Regret

I don’t know about you all but usually, when I think of regret I think of something I have or have done that I should not have, or have not done that I should have. Either way I am feeling some sort of guilt for something which is my fault. When it comes right down to it though, regret is not something anyone I know enjoys. It usually brings with it some sort of shame or guilt and those are not feelings which are usually enjoyed.

I have found myself experiencing regret every time I turn around recently. The thing is, though... I’m not sure it is something I SHOULD be regretting. If anything I wish that I was feeling some anger about the whole thing. I want to place blame somewhere other than on my own shoulders. For all intents and purposes it should rest squarely on the shoulders of another... I think...

What in the world am I talking about? Why should the guilt not be mine? Who should shoulder it? And for that matter, shoulder what?

The more I participate in life the more I come to realize exactly what I missed this past year and a half when even while I was present I was not participating. When I finally stopped participating, full stop.

What did I miss? Opportunities with friends. Activities that just a year or so before I not only participated in but helped put on. Activities that I Had previously enjoyed, ‘Thanksgiving’ with my college church group (we had it early because everyone would be with family on the actual day), the Christmas party and caroling (I remember one year it was so icy we shuffled along holding tightly to one another, you know, so that if one of us went down everyone would go down ;)), an occasional trip to the closest ‘big’ city or the cute little Bavarian town a few hours north. Our annual camping and rafting trip, which actually had to become a camping and hiking trip due to an exceptionally high and cold river, a trip I only missed one other time while in school and that only because I had an awful cold and didn’t want to get anyone else sick (close quarters in those tents, you know). The church group itself... I had been on the leadership team for something like four years, lead worship for our Thursday night Bible studies for almost as long (if not as long)... I went only twice last school year. The campus ministers wife had a baby this past spring... I was there for a lot of her first pregnancy. I babysat their first quite often during his first few years of life... I missed that too, and others got to know him better, become closer, as I faded into the back of his young mind, my baby (well, I DID meet him the day after he was born and WAS a primary babysitter, after all). I drug myself to church most mornings during the academic year, but did not make it to Sunday morning Bible study and during the summer I made an appearance once or twice at the beginning, but that was it. Our church began a building project about the time I shut myself off from as much as the world as possible. I made ice once (you know, for the workers water and the like).


Basically, my increasing isolation caused me to miss out on... well, everything. And, at the time, I was alright with that. I didn’t care much about anything really, let alone some missed social opportunities. It took much less effort to lay in bed all day and stare unseeing at the ceiling or hide under my pillow and sleep the day through. I managed to make it to classes, most of the time... and work, with only a few ‘sick’ days. But there again, at least with school, I missed out. I had plans for that year, my last before receiving my bachelors. I needed to take the GRE and apply to graduate school. Find a professor who needed help doing research (good experience, you know, and graduate schools like that kind of thing). But I did none of that. Again, I slept a lot (spent quite a few fall mornings sleeping in my car between the one or two classes I decided to go to and my shift at the dining hall... until it was only the two classes and work and I very often only went to the first because, after all, two fifty minute classes is just too much, isn’t it?). I spent very little time doing my required school work; anything extra was out of the question. I took one class three times before finally managing to complete it (I never failed it... I DID, however, withdraw from it twice, and only managed to complete it, I believe, by an act of God and the grace of the instructor who bent over backward in her efforts to help me succeed).

The thing about all this that has probably made me feel the most regret (though missing all the fun times with my friends ranks pretty high on the list) is our church building project. Basically we tore down the sanctuary (half the church building) and built a larger one in its place. And while I am sure, because of building codes and what not, we had our fair share of professional help, the sanctuary was mostly built by the church members and those kind enough to volunteer (from the states down south to folks right in our own back yard that just called up -or showed up- and offered their help). However, I spent most of my time doing nothing, staring vacantly into space, feeling awful and really unable to do much of anything let alone spend hours on end with a bunch of people hanging sheet rock. I couldn’t spend this time with the people I care about working on the church building that we are now worshiping in. I couldn’t even help our church take that step toward doing more of Gods work (because a bigger facility means more room for visitors, more people hearing His word).


Ugh, I hate it! I hate that for a year and a half (give or take) I became all but useless. I hate that a year and a half of my life was taken from me! “But that’s how depression works” you tell me. I will be the first to agree with you there. Having had more than my fair share of major depressive episodes I am fully aware of how that monster works, how it sucks the life right out of you. And were I talking to someone else in the same situation I would be telling them the same thing. Because depression is the problem, not the individual. But I am a hypocrite. I truly believe everything I say about depression... when I am talking about someone else. I can not, however, make myself believe it when applied to myself. Why did I shut down? “It was the depression” you say. But I want to take responsibility for it. I do not know why. Maybe because none of my previous major depressive episodes were as bad as this last. I always continued to function. I made myself. I upheld my responsibilities, participated in fun activities with my friends, made like everything was fine. Sure I slept a lot more (or not nearly enough). Sometimes I didn’t eat all that much (sometimes I ate WAY too much). In some of the later episodes I was sure that others could see in my eyes the emptiness I felt, but they never did. However the episode manifested itself (insomnia or hypersomnia, eating too little or too much) I carried on. The fact that I allowed myself to be consumed by this last episode often feels to me to be inexcusable. I should have been able to keep on. But I did not. And while one part of me knows that it was not any failure on my part there continues to be a small part of me, a nagging little voice, trying to tell me otherwise, to make me feel regret for something beyond my control.