ROVING I "Regrets, I've Had a Few..."

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I recently read somewhere that as we age, we regret the things we haven’t done and wish we had more than the things we have done and wish we hadn’t. It got me thinking about some of the choices I’ve made in my life. I realized that there are things I’ve opted out of (having kids, going to graduate school) that might always haunt me. I’ll never know what my life would have been like had I chosen to do these things instead of just thinking about doing them. But I also have my share of regrets about things I did that I can’t undo, like saying hurtful things to people I love and bullishly trying to make my friends and loved ones see things my way, instead of trying to see things their way in order to empathize with them.

But enough with the philosophizing. Here for your bemusement and/or amusement are a few of the things that in hindsight I truly regret having done:

  1. Getting my hair cut in a Dorothy Hamill wedge style in high school. Not only did I look like a complete dork with that hairstyle, but who did I think I was fooling? I couldn’t have ice skated if my life depended on it. I still can’t. Seriously. If I had to ice skate for my life, I’d be dead (frozen) meat.
  2. Moving into a dorm my senior year of college. Seriously, what was I thinking? Sane people move off campus when they’re getting close to graduating. Yours truly foolishly moved onto campus, mainly because I wanted to be able to walk to my classes. However, the proximity to classes was offset by having to share a dorm floor with young women who liked to “party,” and sharing my room with a woman three years younger, cuter, and livelier than I was, which made me feel even more stodgy and unattractive than I already did at that point in my life.
  3. Spending my extra money on audio CDs instead of bank CDs. I’ve never been very good with money. Whenever I have a little extra in my pocket that I should put in the bank, I tend to spend it on stuff like clothes, makeup, and jewelry. And music. As a result of my inability to discipline myself financially, I have a large collection of music CDs and only a small amount of money saved. This was cool when I was in my twenties and the future was light years away, but now that I’m in my sixth decade, it’s downright worrisome. I guess I could try to sell my CD collection on Ebay, but how many people are going to want to buy CDs by groups with names like "Men without Hat"s or "Martha and the Muffins"? (Yes, these are real band names. I didn’t make them up. Seriously.)

I’d like to say that I have learned from these and other “mistakes” I’ve made. However, if I’m being completely honest, I currently wear my hair in a style that’s not too far removed from the infamous wedge, and I still buy CDs when I feel like there’s too much money in my wallet. And if I ever get up the nerve to go to graduate school, I wouldn’t completely rule out living on campus. Seriously.

aging, bad-haircuts, college-years, no-regrets, regrets, roving-i, spending-money