REGRETS I'VE HAD A FEW*

We can be a little smug when we’re in our 20’s. At one point when I was still in my early 20’s and admittedly pretty inexperienced, one of the Men I dated was several years older than me and although a Canadian had been a soldier in the United States Marines and later served with another Commonwealth military organization.  

I was impressed that he had a second degree Black Belt in Karate, had a small tray with sand on it, which I think he used to keep the calluses on the side of his hand firm and generally seemed to be strong and brave and honourable.

One day, however, he told me that he would not like to relive some of the things he had seen. Being in my early 20’s and having been almost totally insulated from the ‘real world’ by my family, my community, my schools (especially a boarding school I lived at for 2 years during High School) and even after; I replied with the confidence that only ignorance and insulation gives you that I had no regrets at all.

We take our own road in life, however, and my particular journey is naturally different than anyone else’s. I know now that I could never have made the statement I did had I been even a bit older and had more experience in life.

I don’t dwell on ‘the road not taken’** much, except occasionally, when like anyone else would, I wonder where I’d be now if I had made some different choices along the way.

I think it is something we probably all do from time to time, before we go back to the familiar path we take to go home.

Song * My Way – words  1967 by Paul Anka unrelated to the music composed by Claude Francois and Jacques Revaux for a French song “Comme d’habitude”.

Poem **The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost, 1915