Any regrets?

As I write this, my wonderful fiance is having her last RD meeting at Rex Hospital in Raleigh. A few months ago it seemed so far away. I hadn't even graduated college then. Now the time is upon us when Maggi will be closing one chapter in her life, only to open and begin writing a new one. I understand all the emotions she is going through. It was just a year ago that I packed up all my stuff and left Raleigh to move to the mountains. I had lived in Raleigh for 5 years and all my friends were there. It is difficult to leave people behind that you care about. The only thing that you can hope is that they remain in touch and that you didn't make a mistake by leaving.

This brings me to the topic of change and how it is dealt with. I stand on the minority side of the fence on this one. My life has been nothing but one continuous line of change. I have moved all over the place, worked many different jobs, and had wonderful, amazing people flow in and out of my life. There are many occasions, when a smell or a sight reminds me of times past. I stop and wonder how a person is doing. My thoughts then fade back to the present and I say a little prayer that, where ever that person is, what ever they are doing, they are blessed. Do I have any regrets? No, how could I? I understand that God's plan supersedes any cognition I may have had about what was in store for me. In order to understand his plan I have to look at my life as one collective event. I can't pull out segments and analyze them individually. A life must be studied as a collective unit. Now I say that I don't have any regrets, I want to be careful to distinguish that from disappointment. I have had several disappointments and have been disappointing to several people over the course of my life. A regret is something that we dwell on and wish we could change, and it is often associate with the phrase "What if...," or "If I had just..." A disappointment is a mistake that was made and we acknowledge it as such. We try to use it as a lesson to learn from for the next time we encounter a similar situation. The key difference I believe is forgiveness, not only by other people but also by ourselves. A regret often lacks the forgiveness component of life. We must realize that not only are we called to forgive the mistakes of others, we must also forgive ourselves. Once this event has occurred, change is then possible, but if not, then we will forever be stuck in the past.

I look forward to the change in the coming months, as Maggi gets settled in up here, starts her new job, and essentially her new life. I fully understand all the sacrifices that she is making, and I will do my best to never forget my responsibility to make sure she has no regrets. After the next few weeks are over, there will no longer be changes of a singular nature. All changes will occur to a couple and not to an individual. Does the future scare me? Maybe it used to, but now I welcome it with open arms because as Jack Johnson said, "Its always better when we're together."