Day 5: Tipping Scales

re·gret
/riˈgret/

Noun
A feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over something that has happened or been done.

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I don't know if what I feel today is regret or what. I guess....When I think of "regret", I think of wishing that something had never happened at all; I suppose that's the "repentance" aspect And boy have I been repenting, of a lot of wrong doing! Obviously sadness is going to be present- I lost something very unexpectedly with little explanation. Certainly "disappointment" is here, too- life as I've lived it for the past 14 months is done.

It's overwhelming. Let me preface this discussion by saying that my life has felt overwhelming for a while- I just had him to keep me company and lessen the burden. I felt encouraged. I felt like I wanted to be a better person. All of a sudden, the things that tormented me & kept me up at night were overshadowed by having someone on whom to focus my attention.

I changed. Some people say "oh, you shouldn't change for nothing or nobody!". If you see the opportunity to improve yourself, improve others, or have an overall better quality of life, wouldn't you change? And isn't that what friendship and love are about? I don't mean "change" as in got completely brand new; I mean "change" as in I did new things, explored new ideas, and tried my best to compromise & be open to a new world that he showed me.

I stopped going places that I would go to on a normal basis. I went to his gigs every week so that he would feel supported. I spent my days off and free time with him; I work 3 jobs, so that time was limited. Y'all, I cooked. Real food. I ain't never cooked in my life. Gravy, mashed potatoes, dessert, steak, most often from scratch. I took the southern sentiment that "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach" SERIOUSLY!

I didn't see this stuff as a sacrifice- I saw it as building blocks to a future. Right or wrong, that's what I thought.

So it's hard today to not feel like it was in vain....like I was disposable...like it didn't matter.

Besides feeling disposable, another source of regret is that we revealed very important things to the other after the break up. That's devastating to me because I feel that this could have been alleviated; we could have nipped trouble "in the bud" before it came to this. A seeming paradox lies in that we each say that "if we'd known", we could and acted....but even after the revelation, he says what's done is done and we can't act on it now. To me, that is fallacy. That is giving up. That is not even attempting to try.

He says that Sunday was the coup de grace- it was bound to happen, had it not occured sooner or if it happened months in the future. I say that Sunday was indeed thwartable- it was the result of not using wisdom, not being vocal when needed, and not listening when hearing the other was vital to the survival of us.

On one side, the inevitable: that which can not be avoided.

On the other side, the escapable: that which can be changed.

The scales wobble back as forth...and I have no idea on which scale we- or the "us" as we knew it- layed.