Regret

“to accept oneself as fate, not to desire oneself ‘different’… this is great rationality itself.”

I used to say that I was without regret, for every mistake has led me to where I am. However, it’s the regret and guilt that I live with that has shaped me into what I am. In year four I accidentally fractured a neighbour’s window when some friends from up the street and I held skateboard races in their backyard. At first we didn’t tell anyone. I had nightmares about being arrested for days. One morning I was watching Grease and my mum asked me if I knew anything about a window being broken. So, I confessed. To this day, whenever I feel like a criminal, that scene in Grease where everyone is parked on the cliff comes to mind. Recently, everything awful that happened between Rachael and I has been playing over again and again in my head. Hundreds of times a day.

I don’t know if there is room for rationality, at this stage. Maybe this is how one becomes what one is. But then, it seems ridiculous to fill in more clearly the picture by tearing at what is already there.

Anyway, I’m sounding unstable. Don’t be alarmed by this “I am my regret” thing. It’s not quite so dramatic as that – rather, how certain things happened the way they did is something that has been on my mind. And although these actions are fixed in the past, whatever we manage drag into the present becomes it. Whether we choose to appreciate the now or not, we cannot exist outside of it. Maybe that is obvious.

Oh yeah, I watched Little Miss Sunshine tonight. It was kind of good and kind of meh, but I might have been expecting too much. And I watched Saw II. Which was completely horrible, but made me want to script an atrociously cliché detective movie of my own. Maybe without people diving into pits of syringes. Mostly because I don’t think the budget will allow it.

Night night