Regret

I suppose most thinking people have regrets. It's possible, however, that only I have regrets and offer their existence as universal in some propitious effort to mollify my personal responsibility for all the purely selfish things I have done which have scarred those I claimed to love or have loved. Yet, because I not only regret things I have done but also regret many things that have been done to me, I reiterate my suggestion that we all fall short of perfection, though some, like me, far shorter than others.

For me regrets, like sins, can be either mortal or venial. It's not as though the venial one's don't count but they are nearly impossible to distinguish when lined up beside the mortal ones. Still, in the process of purification in which humans ought to be actively engaged, as we resolve the mortal regrets and repent, the lesser ones get bigger and brighter and louder.

For the first 29 years of my life I had the notion that personal perfection was within my grasp if I could just overcome the slings and arrows of the flesh and mortality. My motivation was clearly misguided, however. The drive toward goodness was fed by my fear of punishment.

When I was a child I tried always to tell the truth, get good grades, watch all the "P's" and "Q's" and be a good boy so my mother wouldn't scream and hit me and so she wouldn't report my infractions to my father who would, without screaming, do his part to follow the lead established by Torquemada and torture the devil out of me in ingeniously insidious ways. I didn't know my mother was mentally ill then nor did I know my father was a sadist. I thought all parents were the same and, therefore, tried to be pure before all of them. I was successful with all except my own who, even when I was truly innocent, could color my innocence in purple grey until I would confess sin I had not committed.

At 15, my father stuck me for the last time although my mother remained insane for 3 more decades. At 15 I decided realized I was physically bigger and stronger than my father and, apparently, so did he. His dungeon deeds became confined to his imagination while my mother's white rages, though worse and worse, were aimed at him and my younger sisters because I had learned how to become invisible.

For the next 14 years, however, I continued trying to be perfect but still with mangled motivation. If I were the best at everything, everyone would love me... What choice would they have?

During those years I had enjoyed some sweet communion with God but that wasn't even a factor most of the time.

A short time before my 30th birthday I had an evil ephiphany. I determined that I had wasted a lot of years trying to pretend to be something I was not; something no one can be... And this was the birth of the list of my mortal regrets.

I could list them but I won't.

To those I hurt during my decade of debauchery, I offer my deepest apologies; knowing how truly inadequate the gesture is. I cannot take any of it back no matter how I wish I could. So all I can do is pray for a few pearls in the mud.

I can hope what I did the many I love toughened them without destroying them. Since I know and am in contact with most, I believe, for the most part, that that is correct. Unlike the father of the boy named Sue, however, I left you no legacy to help you along. That came from others who were there when I was not; either spiritually, physically, or both.

For the better part of the past 2 decades I have been trying daily to repent. I have felt the sweet consolation of forgiveness from those who should not have been able to forgive. I have yearned for the same from others who are distant; others who must feel abandoned. But that yearning is not a selfish one, as it once would have been, but rather borne from the knowledge that forgiving heals the offended as well as the offender.

My motivation is also better now. I have felt the arms of God around me at my lowest, weakest moment and learned that He loves me not just in spite of my sins, but even, a little, because of them. He has purchased me with His stripes with no motivation other than love for me. Now, I try to repay Him for the same reason.

I once was lost but am finding my way back; was blind, but am beginning to see.

Unlike Sinatra whose regrets are too few to mention, mine are legion... too many to mention. But my joy is growing until, I am sure, it will, one day, be complete. My hope is for those whom I have injured, that they can find a way to forgive and find that same joy.