Five regrets

369 words written by dylan
Posted July 19, 2004 @ 07:45 AM
3 comments

In two months I'll be 32. I thought that since that's 25 I'd do a few meme-like lists of five between now and September 22 (that's a mere 63 shopping days, folks, so you better hit the stores before the mad crush of Dylan's birthday shopping season hits on Labor Day weekend). Surprisingly, there are a lot of things in my life that have come in fives.

Five Regrets

  1. I wish that my zeal for editing my writing had struck while I was 17 and not when I was 27. I have a lot of B-graded college papers that were 15 minutes and a red pen away from an A.
  2. I regret that instead of taking Jennifer Litvinchuk to the prom I took my ex-girlfriend. Nothing against Ladonna, but it was a conservative choice. I chose a known quantity rather than taking a risk, and some part of me was reacting against Jennifer's natural nerddom. Out of all the silly and crazy things I did in high school, this is the only one that still gives me a sick feeling in my stomach.
  3. I had an opportunity to be a deejay at the student radio station when I was in college. However, it would have required me to be up at 5am to do so. I thought that was just too early in the morning. I regret that I chose my selfish desire for sleep over the experience of spinning what I wanted to spin on the nightlight-powered radio station.
  4. I regret that at times I have had the attitude towards Annabel that she's an accessory and needs to stop getting in the way of what I want to do. She's 3 1/2 months old and doesn't understand "schedules" or "the dishwasher needs to be loaded or else you won't have any clean bottles." I'm trying to spend more time paying attention to her and interacting. She smiles a lot when I do that, so maybe I'm finally getting this fatherhood thing right.
  5. I regret, generally, that I don't commit to anything involving people, that I have never effectively attacked my insularity and shyness, and that I tend to do things once or twice and then never again.

Comments

  1. I'm with you on number 5 for certain! (I wonder, sometimes, if the 'net and blogging only exacerbates my tendency to hide from actual human beings.)

    Posted by: Elaine | July 19, 2004 01:27 PM

  2. What sort of nickname do you give someone named Ladonna?

    Posted by: samantha | July 19, 2004 06:52 PM

  3. Well, I called her Ladonna. We went out for a month. It ended under odd circumstances. And she was white. Too many questions about whether she was black, even from my classmates who knew who she was.

    Posted by: dw | July 20, 2004 12:31 AM