regrets, I've had a few (million)

I am having that day where all I feel is embarrassment and regret. 


Not just the kind of regret where I drank too many beers, became chatty about a world of personal things, and ended up revealing information to a person I will never almost certainly see again. Or the kind where the child runs around and around the house looking for that toy that makes all that noise but I have secretly put it in the bin because it gives me a headache.
I'm talking about the kind of feeling where you are walking along, and you take a sharp intake of breath as your brain hits upon a painful humiliation. You are practically wincing with the memory of what you did. You can't believe it! It doesn't fit with your view of yourself at all. 

In fact, if people knew about that thing, they may really take a step back and say, whaaaa?!? Are you sure you did that?? That doesn't sound like you. 


But secretly, it is you. It it is completely and utterly YOU. 


I like to believe I am happy, friendly and completely, you know, awesome. Blogs help us feel that way. You can talk about yourself all day long and nobody gets to say ANYTHING!


But then you have a day like this, which knocks you back on your arse and makes you say, okay, alright, I'm not all that. I'm basically like Bender without the moral to the story. (Not that I don't love Bender, because I do. I'm only human.)


So what am I regretting? What is giving me this feeling?

• So many fights with my stepdaughter where I was wrong. And acted wrongly. 
• The times in the past I slept with people that I shouldn't have and messed up their hearts. And I was not honourable.
• The fact that I am sometimes horribly homophobic and hate myself, even as I am pretending its okay to make jokes about me being gay. And I participate in my own oppression. This makes it all the more difficult for others who are gay.
• Sometimes I defend people and their opinions when really what I need to say is,
  "just stop talking because what you are saying is not okay."

And many, many more. Sometimes I am so caught in these spirals I spend time saying under my breath, stopitstopitstopit! And mentally hitting myself with sticks.

So today I am instead trying to say breathebreathebreathe - these things happened, they were things. They were just things. It isn't happening right now. This is all just experiences. I am practicing the art of letting go. 


And I guess the other thing to keep saying is, this is not final. Maybe by talking all of this through I will be able to loosen my grip and let go that idea of "this is me" and "I am like this" and maybe open new possibilities for who I could become. 


It's a good time to remake myself, I guess. Now I just need to work out who I want to become, and hope its not like who I have been.