Q. What's it like looking back at something you regret that's nearly a decade old?
A. Well, first of all, I kind of hate that regrets have birthdays. Or anniversaries. These are things for kids and dogs and sweet old Italian couples from Queens who've been married 50 years and want to slow dance to Sinatra.
Even so, it's high time, if only because I never fully process anything unless I write about it. There's an incredible feeling of relief right up next to a feeling of vulnerability, because even being anonymous here, I do plan on telling some people I trust about this site so they can read along. And that's frightening. But this is my forum, and my story, and I'm typing with my own two hands, so the sense of ownership gives me a solid place to stand.
My therapist (who is amazing, BTW) has heard me talking about the need to write about this for at least two years now. The last time we had a session, I told her I was starting to feel a bit like Miss Havisham, a character in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Miss Havisham got jilted at the altar, and she never moved on. She kept her wedding dress on for the rest of her life, and never cleared the wedding feast, and just kind of stewed in pining and longing and regret for the literal rest of her life.
I read that book the summer before 8th grade. It was assigned reading, so it felt like this enormous weight around my neck all summer, but I eventually got into this habit of taking the book down to my grandmother's house and flopping on the bed in her front room and forcing myself to read a chapter at a time. Then I got to Miss Havisham. I can still see the exact picture in my head that I created for her cobwebbed parlor, and the table laden with a wedding feast gone to rot. I remember the cake, tilted to the side and nibbled by rats, and the image of her in a musty, fragile wedding gown too big for her bony wrists.
I don't want to be Miss Havisham. So I'm glad to look into the rearview mirror, where objects certainly are closer than they appear. It's high time to move through this and past this and make some space for new triumphs and mistakes-- and hopefully help someone out there who's been through a traumatic affair or spiritual abuse herself.
First image description: A road and setting sun amidst clouds in the sky can be been in a rear-facing mirror on the side of a car.
First image credit: "Sunsetting in Rearview Mirror, South Dakota" by Arthur Chapman is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.
Second image description: In a diorama of an elegant parlor, a wraith-like Miss Havisham floats suspended in profile, peering as if to see something in front of her. She is an old woman with white hair but dressed like a young bride in a wedding dress and veil.
Second image credit: "Floating ghost Miss Havisham diorama/miniature at Kentucky State Fair in Louisville" by A Train is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/?ref=openverse.
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