Regret. You ever notice how when people are asked if they have any regret, they tend to say, “ I have no regret. Life’s too short to regret anything”? That cracks me up. Everyone has regrets, but for some reason we think that by pretending not to have any we’ve become this bigger person. It’s not true. We just become this liar who lies mostly to herself.
I have plenty of regrets. There are so many things I want to change, so many things I wish I had done, and things I wish I had never done. I wonder what my life would be like, if I had done thing differently, if certain people were still in my life, and if certain people never walked by and said hello.
My biggest regret? My biggest regret is taking my life with my Dad for granted. What’s worse? I’m scared that I’m doing the same thing with my Mom.
My biggest regret leads me to all the smaller ones. I regret that I quit playing basketball. I regret that I never kept in touch with the greatest friends I’ve ever had in my life. I regret that I let those friends go because they reminded me too much of the good life I had with my dad. I regret getting mad at my Mom and Iza. I regret hurting them. I regret that I always took the easy way out in high school. I regret not doing my best. I regret lying to everyone so that they would just get off my back. I regret, not doing my best to remember him. I think that maybe I don’t remember his voice, or his laugh because I never listened to him enough.
Which leads me to my problem now. I don’t remember. I know he was at my basketball games, and I know he would pick us up from school. I know he’d bring us lunch sometimes. I know he called me An-An or Ate, but I can’t hear him say it anymore. I don’t remember anything and I wish I could because now, the gap he left just feels even bigger.
I don’t remember how much taller he was. I don’t remember how he used to smell. I tried smelling his clothes once, but it just smelled like old clothes. Why didn’t I smell it when the scent was still there? I know he was a funny guy, but I can’t remember his laugh, or times when he made me life.
Everyone says that it gets easier every year. It’ not true, it gets harder. It gets harder to remember, and harder to feel.
Every time I laugh, or make a joke, they always say, I’m just like my dad. In my mind, I just want them to video tape, and let me hear the part where I sound like him, because maybe I’ll remember. Why can everyone see him in me, but when I look in the mirror, I don’t see him?
I wish I could remember how he used to hug me so that when I cry for him and I’m alone, I could pretend he was here hugging me. Like right now, I really wish he was here.


