THINQon : Regret

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Anna Meyer

Regret

Latest Post: July 14, 2009 at 10:30 AM

4 followers

When I was much younger there was a boy in my classes I was really crazy about. We barely spoke, but no one before or since has ever had quite the same effect. The physical force of being around him was simply overwhelming for me. Not just a sexual attraction -- a personal one. I would get weak at the knees when I saw him walking with friends in the distance. It was quite unlike me.

We spoke here and there -- we had a lot of common friends. One blustery day we crossed paths and walked awhile in the same direction. I hoped it would last forever. When we arrived at the end of the road he asked me in for coffee, and I said no, I had some errands to do (which was true).

To this day I have no idea what possessed me. Of course it ended things.

Many many years later, I am very happy with someone else, but I have no real way of making sense of that moment, which still troubles me. Sometimes I tell myself "you sensed something -- you knew it wouldn't work. That moment made possible your current happiness". But surely this can't be true -- the fact is that I simply threw away a great possibility. It is a miracle that other possibilities existed as well, but I couldn't have known that then.

How does one make sense of these small, useless destructions? What is the use of regret?

This post is referenced by the following other contributors:

Anna Meyer	in "A new country, a rebirth / A new country, a rebirth"	(International Room)
Chris Utterman	in "Dealing with missed oportunities"	(The Living Room)
Imogen Adler	in "How do you know if you're in a rebound relationship / Is HE in a Rebound Relationship?"	(Bedroom)

Reply to:

Layla Tov

March 2009

11 followers

Hi, Anna, I don't have an answer I'm afraid. I have so many of these little regrets, especially regarding my adolescence. Look at it this way: it could have been great, or it could have spoiled the magic. You'll never know, of course, but sometimes it helps to remember that you asserted yourself somehow, even if negatively, you made a decision back then, it was you who said no, for whatever reason, instinct or fear or a random reaction. Thinking back to those boy and girl, don't be bitter for the missed chance, but love the two youngsters for what they decided to leave suspended. You never know: you could meet him again and start from that missed coffee. Or, more probably, you could simply understand more about yourself yesterday and what you want today.

Reply to: or

Solveig Wright, Where to begin?

April 2, 2009 at 2:41 AM

33 followers

So I thought as we were invoking the poets that Wordsworth should make an appearance. Here, from the Ode (Intimations of Immortality). Forgive the long excerpt, but he captures so beautifully the quality of lament. Anna, I know your regret is not so wide-ranging, but still, I think, all regrets have something of the same spark:

"THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
    The earth, and every common sight,
            To me did seem
    Apparell'd in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
        Turn wheresoe'er I may,
            By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

        The rainbow comes and goes,
          And lovely is the rose;
        The moon doth with delight
    Look round her when the heavens are bare;
        Waters on a starry night
        Are beautiful and fair;
    The sunshine is a glorious birth;
    But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth..."

[and then surely one of the saddest lines in English (line 182):]

"Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
      We will grieve not..."

This post is referenced by the following other contributors:

Solveig Wright

in "In Love with being In Love"

(The Living Room)

Reply to: or

Edna Stern

July 14, 2009 at 10:30 AM

87 followers

Usually when I play my concerts, one of my duties is to take my little recorder zoom H4 and record my performance in order to use it later and to learn from it (what not to do the next time). And usually, I am procrastinating the moment of listening (I am never completely happy), and if by chance the recording didn’t work, I feel relieved. Yesterday I regretted that recording my concert didn’t work. I played Schumann Concerto and had such an excellent orchestra and conductor (Ion Marin and the National Philharmonic of Russia) that I felt the burns of regret on how this moment was simply gone.

I often regret my mistakes but I also keep reminding myself that some of the best things that happened to me were precisely their result, which helps to keep a rational perspective on things. But in that case (of my last concert) there was no ambiguity, it was just a miss.

I suppose the use of regret is to make us wiser, and alert to the different possibilities before they happen.