on regret

"I may have forgotten, the name and the address, of everyone I've ever loved, but there's nothing I regret."  So goes the fabulous New Order song.  Regrets are strange things.  Many people have regrets, guilt that ways on their consciences, choices they wished they'd made.  I'm with the New Order; I have no regrets.  Well, actually I have some, but I don't wish I'd made different decisions:

1.  In 1984 I lived in Phoenix, Arizona which was evidently quite a gay metropolis, teeming with gay bars, dance clubs, and sex-cruising areas.  I was completely oblivious.  I was gay, nineteen, and living in a thriving gay culture without even realizing it.  And the drinking age was nineteen at the time!  However, if I'd actually gone out back then, at the height of the pandemic, I'd probably have contracted something.  I'd also not be the person I grew up to be and therefore I wouldn't have met and fallen in love with my partner of 19 years.  So, although I kind of regret not "living it up" back then, I certainly wouldn't change a thing!

2.  As my mother first started her treatments for breast cancer, the family went to the Portland Japanese Gardens.  In order to get to them one must climb a fairly steep stairway or take a very long serpentine ramp.  We decided to climb the stairs.  My mother needed many breaks to catch her breath and I remember thinking "you're so out of shape and this is why the disease attacked you so easily".  I immediately regretted thinking it.  However, I realize I was going through one of the typical stages: anger.  I was angry with my mother for allowing cancer to get her.  This was ridiculous, but not extraordinary.  I regret having the feeling, but I forgive myself for being normal.

3.  In 2006 I started my own firm and left the comfortable employ of a local architect.  The working conditions weren't bad or anything, I had just had enough of working for someone else.  Immediately I had contracts galore and was raking in the cash.  Robert quit his job in 2008 and devoted his time to helping with the business.  We bought an old building with surplus cash in order to "fix it up" and make it our new offices.  Everything was golden.  Then the economy tanked and all the contracts dried up.  People went bankrupt left and right and everyone was hurting.  It's been a difficult time trying to climb out of the hole we went into.  However, I know we're better off than some people out there, and if I'd have stayed at the old firm I probably would have been laid off and Robert would have been more miserable having to toil away in a public sector job.

So that's pretty much it.  I really don't have any real regrets.  I haven't done anything so terrible to someone that I've needed forgiveness or have been eaten up with guilt.  Changing my past decisions would have led me down different paths, but none of them would have made me the man I am today.  And you know what?  I like me.