regrets.

Every Tuesday Gary and I conduct a lesson for the English teachers at our school. Our lessons vary from linguistics to current events. Last week we started a literature lesson. We gave each pair of teachers a “Tuesday lesson” from Tuesdays with Morrie. We discussed each lesson.....its moral foundation, its applicability to our lives, its depth and its shallow aspects. And of course we discussed the inevitable: if you could teach your child or student one lesson what would it be?

The beauty of teaching is learning. And so—on Tuesday—I learned the lesson my heart has needed for so long.

After one of the younger teachers had presented her “lesson”, she told everyone what she wished to teach her daughter one day: “regret is a natural feeling”. Everyone experiences it. Everyone battles it. Everyone deals with it in his/her own way.

As she stated this, I felt calm. I felt understood.

For so long I have regretted the the unloving relationship I had with my sister. I regretted my actions...my words...my hatred. I regretted who I allowed myself to be when she was still at home. I loathed what I had done and what I had not done. I allowed regret to give way to hatred and condemnation of myself.

After years of battling these emotions, I suddenly—during the Tuesday teacher's lesson—felt relieved. I didn't feel closure or forgiveness, but I felt like I could acknowledge this terrible, consuming “natural feeling”.

When you regret “you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.”[1] But we must recognize that while regret helps us wallow in the past, life grants us the future. It's important to deal with our emotions—to struggle, fight, acknowledge, and suppress—but it is equally important to focus on forgiveness so that we may not deny ourselves happiness.

Regret is possessive. However, we must learn how and when to let go.

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[1] A quotation from For One More Day by Mitch Albom