Jolt Country

What is the greatest regret of your life? (So far.)

And, unless you're real old, I don't mean shit like, "I never got to throw a booger off the Eiffel Tower", because there's plenty of time, and quit whining. I mean, of the stuff you've done so far, what do you regret doing the most?

The one time I visited the World Trade Center, I was pretty severely hungover and didn't really appreciate the experience. I ended up vomiting, which sort of compounds it all.

My greatest regret, though, is mistreating the sweetest girl I ever dated.

Greg

Left SU too early.

Oh, where to begin.

1) Fucking up almost every important friendship I've ever had with my immaturity.

2) Partying my way through college, because, I knew I wasn't mature enough to take school seriously, but to not be there would have meant being home. Not an option. So, 8 years later: grad school, not an option.

3) Not going straight back to work after I lost my last job. I thought I had a couple months to figure things out, and I had alot of savings in the bank, but then the cat needed an operation and my truck got impounded and I left the place I lived and had to hand over alot of money to stay somewhere else, at which point, I had to move again and now find myself with no safety net in a state that is too hot to actually go outside in, even though it is an incredibly beautiful place.

Those are the big ones. If I had to rank them, I'd say fucking up school is my biggest regret. I had a full scholarship and everything. Everyone in my family expected me to do something great and noble and wonderful. Now it's too late.

I'd like to change my vote from what it was to "READING THIS THREAD."

Wait. One more change. Not putting a "ROFL" or a "RUGGLES" there so people would know that I was kidding.

That is the greatest regret of my life.

Christminster. This ia an awful question for me. Here's story time:

1. Dicking around on my college application process my senior year because I didn't want to be like all the other obnoxious academic mercenaries who were in the AP classes I was taking, and consequently winding up at my third choice school in rural Iowa surrounded by people I would quickly grow to loathe.

2. Not calling the number the absolutely adorable redhead in my creative writing class senior year left in my yearbook because I was somehow absolutely incapable of comprehending the fact that someone I was so thoroughly enamoured with might have somehow developed an interest in me.

3. Letting the aforementioned loathing and my own worse tendencies turn me into a total shut in for three quarters of the school year, and consequently failing out of state school, without even getting to enjoy the year of drunken parties that precedes most people getting failing out of school.

Cut to two years later, and I'm working as the world's most unkempt bank teller, when in walks this girl, as absolutely adorable as ever We chat for a while, catch up on old times, and I'm starting to think I might finally get to make reparations for number 2... when she casually mentions she's getting married the next weekend.

***

But, I kind of side with Spinoza when he said that he who repents is twice miserable. As much as I'd like all sorts of things about my circumstances to change, they're much more likely to do so in the future than they are in the past.

pinback wrote:What is the greatest regret of your life? (So far.)

This is a repeat from another time, another place, but I suppose it bears repeating and some slight embellishment.

It was the the last Valentine's day that I can say that I enjoyed and it was, in a way, a lifetime ago. I can comprehend, now, how fragile youth and optimism is, but of course such wisdom was wholly foreign to me back then. Hers was a cute, dimpled beauty, a beauty that I had the benefit of seeing day-to-day as she went from overcool, ultra-hip girl to a bright, funny, and witty young woman. On our last "Valentine's Day," I recall a quick trip to the mall where I purchased a two small trinkets intended to be "the faux gifts." A little CD from a now-forgotten band singing about Breakfast at Tiffany's, and a giant Hershey's chocolate heart. We had been a "couple" for a two whole years at that point, and I noticed how unimpressed -- yet trying so hard to not show it -- that she was... but she failed to notice the twinkle in my eye, the continual jester's cradle in my posture as I presented those two little gifts.

I then took her hand and we went back to my truck. I opened the back and gave her the giant "Scream" print that she had mentioned being in favor of weeks before. She aired the cutest, most precious little squeal of happiness and threw her arms around me and kissed me. We hung the print, of course oblivious to how common it really is, but it's okay, for when you're 19 that's still a pretty cool thing to have around.

But that was our last. The doubt in her eyes? Our inability to ever make a leap to faith together doomed us. When her joy was at its pinnacle and I congratulated my own self on my just-in-time wit, not once did I have the actual wit to tell her that I loved her with all my heart and everything that I had.

When I was a toddler, the trick on Valentine's Day was to get as many cards as possible. They'd have those little check boxes on them, and they'd say "Do you like me? []Yes []No []Maybe." And that was good for the time. But I can't help think that the only difference between those days and those I slink about currently is the addition of a single box. One that simply says, in addition to the others, [] Like? Sure, but more, I love... deeply, completely and truly.

And that I could never find the nerve to check that box and deliver the card myself is my greatest regret.


digital depression

Mother brought us over. There were for of us. Mother, Father, Nicholas and myself. We were flying in from York. To New York!

We saw all the sights. The Statue of Liberty. Times Square. Mother stated how she wanted to see everything on the trip, and that included a night on Broadway and, of course, the Twin Towers.

We went to the show at night and the next day to see them. Nicholas left the taxi first. "James!" he exclaimed. "They are breathtaking! They are majestic! They touch the sky!" His enthusiasm was infectous.

Mother paid the taxi cab driver and we left the cab. Father struggled behind, thanks to his lame leg from the war. Mother threw her hands over my eyes and I ran, laughing, along with her to the north tower. "It's striking, James!" she whispered to me.

"Mother! Let me see! Please!"

And she did.

She removed her hands. I got my bearings and found the base of the tower. I remember hearing a scream from Nicholas as I traced my eyesight up, up, and away, but confused it for squeals of excitement and joy. My head went back as I took in the full view of the Tower...

... and was struck by a hateful downpour of dis-gusting human bile, stomach acid, half-digested food and Fat Tire brand alcoholic beverage that rained over me.

What do I regret? I regret ever looking skyward at the Two Towers.


--one eye'd jimmy

God, I LOVE Fat Tire.

I regret not calling people on their horseshit more often. This was explicitly true throughout high school.

There was a relationship I fucked up really badly, along with a lot of the rest of my life at the time, for no really good reason, and, well, that'd be it.

Bruce

In hindsight, I regret every time I accessed this board when there were walking, talking humans within 2 blocks of me. I regret answering 'Hey, why are you laughing at the monitor all the time?', 'What's this page I always see up?' and 'Can I look?' and 'Who's this Pinback douche you always talk about?'

HA HA! I'm kidding Kids! (no I'm not) HA HA COME ON IN, THE WATER'S PERFECT! (drown)

never being able to get something going with Tracy.

And having to grow up thus loosing the best two summers of life, 1993 and 1994. Worked Cine 8 from 10 am to 4 pm and then shuffing down to the Driving Range (Behind Sullivans) to work from 5pm till 11 or 12 and all the characters and antics before, during and after each shift.

yeah I know there really isn't a complete sentence in there.

I regret losing everything that was ever important to me.

I regret choosing a school just based on the fact that my best friend went to college there. The school sucked.

I also regret not taking up golf, when I was little. I could have a really good scholarship to a school right now. If I had been good that is.

There should only be one greatest regret.

I guess my regret would be starting off college doing the living at home, commuter thing.

Or maybe I should have taken better care of my grandma before she died.

One of those two.