Regrets, happiness, and my depression had a very huge battle. As a teenager I was full of regrets and too depressed to try to fix anything so I just cried about everything that I had done that I wish I hadn’t.

I started dating at 12. It was not the greatest thing that all of my friends and the first boys that I dated were all 3 to 4 years older than I was. And that began some of my most regretted days.
I met my children’s father when I was 14. By the time I was 15 he had bought our engagement and wedding rings. That fall I didn’t go back to school and by Christmas we were engaged. By the time I got married in the spring I was expecting so that added to a little bit of the excitement. As the years passed the one thing I never regretted was having my children. They were wonderful babies and I love them to death and I would never ever ever change that.

Within a 10 year time period, my parents passed away, two weeks apart from each other, with lung cancer. My nephew drowned at my home which devastated everyone. My great uncle, passed away Easter morning. I was losing everyone that knew me as a child. And my marriage of 17 years to an alcoholic came to an end. My divorce lead to a horrible separation from my boys who were forced to pick a side. This led to seven years of being estranged from two of the most important people in my life.
So when I had to start living my life again, and seeking counseling, I decided that I would not ever have any regrets. I’d watched my mother and father struggle with regrets when they knew their time was near. Regretting past hurts of friends and relatives and siblings that they had never gotten a chance to resolve. I never wanted that to happen to me.

So when I got a small inheritance I didn’t safely put it away for old age , I booked a European tour first class. I had never even been on a plane before. That was in 2002 and I’ve had some really lean income days since then but I have never regretted spending that money.
I have made peace with old hates. Finding happy often means letting go of the past. Letting go of the things that we can’t change. Happiness is the ability to be thankful and grateful for everything you have. And if you are grateful and you do acknowledge all the wonderful things you have in your life, whether they are huge or very small, then you can go on and have no regrets at all.
But I guess I have to go back and say that there is one thing I do regret. Being sexually abused as a child I didn’t have the ability or the support to have it stopped. And as I got older it was harder and harder to think about, so nothing got resolved. And then as I got to be a young parent and I found out these men had gone into personal care homes or passed away, I regretted not being able to face them as an adult, as a woman, and say, “How could you have treated me like that! How could you have done that just for your own gratification!”
But almost sixty years has passed and I am at peace with me. I like me. I like the life I have chosen. And next spring I will graduate high school!! That was one of my last regrets that is being resolved. Tomorrow morning is Mathematics Grade 12 class. Graduation here I come!!