas.

Now I was a young man at the time and attempting to be flirtatious.  Having been born in Minnesota and growing up with skates, literally learned to skate before riding a bicycle, I was far and away the most impressive of skaters on the ice in Atlanta, GA that day.  She was not a particularly good skater and I wish I could tell you now that it was entirely accidental or in some way misinterpreted but the end result was me, a man of substantial size knocking a woman of much less size completely off the ice and onto her posterior.  She was shaken up but not seriously injured and I was painfully ashamed.  One of the two things that thinking of it today still makes me feel like a class A asshat.

The other was more a moment of intellectual stupidity and cruelty than any physical harm, but much to the point of harm not always a bruise.  The question was asked, “Does this outfit make me look fat?” and the year was 1998 or so.  Now as we could see a decade ago I was not at all smooth in interacting with others, female or male but both of these moments in my life were with women.  Today I can see it so obviously and think hard to clear my memory of what I actually responded. 

So easy to have just said, “No, you look great.”  Right?  Simple and not over the line, at this point it’s in and office environment and we were somewhat familiar coworkers though not friends.  To be fair I haven’t many of those and these examples of my conduct might explain why.

Notice how I am stalling on what I really said on the stupid morning more than a decade ago?  Yeah, it’s probably worse than you think.

I said, “No, it’s the fat that makes you look fat.”

Mother-F*ck*r!  That is what I am.  Not literally.

Maybe she was fishing for a compliment; maybe she was just feeling a little bit vulnerable about her appearance that day.  Doesn’t matter why she asked all that matters is that I was terrible in that moment, in that response, and it still makes me feel sick and awful for having said it.

Now I am past four decades old and those two things, those two incredibly awful moments, are the two things that I regret the most in the whole world.  Both are entirely self-inflicted and had casualties in harm to others and I replay them in my head every couple of days or out of nowhere after a few months.

Anything else I’ve done wrong in my life doesn’t stick in my memory much, certainly not the harm others have done to me.  I can’t even recall the worst thing that has happened to me caused by someone else.

I hope that is the same for those two people.

Even though it is worthless now, I am sorry.

Later.