What I have come to realize is that living a life completely free of regret is basically impossible. I am sure there are people far more clever than I am, and much younger, who have been perhaps reading my posts and screaming this simple message at me through their computers. The fact of the matter is, out of the 6 billion people on earth, I would imagine that only a handful would get to the end of their lives and think ‘I did everything right. I could not possibly have done anything different’. It is ridiculous to think a person who really lives their life could have no regrets. Well I am an idiot, and I have been regretting the fact that I have many regrets.
I realize that many of you may be growing tired of these posts with their tiny revelations (to me these are often full out bomb blasts of unseen reality, scary isn’t it). All I can say is sorry, and you have full permission to stop reading. Turn it off for the love of God. I get it. I just need to keep plugging away. How I’ve gone from someone who lived secretly hiding in the shadows and slowly gaining weight. Successfully hiding away I might add until I reached hermit status and 320 pounds. Fast forward to a man with a website, a book half done (and not bad), and a guy who posts the intimate details of his life for the world to see is staggering to me. I’ve accomplished goals (small ones) and in doing so have set astronomical future goals. In creating this vision I dealt myself an uppercut beyond anything I have felt before. The weight of the world now resting full force on my shoulders (self-inflicted) I have been stumbling around. Still, the man I was 3 years ago is gone. He actually hardly exists anymore save for the ability to think nothing I’ve done is good enough.
Now this has been hard on me. Its been a series of very high points and very low points, but the man I am now is very different. It’s taken me the same amount of time to realize that the person this has been hardest on is not me. Imagine living with someone for seventeen years and for fourteen of those years you knew the person well, and then three years later that person was gone. The man or woman you lived with and loved is just gone. What if you don’t like the new person? What if the new person doesn’t like you? What if you don’t know how to ask? What if you really don’t want to know the answer?
So here is this sweet, wonderful, lovely woman standing by, being supportive, conjuring a smile of encouragement, wondering the whole time who the hell is this guy? What happened to the guy who hated people and sat in a crowd quietly with little to say? How do I handle a person who was happy being himself, A man who was comfortable in his own skin, and now here is this over grown child frustrated by everything he has built? It must be incredibly difficult.
I guess all relationships go through their growing pains. There are people who manage to stay the same throughout their lives, and there are people who change at varying speeds. I would like to talk to some couples that have managed to weather the storms. Mostly, I would like to point out that the person I am lucky enough to be married to has been incredibly understanding. She is honest and true to her word, and she is kind and loving. There are no guarantees that she will want to be with me forever. As she is the first to point out - things change and you just never know. What I can say for sure is that I am 37 and for almost half my life I have been privileged to be with someone who loved me, and there is no one who could call that into question. The part that remains to be seen as always is where the future will take us. I can’t stop the changes. I don’t want to be that person who is stuck and afraid of life anymore. Perhaps that is a harsh evaluation of my former self, but looking back that is what it feels like.
Still, five years ago I would have told you I had everything. I would have told you that I didn’t want anything to change, and those words would have been 100% true. Today, I would say that I have everything, and I can’t see it staying the same. I don’t know what that means exactly. I just know that as things keep moving forward when I ask my wife if she still likes me, I just hope the answer is yes. I also know that there is a very good chance, due to the fact that I have changed so very much, the answer just might be no.
Whatever she decides I can honestly say that when it comes to my wife there are no regrets. She is crazy and loveable, she is head strong and honest, she has been my best friend for seventeen years and that time cannot be erased. We have built a wonderful life - that we quite frankly discussed tearing down brick by brick just yesterday. If she told me today that she couldn't be with me, it would hurt like hell, but it would be forever and always the best part of my life. Doesn't matter how much you can take life on the chin, sometimes you end up in the fetal position waiting for the pain to go away.
