The moment the music began, so did my thoughts. I rarely get time to just sit and think. I am so used to thinking in the moment and making split-second decisions that having an hour and a half to just listen to music and think without doing anything else feels unnatural. Perhaps it's good, though.
My thoughts are like damp clothes in a dryer. They tumble over each other, over and over, for what seems like eternity. I process around and around in a circle, reflecting, regretting, accepting, and continuing the cycle all over again. My friend often calls me out on this... playfully teasing me about the dryer of my brain... "Are they ready yet? Nope. Still damp. Still tossing." she smirks as she "closes" the dryer and my thoughts continue to toss and turn over each other... my thinking rehashed, once again trying to come to terms with where I am and how I've gotten here.
As we drove through quiet streets, we talked about regrets.
"I just don't want you to have regrets."
How many times have I heard that, or perhaps said it to others? Regrets are something to be avoided at all costs.
But yet, I have regrets. I have regrets about teaching, friendships, where I am in life. It seems there is always a part of me that is discontent with where I am and the path my life has taken.
As far back as I can remember, I was always hard on myself. I laughed at my "past self" for not knowing the things I knew in the present. My "past self"s art was hysterically ridiculous, my "past self"s approaches to life were immature. Even old facebook posts... who was that silly girl?
But I learned something the night of the orchestra concert as we processed our regrets and disappointments.
Regrets are a sign of growth.
If I lived life without regrets, it would mean that I had never learned anything. I was perfect the way I entered the world... with the knowledge, skills, and understandings I started with. It is through my deepest regrets that I have grown the most as a person... deepening my understanding about my Lord and who He created me to be.
The regrets that hurt the most are not the ones that end with someone wagging their finger saying, "I told you so." Rather, they're the ones that blindsided me. The ones that nobody saw coming: the friendship that fell apart, the student I lost before I had a chance to truly connect with... because the regrets I see coming are ones I should have avoided. I should have planned against. I already had a hunch things wouldn't go well... and I could have found another way.
These are the regrets I choose to live without. The avoidable ones... that often require counsel from those older and wiser than me in order to circumvent.
The growth-regrets? Regrets because I have grown and changed and learned and have seen things differently? Though disappointing, I must learn to accept them, to celebrate them. Because I now know things I didn't know then. And as much as they hurt, it's time to accept them as part of who I am. The journey that has brought me here, and the journey that will lead me Home.
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