Meth: a Ticking Timebomb Gone Viral

Regret; Misconceptions vs Reality

A long time ago, my then wife got a tattoo on her foot that said, No Regrets. At the time I was like, whatever...because I had spent the best part of seventeen years with her, and I knew that we both had a lot to be regretful for.

Then, a few days ago I was reading an email from someone here on WDC, a person for whom I have the greatest respect and admiration. She told me that exact same thing...that she has no regrets.

This puzzled me because everyone has made mistakes, and in my mind, unless you acknowledge those mistakes and regret them, then what have you learned and what will prevent you from repeating those same mistakes over and over again?

I did the double today...weights followed by a bike ride and as I came to a familiar section on my circuit called, 'The Dipper'(where the road goes into a short but deep gully), a memory came to me that I haven't thought about in many years.

As a teenager, I bought a .22 caliber rifle from a friend. It was nothing special...a semiautomatic that had open sights. On one side of The Dipper were houses and on the other was a sandmining area that had long been abandoned. This area was mostly bushland dotted by waterholes left behind by the sandmining operation.

With my new gun loaded and ready to fire, I remember stalking along the tracks kids on minibikes had gouged throughout the area.

There wasn't much to aim at but trees and sandhills, until in the distance, I spotted a bird fly from one branch to another. I estimate the distance would have been at least one hundred and fifty meters...way too far for my little 22 that didn't even have a scope.

But, it was the only thing I had seen that was worth shooting at, so I took aim about two feet above where it was perched, and pulled the trigger.

I remember the sound of the report...so loud on such a quiet afternoon, and as I watched, it seemed to take forever before I saw a small puff of black feathers, followed by the dull thud as the projectile impacted the bird's hollow bones.

It tried to fly away, but the damage it had suffered made it fall on a shallow trajectory towards the ground.

I couldn't believe how good of a shot it was, but because it was so far away and on the other side of a creek, I didn't try to find it and called it a day.

I've never thought about it until today as I flew down one side of The Dipper and up the other...the same route I have taken hundreds of times in the past.

And as my bike rounded the left turn at the top on the other side, I was overwhelmed by sorrow that I had callously taken that bird's life....and for no other reason than it was there...in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If I were to take that shot a thousand times, I am almost certain I would miss every time.

It's hard to believe that forty-five years on, I have so much regret for that one senseless act?

Regrets are the acknowledgement of our mistakes and the only way we can learn from them.

Or so I thought, until my friend's assertion that she has no regrets. Something that has opened my eyes to another way of seeing it.

I thought no regrets meant the inability to admit ever making a mistake. But now I see that those mistakes still taught us...that we still learned from them, and therefore, without them, we wouldn't be who we are today.

Life never stops teaching. Not until we can no longer take breath into our lungs.

I thought the ten years I spent caring for my mother was my sacrifice for what she has done for me.

But now, as I type this and she is taking her last breaths on this earth, I can see that it wasn't a sacrifice at all, but an opportunity to spend time with someone I care deeply about and will miss dearly.

As far as that is concerned, I will never have any regrets.