Regrets? Not Me.

The other day one of my Facebook friends posed this question...

"If you knew 10 years ago what you know now, what would you do differently?"

Ironically it was the same Facebook friend who inspired this infamous post.

My answer to her question was "not one thing."

I've been thinking a lot about that question since she posted it. Do I really have life free of regrets? Is it possible to?

My life has not been perfect, far from it. I've made more than a boatload of mistakes. Some have been small, inconsequential ones, so minor they're all but forgotten. Some have been huge, ones that have hurt people I love and possibly severed relationships.  But does that mean I regret them? Maybe the collateral damage, but not the lesson learned.

I guess that's where my answer came from. Because no matter what has happened in my life, I don't think I would change anything I've ever done if given the chance again.

Take, for example, what was formerly known as the year from hell, the year Sean and I nearly split. We both played our roles in that but to say I would go back and change my behaviour? If I had, would that year have played out that way? And if it hadn't played out the way it did, would our marriage be as strong as it is now - in order to support us in this new battle, the one in which we need to have each other's backs? I don't know but I'll be honest in saying that knowing how it did play out and how hard it was was well worth it to know that we're strong and united now and fighting cancer together. I couldn't fathom doing this as a single parent or in a half assed relationship.

Last summer I said and did some things that really upset my brothers and sisters in law and caused a substantial rift in our relationship for a long time. And while that was a horrible time for us all I think it also served a valuable purpose - we all learned to see multiple perspectives on one common issue. And like I said, it's not that I'm not sorry for what I said or did but I don't regret the end result, what we all took away from it. And I'm also pleased to say that we sorted our differences and my brothers and sisters in law are some of my biggest sources of strength and support now.

I don't know if I'll always feel this way, that I have no regrets. I'd like to think I will. I don't equate making mistakes with regrets. If I can learn something from a mistake then there should be no regrets in making it.

Although at this precise moment I'm still trying to figure out what I've learned from eating those 2 chocolate chip cookies.