On regret, moving forward, and turning 33

What do you dream about? I typically have crazy vivid dreams featuring characters from my past, usually high school friends or sleep-away camp bunk mates. This past weekend, however, somebody I knew when I graduated from college make a rare appearance in a dream, and for the rest of the day I couldn’t stop thinking about that time in my life.

I spent the first couple of my post-collegiate years living in Washington, D.C. In our nation’s capital I experienced a traumatic breakup, got my first job, quit my first job and found a second one, and made new friends–several of whom I still try to connect with sporadically. Sometimes if feels like it was just yesterday that I was living in Glover Park, so it boggles my mind that my first taste of adulthood was actually 11 years ago. Where has the time gone?

Today I turn 33 years old. My life has changed in so many ways this past decade. To start, I’ve lived with various roommates in eight different apartments or houses in three different states and have worked for 9 different organizations, including my own short-lived stationery company. My hair has been every length from the tips of ears to the bottom of my bra strap, and I’ve experienced life as a redhead, brunette, and blonde. I once had no dating prospects; now I’m married with a toddler son. Like I said, so many changes.

For some people, their 20s were the best years of their life. I wish I could say that about mine. My 20s were complicated and messy, as I was desperately trying to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. Truthfully, I’m still looking for the answers to those questions, and I’m envious of those entrepreneurial twenty-somethings who seem to have found theirs already.

I regret many things that have happened in years since I graduated college. I regret things that happened to me, and I regret things I have done to other people. I’m jealous of those people who claim they have no regrets in life. I would love to be able to detach from my past and focus on the future. Better yet, I’d love to learn how to live in the now, to be focused on the present.

That’s what I wish for myself in this upcoming year: To stop obsessing over the past and worrying about the future and start being present in the moment.

There are popular song lyrics from the musical RENT that my mind goes back to every so often. “Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.” We can’t undo the mistakes we’ve made or the experiences we’ve had, but why is it sometimes so had to move on from them? Even a decade later. Even more than a decade later…

But maybe it’s not about forgetting regret or not feeling regret all together. In her 2011 TED talk, author and journalist Kathryn Schulz makes the case for embracing regret and making peace with it:

“The point isn’t to live without any regrets, the point is to not hate ourselves for having them… We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create, and to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regret doesn’t remind us that we did badly. It reminds us that we know we can do better.”

Now that I’m 33, I hope I can do better.

You may be thinking that regret is depressing topic for me to be addressing on my birthday, so let me assure you that I’m not sitting at home crying! (I actually did that when I turned 30.) However, one of the reasons why I blog is to connect with real women, women like me who experience complicated, sometimes not-so-pretty emotions like jealousy, sadness, and confusion. I don’t know about you, but I just can’t relate to bloggers with picture-perfect lives. So while I hope you find the information I share with you on the blog inspiring and entertaining, I also hope that you find me to be real and accessible.

And now, I’m off to enjoy my birthday!

PS: Here are some thoughts on turning 31 and 32.

{Photos by Joe Curtin}