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If you had a chance, just one chance, to go back and fix what you did wrong in life, would you take it? And if you did, would you be big enough to stand it?

Regret was not in my vocabulary. I’ve lived by the credo that if you did something, you suck it up. You don’t regret doing it and you live to it, learn from it, just plainly suck it. I’ve made a lot of mistakes back then, things I never imagined I would do … thing people I love and care about never imagined me to do. No matter how they scold me, cried about it and present me the facts, no way I’m going to say sorry for me doing it. Sorry because I hurt some people but not sorry that I ever did it. I did it because it was a choice of mine. I did it because at that moment I thought it was right. If it wasn’t, then screw me; and then I’ll learn from it. I knew that mistakes made me a better person. I knew I wasn’t born perfect. By the age of 12 I knew that I was bound to make mistakes. The difference between me and other people is that I don’t regret it. I don’t like regret. It’s something that slowly kills you as if the drama I have isn’t enough.

I thought regret only existed in the form of ‘what you did wrong’ because that was how it seemed for the past years of my life – always what I did that wasn’t right, always what I decided that was wrong. That’s the kind of thing I could live with.

But I never thought that there was a second kind of regret – the kind in which you didn’t do. Something you’ve missed out. And now I know I’m not made out for this kind of regret – those days when you missed the signs or simply chose to ignore it; those moments when you didn’t listen to the damned poets who urged us to ‘seize the day.’ How the hell could you seize a day, anyway? I guess the saddest words are those of could have beens, would have beens, should have beens. The could have been kisses and the would have been I loves you and should have been alone moments.

At first I honestly didn’t know what to do with regrets like these. Regrets like these are things you can’t just suck up and say you’ve learned – truth is, you’ve learned nothing because you didn’t do anything in the first place. And what do you do when it hits you in the face and kicks you in the gut – that one day, one time you learned that you should have, could have and would have. I don’t know. Seriously. How do you pick yourself up? How do you hold yourself up? Life’s unfair? I know. I know that since what … since I’ve been set up or maybe even before that.

Is it time to ‘seize the day,’ say what you mean and finally get over it? Is there really such a thing as too late? Or do we hold onto the adage that comforts us and say ‘better late than never.’ Can we really justify what we failed to do, what we should have done back then to a matter of just being late?

I don’t know.

All I know is despite how it hurts to regret, I am glad to have known and I am glad to hold on to the better late than never adage. God has plans, right? And I trust that. Whatever it is that was too late or too soon. Whatever it is that seems impossible. There are reasons why we did things before and that is to learn. If that’s the case, then maybe there are reasons why we didn’t do things before and to what purpose – I’m sorry, I don’t know. But there is a purpose and there is a reason and whatever it is, I believe, is worth it and even more precious.

And about seizing the day? I guess we can’t really seize the day and know it at the same time. Sometimes you realize it way, way after time; way too late and that’s when we realize we should have seized it. Few people are granted these days and I am one of them – to have realized and to have known. That day back then, I should have seized it. I should have taken it. I didn’t for many reasons.

I may not be able to claim the prize now or maybe not ever. I wish I could but I can’t. And that’s the regret it that but it’s better than not knowing at all. The future is vague and feelings are complex. You’ll never know is second chances hit and if it does … I’m going to seize it.

If you had a chance, just one chance, to go back and fix what you did wrong in life, would you take it? And if you did, would you be big enough to stand it?

Yes, I will take it and I would be big enough to stand it.

Then, I’ll treasure it forever. And would seize it.

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Posted anonymously, 14th September 2014