Letter to my children: On regret

Dearest Beloveds,

The summer of my 19th year, I lived with Winkie. She was in her 90s. Several memories stick out from that time. After spending the whole night out with friends, swimming in moonlit pools and drinking, “hmmm, I guess I just need to get used to the morals of 19 year olds,” she said to me with a twinkle at the breakfast table, “pass the toast please.”

Sitting on the porch and watching the swallows dive and catch mosquitoes with the sun setting behind the stone walls and the spindly locust trees. “Corinna, this is a good rot, isn’t it?.”

Whenever she was asked a question about a plant and the latin name would roll off her lips, she would then come back to the Cow Barn and say, “ah yes, I am the pet live fossil around here.” Pet live fossil - what a phrase of self awareness, humor, and insight.

And the refrain of the summer, “it is not what I have done in my life that I regret - because I can always forgive myself. It is that which I didn’t do. What I didn’t do I regret.” As I write this I realize that she never once said to me, “therefore… do, Corinna.” She was not didactic in a overbearing sense, it felt as though this was a tidbit that she was musing upon herself. When I asked her once for an example she told me the story of not purchasing a samurai sword for Baba from the last sword maker while in Japan because she was concerned they wouldn’t have enough money for the remainder of their trip if they did.*

As such, when I pondered this statement and chewed on the marrow of it - I always took it to me not doing an action is that which she regretted. Not DOING caused the regret - purchasing something, going somewhere, talking to someone, etc. But I am finally clear, action or not action only comes from nudges from your belly. It is not the action or the non action that causes regret. Regret comes from ignoring the nudge.

In other words, my regrets come from disregarding what my belly and heart tell me is the truth. When I do not honor myself and speak the truth or act from that space things get sticky.

Why have I not spoken that truth? All variants of fear. Worry over what the other person or group would think about me, concern that I would not be liked if I was honest, nervous that I would rock the boat and somehow make a mess of things. After all, who am I to have an opinion?

Of course the Universe comes along right on cue and brings me Kasia Urbaniak’s work on women and their power (thank you L!).

We tend to forget that for millennia, in order for a woman to even survive in society, an entire set of 'Good Girl' behaviors was necessary: accommodation, harmonization, pretending you’re low-maintenance in order to be marriageable.

A Good Girl has no outrageous desires. She makes no big asks. She is perfectly and expertly trained to maintain the status quo, without ruffling a single feather.

Left to run on autopilot, this Good Girl conditioning will convince you of 101 reasons why you can't ask, why you don't deserve what you want to ask for, and why it's better and more convenient for everyone for you to just go it alone.

But going it alone is not power, it is avoidance masked in romanticized individualism. You can’t be powerful in isolation. 

“You can’t be powerful in isolation” brings me to why I am writing.

When we found out (one year and one week ago) that Baba had a brain tumor (on a Wednesday). The surgeon told us that he wanted to biopsy on that Monday. Neither Baba nor Meme were in a mental space to make the decision of what to do. So it moved down to my generation.

3 out of four of us were convinced of what needed to happen. Your mother was not. My belly and heart were yelling at me every moment of every day to slow down, to gather more opinions, to not submit Baba to such a tortuous end… but I was only one of four and therefore, in my mind, outvoted.

The morning before I took Baba to the hospital for his operation - your father and I took a walk and I cried and cried about how unhappy I was with the decision we had made and I much I didn’t want to take him to the hospital.

What was I supposed to do? I had been outvoted.

Never mind that I was the one who would be managing the fallout, that I was in charge.

Children, I gave my power away by not standing up for what I wanted. Brinda Maira recently reminded me that I wrote a book about honoring my truth for what to do with my own health and that the Universe gave me the opportunity to practice that with Baba’s health.

All I needed to say was this, “hey guys, I am excited to hear your opinions about what to do about this, but in the end, it is my decision what to do when. I am the one who is going to be responsible for all of this so I am the decider.” Not honoring my truth last summer … the fallout persists.

So is this a regret? Damn sure. But regret is a good way (just like Gary Zukov says temptation is a good thing). It is a regret in a good way because it allows me to not blame myself or anyone else. It allows me to learn from the past and DO (now comes the doing part Winkie, smile) something about it.

I am going to sign up for Kasia Urbaniak’s courses to unravel the Good Girl conditioning I have. (I can still hear Meme as I left for school, “be a good friend.”) I am able to name what happened last year and flush through the emotions that come with it. I am grateful for the lesson learned and for the fallout that brings me to this moment now. I am honored I can share this learning with you.

I know in my belly, heart, fingers, and toes - God is real. I know love is all there is behind the fear. Therefore I know that all of these learnings are bringing me closer to seeing that everywhere - because love is everywhere. I know this signpost of regret is an opportunity to delve deeper into the never ending onion - closer and closer to oneness with all, to God, to love.

My beloveds, thank you for being in our family. Thank you for traveling with me as your Momma learns these lessons and shares with you. I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

So much truth it hurts. I LOVE YOU.

*This sentence has so much to unpack that my brain reels, but I don’t want to take a detour in the narrative. Therefore I will do it here.

First of all, you might be curious why were they in Japan when Baba was 14 and obsessed with samurai swords? Winkie had taught english there for a year after she graduated from college in the 20s. She took classes in the art of flower arranging, was taught once by a Japanese man not to speak too loudly on the bus (he spat on her - Good Girl conditioning can be very overt), and learned to dip her sushi into soy sauce upside down so as not to have your rice end up all over the place (very intelligent).

Second of all, she was worried they would run out of money before the end of their trip. Your great grandmother was probably carrying American Express travel checks in her socks or tucked against her back (almost the equivalent of a bag of gold coins) and she had a finite amount available to her before they got home. No Venmo, no Google Pay, no Western Union, no ATMS around the corner of every intersection - and honestly, by the time you read this no universal system (of whatever name) that works on your computer globally.

And finally, this is why we had the conversation a few months ago about the two swords that we have hanging in the mudroom. Winkie eventually found a samurai sword and a merchants sword (and all of the tsuba) as a way of making this up to Baba for his 14 year old disappointment. When I told you this story originally I said that eventually the swords would come to you two. Before I could finish my sentence, Bean you jumped in. “Momma, I do NOT want any swords.”

And simultaneously, the Dragon, “Momma, I WANT the swords.”