Ugh, this cliché. The worst. Why does this trigger me so much?
Seriously though – who can live until their mid 30’s and never having done anything they regret? If you knowingly did something wrong that caused hurt and pain – you SHOULD REGRET IT. Casually slinging around ‘Live life with no regrets!’ feels dishonest and haughty. It feels icky and lacking of self-awareness. It feels like you’re giving yourself permission to blast through life without any attention to others because you just don’t feel regret.
My regrets don’t look as dark in writing as they feel in my head.
Regret #1
I regret that conversation I had with my mom in the driveway, shortly after I moved out of our house.
She had just found AA and was practicing ‘sobriety’, albeit – loosely. She was feeling validated and seen for the first time in probably a really long time, and I was really annoyed at her happiness. I was still angry at all the pain her drunken rampages had caused me and my family. I wasn’t ready to forgive her. She had brought home a book for me that someone in her meeting had given her. I don’t remember exactly what it was called…something like ‘how to love an alcoholic’. She told me I should read it. That it would help me.
That set me off. Me!? Help ME? I’m not the one that ruined the family. I’m not one out of control. I’m not the one who changed completely and destroyed everything in her path. I don’t need a mother loving book, I need my mom back. I told her I have spent more than enough time trying to understand her and that it was her job to learn, not mine. I shouldn’t have to read ‘how to love an alcoholic’ – she should just not be one. She didn’t say anything. She quietly placed the book in my trunk and walked inside. I closed my trunk and drove off. I never read that book. It stayed there for months and months and eventually I threw it away. I have thought about this interaction a million times in the decade since it happened. Gosh, I wish I would have been more loving and receptive of the learning that I DID need to do, but couldn’t see at that time. I wish I would have just hugged her and thanked her and not been so angry. I’d give anything to have a redo on that conversation. I think that’s basically the definition of regret.
It’s been more than a decade since that conversation, Mom – but I’m reading those books. Lots of them. Now I want to understand how to love an addict. How to meet you where you are. How to set boundaries appropriately. How shame and blame makes things so much worse. I’m learning that I have a part in this, too. I’m sorry I didn’t see it then.
Regret #2
The Mother Daughter Bar Crawl. Senior year of college. My closest friends and their amazing mothers. Cute purple shirts that were made special for this event and we were taking our moms to dinner and then to the bar. I wanted this so bad with my mom – it seemed like something a fun, healthy mother/daughter relationship would do. You know, the kind of relationship where you can talk about college and boyfriends and get manicures and go shopping. Isn’t that what those relationships are supposed to look like?! I didn’t really even know. My friends seemed to have normal relationships with their moms – and they were going on a bar crawl. So I invited my alcoholic mother to a bar crawl because I’m an asshole. It was such a selfish move. I wanted something that was ultimately unattainable and I KNEW this – but I did it anyway. She was doing well, staying sober-ish. She was so nice when she was sober. I told her she should come. We could do dinner and wear the shirts and maybe go to one bar (you know, so I could take pictures and have it look like we were normal) and obviously she wouldn’t drink. I just wanted to feel like I was on a typical mother / daughter outing and I was willing to risk her feelings and her sobriety to get it.
We paid the money, ordered the shirts. She came to dinner. I didn’t even remember this…I think I was too ashamed I had asked all of this of her, that I blocked it out. I reached out to a friend for clarity – ‘did my mom ever make it to dinner?’. She did. We even got our picture. Look at us, so happy riddled with anxiety. She didn’t come with us to the bar – thank goodness. Got real drunk at home that evening instead. I guess feeling like she let her daughter down by not attending a bar crawl that night might have triggered her….
#noregrets
Loving an Addict 