Regrets

A little while ago, someone asked if, having been through my divorce, I had any regrets.

Regrets are supposed to be stupid…”don’t regret what you’ve done, learn from it instead”. Regrets are a waste of time…”don’t waste time living in the past”. Certainly! I agree wholeheartedly, but sometimes our actions have such an impact on those we love that we can’t help but regret that pain we have caused. Perhaps we just have to find another name by which to call those regrets. I couldn’t answer the question with a simple 'yes' or 'no', so I’m writing it down here instead...the place where many of the long conversations I have with myself are played out!

The question was difficult to answer because this person has not been through a divorce herself – thank goodness! She sees me happy now, and maybe she thinks that because I’m smiling and seem to have my life back on track that I’m no longer hurting or missing part of what I used to have. As with anything in life, it's the common thread between people that brings them together. When the thread is a good one - the birth of a baby, a wedding - it's easier for the people around you to relate and to want to share the experience with you, but when the shit hits the fan - the death of a loved one, cancer, divorce - it's much harder for those who have not walked that same path to understand what it is that you’re going through. And anyway, one naturally gravitates towards those people going through the same thing as you are at the time, because you relate to eachother, because you share that common thread.

Many friendships are formed around experiences - both good and bad. Think of all the new Moms who meet eachother at Moms and Tots groups, at baby clinic, or during antenatal classes....firm bonds are formed and many of those become lifelong friendships. Last year I wrote this post about the group of friends I met at Divorce Care (DC). DC finished more than a year ago, and we're still friends. We see eachother every week and have a good laugh in our WhatsApp group chat every day. These people (and my parents) are the only people who understand exactly what I mean when I say that I do indeed have massive regrets.

It doesn't mean any of us would go back to where we were two years ago, but it does mean that we wish life had worked out differently. That the promises we made before God and our families and friends...and to the person we had intended to love for the rest of our life, could have been kept. We regret that our children do not wake up each morning with us, that we have to share them instead. More than anything, we regret that our children have had to go through the pain and the heartache they have been through, because yes, they see their parents happier now, but a child from a divorced family will always hope that their parents will get back together.

Having been through my own parents’ divorce as a young child, I can completely relate to what my girls have had to deal with – and I’ve been able to draw on my own memories to help and reassure them. I remember the crap as a child, having to say goodbye to my Mom to go to my Dad, and the other way around, wanting to please them both without hurting the other. I've watched my children hurt. I've heard Ella say and do things to explain her hurt and confusion that I can't bear to repeat. I've said it here before....it sux, and it always will.

So yes, I most certainly do regret that S and I could not pull it together and give our girls the family ‘togetherness’ they want – and deserve. I know we’ll find it one day, albeit in the form of a ‘blended family’ (this seems to be the new term for a stepfamily, maybe because not everyone remarries when a new family is formed). It won't always be S and them, or me and them, because S and I will both move on, and our girls will learn other life lessons from those new families that they wouldn't necessarily have learnt otherwise, but the learning of those lessons will have come at a cost.

Dealing with these regrets doesn't mean that I sit around and mope all day. I cried all my tears, many years ago. However, with the anniversary of my actual divorce only a few weeks away, I'm unsure what to expect over how I will feel. It will always mark one of the roughest days of my life, and I will always remember sitting in the courtroom, waiting for my name to be called, but my girls have grown and adapted and are doing remarkably well. They've become used to the routine of time with Mom, and time with Dad. I've grown and adapted, and I see S doing the same. I can't say that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, because there is no longer a tunnel, but wide open blue sky, with occasional dark and heavy clouds that hover, burst and go.

“I haven’t lived a perfect life. I have regrets. But that’s from a lifetime of taking chances, making decisions, and trying not to be frozen. The only thing that I can do with my regrets is understand them.” Kevin Costner