Je Ne Regrette Rien...

It sounds so much better in French..."I regret nothing..."  And as I sit here this morning, I do not, that is, regret anything.  I am grateful for it all.  The swirling vortex of shit I have rained down on my life.  The false starts, the overreaching failures, the missteps, the love given but unreturned, the trust I placed in people who were not worthy or appreciative.  All of the things I have done, not done and everything.

And today I feel like regret is just the most wasted emotion.  Like somehow feeling like you would take something back or do it differently is the largest misuse of your life.  We CANNOT!  We cannot so why waste the time regretting?  

Also, for me, regret implies a sticking to the past, a getting stuck on old things and behaviors that cannot be changed.  The orientation to life is fixed in the inappropriate time...we stay mired in the past where we can do nothing and fail to remain in our present, which is where we can and will do everything.  Here and now is where we have the agency to change those things that didn’t come off very well.  But instead of being present and seeing where we need to make adjustments to our current manner of living, we spend all this time going over the past as if it has the power to unlock that which is barred currently.  It doesn’t, that is a present sense issue.  We have to change in today.  Sure the past can absolutely provide guidance.  My mom always says, “look back but do not stare...”  Good advice I think.

I am thinking I do not regret anything because I am really quite content with who and how I am today.  Life is unfolding in unexpected ways but I am here for it all. Feeling it, living it, adjusting to all the hardship and pain and discomfort.  And I am ok within it all.  I do not need anything to be different, it is all ok, even if I do not like things, even if I want something to be different.

I think lately I am acutely aware of how much there will never be that place I have longed for for so long.  I cannot get to the place where my career, financial situation, family life, friend group, body image, aging process, love life, a place where all of it is going gangbusters and I am killing it in every area.  This is just not possible, not for me, not for anyone.  Even if I might land in a place where I might think it is all going the way I want, I know, all too well, the bottom can and will fall out at any time.  This is why I must be happy now.  With things not exactly as I would like them to be.  For things to just be happy regardless of the external circumstances...

There is a Zen parable, where a woman is being chased by tigers and she comes to a cliff, and she sees there are also tigers below.  There is nothing to do but jump, but then she sees a branch that she can hang onto, away from the rapidly approaching tigers...and so she crawls out onto it.  And then she notices a little mouse that is gnawing away at the branch...which will surely land her in the tiger below situation.  But then she sees this lovely, brilliant, perfect strawberry growing right there out of the side of this cliff, and so she pops it in her mouth and she savors it.

Tigers above, tigers below, there is uncertainty all around us all the time.  So much cause for fear and worry, but all we can do is accept this as being exactly as it is supposed to be...and enjoy the gifts of life wherever we may find ourselves, no matter how precarious and deadly that might be.

I love this parable.  It reminds me that she could be out there on the limb, berating herself for going outside and getting into this whole mess with the tigers...but she isn’t.  She is proactive and attempts to solve the problem, which really only delays the inevitable, that she will die.  And instead of getting all torqued up about that, she finds some happiness and joy and relishes in that for the moment it is there.

I am not sure I can do this all the time, forever.  But I do think I do it most of the time.  I do not have a job.  Not sure how that is all going to work out.  But I am spending my time productively:  working when I can, going to the gym, hiking with the dog, spending quality time with my mom, Grace and my friends.  I am sad about my dad and his death, but I spend most days remembering the good times and being supported and feeling the love that was always present but sometimes long fought and hard won...I absolutely feel like I am out on the limb...but I am enjoying the fuck out of that strawberry!

I do not know what will come next.  And that is ok.  I trust that right action, follows right action and sometimes it comes even after wrong action. After I have failed, fucked up, totally screwed everything up!  Sometimes the best plot twists come right after I have decimated everything.

Je Ne Regrette Rien...

For this life I have today is the best I have ever had, lived, held, loved, cared for, experienced...and I know if I stay the course, my life will undulate with loss and sorrow, happiness and glee, pain and hardship, and love and a great deal of laughter, because that is what it is to be alive.  Here for all of it: the tigers above and the tigers below, that little fucking mouse that is going to ruin any chance of salvation...but I can close my eyes and savor the fuck out of that strawberry while I can, while I am alive, and present and regretting nothing...

Again, still...