Regret

It’s not who you are on the inside, but what you do that defines you” – Rachel Dawes, Batman Begins

My Dear Readers,

This post comes with a warning. If you are a casual reader (or are currently reading casually) do not read any further. This post is not for light reading or skimming for entertainment. I have taken a plunge into what I hope to be the deep end of the pool in order to draw out the import off this week's word as much as my feeble mind can. However, if your mind is prepared and your heart open, then please proceed...

The Letter

It was the hardest thing Mark had ever done. Yet, with a resolve that sprang from desperation, he pressed pen to paper. Maybe this letter would make the darkness go away. Maybe the dreams would stop. Maybe the inky hands that clawed at his soul would finally cease. The candle flickered shadows across the attic walls, yet they inspired no fear into the stricken young man hunched over the small writing desk. It took everything in him to write the words.

Dear Sir,

This letter may come as a surprise to you since I have been away for nearly ten years. I will not detail the places I have hidden. Suffice it to say, I did my best to run from you. I am, at present, in Chicago, America if you should wish to find me. I am tired of running. My strength is gone and my resolve to hide has vanished. You may pursue me and do with me as you see fit. In fact, it is my earnest desire that justice be meted out to me. I now understand my place and know I stand guilty before your judgment. I will confess my sins though you know them very well. My soul must know that each of them has been listed and perhaps then I shall sleep the sleep of the knowingly condemned.

I am the thief that stole your daughter's innocence. It was I and no other. I could claim it was passion but that would be a lie and I refuse to add dishonesty to my crimes. I took her for my own satisfaction of taking. I took her to know that I could and in that taking, I gave away my own innocence. I could claim that it was curiosity but that would only be another lie. It was nothing but the avarice of lust. I did this knowingly and willfully. I did this to your daughter. You, who have treated me like a son, who opened up your home to me and gave me food and shelter when I was but a beggar; you who watched my wooing of your daughter, Eliza, with a smile.

Eliza -

Mark's pen wobbled and an errant stroke tore a hole in the paper where a tear had damped it. His hand shook as he forced his hand to continue to write.

Were I able to return and marry her, I would do so. Word of her death in childbirth reached me when I was in Singapore. Her death and the death of her - our child was what shook me out of my self-pitying stupor. I knew that I had stolen your daughter's innocence from her but then I realized that I had stolen her from you.

I believe this letter to be as useless as a clod of earth with a postage stamp on it in the effort of reconciliation. In truth, I do not believe for an instant that an eternity of penance would rectify my wrong. This letter is to acknowledge to you my regret and sorrow. I know that the words "I am sorry" are ineffective, if not offensive but I must say them.

I am sorry. My regret has overcome me and sunk my life into a pit out of which I believe there to be no rescue. I am too much of a coward to take my own life, yet my own past removes my will to live. My hope now is that your vengeance will swiftly remove my unworthy life from this earth. I do not ask for impossible forgiveness. I ask only for death.

Regretfully yours,

Mark Anthony Neville

With the gait of a man on his way to the gallows, Mark, left his rented attic, and trudged slowly to the post office and mailed the letter, knowing as he did that he had just signed his life into the hands of a wronged and righteous man. That night, for the first time in years, he slept peacefully. But when he woke, the knots in the rotted wood of the ceiling only stared down at him in silent hatred. Sleep would not kill the regret.

Regret
verb (used with object)

1. To feel sorrow or remorse for (an act, fault, disappointment, etc.): He no sooner spoke than he regretted it.

2. to think of with a sense of loss: to regret one's vanished youth.

–noun

3. a sense of loss, disappointment, dissatisfaction, etc.

4. a feeling of sorrow or remorse for a fault, act, loss, disappointment, etc.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/regret

I think it safe to say that regret is something that we all have a bit of, some of us more than others. And, I believe, if we look deep enough that it is something that fills a dark corner of our hearts and never leaves us. That corner may be small, but it is there. If you live for any length of time on this world, odds are you will do something that you wish you hadn't or you will lose something irreplaceable. For some of you it will be something which might be considered minor and your sentiment is comprised of words like: "I wish I hadn't done that. It's going to be a bother later". Then there are those of us who truly have regrets, actions in our past that, if we could go back, we would give an arm or our very lives to prevent. If you are being honest with yourself, you are thinking back right now and, springing up in your mind is that action or event. It might be a wound that is still fresh and open or old and scabbed over. Yet, in a dark parody of reminiscence, certain things reopen that wound.

Dear readers, I want you to do something hard. I want you to turn your mind to that dark corner and place a finger on those old wounds.

Do you remember your first regret?

I remember mine clearly. My father had given me a balloon when I was young (I might not have been older than two years of age). I was outside and in my curiosity, I let go of it. As I watched it float away, I felt an absence grow in my heart. It was the first time I can remember that I had lost something irretrievable. I was devastated. (I have recovered since then.)

What was your greatest regret?

Is there something in your life that you would trade anything to take back? Perhaps it was something that you did or something that you gave away for a song or for a lie. Many things, once lost cannot be regained. Innocence comes to mind, innocence of mind and of body. My story will remain untold, but I assure you dear readers, there are action in my past that I would gladly go back in time and shoot myself to prevent. What is it that you have done? What is it that you gave away?

Now, how do you deal with that regret?

We all find some way of dealing with it. Which is yours? Do you forget about them? Do you deny their existence? Some turn to drink and other deceitful comforts. Others seek penance and try to erase their past actions.

Does your method of ‘dealing’ work?

Here is what I believe. There is no remedy for regret. What has been done cannot be undone. I believe what was said in the quote at the top of this post. What you do defines who you are. There is an old religious text that said it this way “out of the heart, the mouth speaks”. When you say the words, when you take that step (figurative or literal) you make a statement about who you are. Think long and hard right now. What do your words and actions say about who you are? It should be a sobering thought. When you were at your worse, when you were in that moment when you chose to do that thing that you have regretted ever since, that was you. That was part of who you are.

Can you live with that?

If you cannot, what should you do? To go on with life, you must find a way to either remove the regret (which I do not believe is possible) or overcome it. My own way of overcoming it is with hope. Now that is another word for another post but suffice to say that ‘hope’ is not a general, ethereal concept. I have home in specific things and people that I trust. I look forward to someday when I will no longer have regrets, when I will no longer make the mistakes that cause those scars in my life. I believe that there is hope to change and a door to a life beyond regret.

So, my dear readers, I will leave you with this thought: Have you found the door to the life beyond regret or is that dark corner still festering in your heart?