Three Regrets

As one who makes mistakes on a regular basis, I try not to litter my heart with crippling regrets. I carry three to date that refuse to be buried. I fail to discern if they are now permanent elements of my personality, or if I am simply not seeing the lessons that keep them fresh in my mind.

Julliard

Scott

Daniel

Julliard was my first choice for study after high school. In retrospect, I should perhaps instead bemoan the fact that I ignored all the personality exams qualifying me best suited to be a physicist, but as an oboist, vocalist and award-winning dramatic artist, I could see no better sanctuary than Julliard to hone my passions into a blissful lifelong career.

My parents, bless their hearts, saw me careening toward the edge of the nest and did their best to keep me from plunging headlong into the maw of all the world's predators, both real and imagined. When I reported the amount of automatic academic scholarship awarded me by Julliard based on my ACT scores, and asked permission to schedule an audition for oboe and voice scholarships, I was shut down with such ferocity that my poor little dream withered in the wake of my parents' horror. Was I insane? Scholarships or not, talented or not, did I think a little rube from the backwoods would stand a chance in The Big City? I would be snatched up, raped, murdered and thrown into the East River within an hour of stepping off the plane.

No. A massively emphatic NO.

I was too soft at the time to know that certain aspirations are the foundation of our very selves, and that if they are allowed to die, one begins crumbling slowly into the mud. I tucked away my visions of swimming euphorically in history's great masterworks from my oboists chair in the world's most revered orchestras, I dropped my head and tried not to think of that beautiful feeling when one's voice pours out and fills an auditorium of appreciative ears.

I went on humbly and fully financed myself through three years at a close-by Baptist university. I kept myself busy winning awards for interpretation of poetry, prose and drama, but the lackluster mid-Missouri life sucked the very desire for greatness from my soul, and I ultimately dropped out to distract myself from disappointment with booze, short-term promiscuity and self-mutilation.

***

Scott was born four days after me, to my mother's aunt. Even as small children, we were obvious soulmates, opting to sit quietly and talk while the other children ran riot in the yard. Without fail we greeted and departed with warm hugs.

As I entered the university, Scott followed his father's footsteps into the military. I often wonder if he, too, lacked the passion for his path that I did, but he faced the service with determination. My sophomore year and his second year as a private, we penned letters back and forth for a time, until I moved from the dorms into my own apartment and found myself busied with work, school, competitions and playing oboe in the church orchestra.

I missed my missives from Scott, but as an ignorant young adult, I assumed that I would always be able to pick up the train again once my life calmed. Several months into my dreadful self-absorbed post-university descent, I received a call from my parents. Scott had killed himself. He had just been promoted to corporal. He had been found in his chair at home with the pistol in hand.

I can't write more about this right now. It should be easy enough to surmise the shape of my regret.

***

I met Daniel soon after moving to Oregon. I immediately disliked him, as he rather cheekily invaded my personal space and touched my ass, then laughed at my discomfort. He looked eerily similar to the fawn in Pan's Labyrinth, though at the time I wouldn't have made that association, as that movie wouldn't be released for five years. He was half Cantonese and half British, and an albino to boot, with horrible gnarled teeth the shade of dirty dishwater. And he was always smiling. He was also nearly blind, but had an uncanny ability to take photographs that captured the essence of the scene he couldn't really see.

Daniel subsidized his small income selling fried rice at Saturday Market by selling weed, so of course I met him via my husband's many head friends. In time I warmed to his familiar nature, but I never felt fully at ease with him, as he attributed some great beauty and power to me that I found highly suspicious. Yet as the years passed, I found myself growing to appreciate his uniquely offbeat personality, and we became heartfelt friends.

There was a point in time when Daniel approached me about "subsidizing" his income by letting him share a house with my husband and me. We didn't have children at the time and in retrospect, the situation would probably have been delightful, but I let some strange belligerence rule me and denied him, even though I knew he was struggling and that he had mustered a great deal of courage to even ask. Shortly thereafter, I bought a new car, and Daniel saw the commitment of funds to a machine as an enormous betrayal. In typical fashion, when faced with his anger I simply stopped seeing him, using my silence and absence to drive the hurt deeper.

Reconciliation began the week my eldest was a week old. At his behest, we brought Mars for a visit, and of course, he fell in love with the little bull. During the six months that followed, we saw one another again randomly, as he would drop by the house to see the baby and while away a few hours. 

When we moved to Veneta to escape what we considered at the time to be intrusions by our many friends, Daniel's visits ended. Two months later, my husband's birthday came, and he dropped by Daniel's cramped apartment across from the library for a quick visit, but unusually, no Daniel came to answer his knock. A day later we received a call from a friend that she had found Daniel dead on his floor. By all estimations, he had probably been dead when my husband attempted his visit.

I had let a beloved friend, who saw more value in me than I saw in myself, go to his death with the pain of my anger in his heart. I regret this deeply.

***

The past is locked, so I can do little more than learn from my mistakes, but writing these thoughts down today helps me considerably. The force of my will is sometimes stronger than any situation requires, and I must learn how to put this force to better ends, lest I compile more regrets than these three.