Countdown meme: day 5

[liv]

Day five is six things you wish you'd never done. I feel a bit squirmy about answering this publicly, since things I wish I'd never done are also things I don't want people to know I've done. But hey, blogging is all about over-sharing, isn't it? My grandmother has reached the age of 90 and claims that she doesn't regret anything she's ever done, only things she should have done but didn't dare. I think it's pretty impressive to be able to look back over your life with that view. I don't have a lot of regrets and guilt, but I do have some (and I'm only a third her age!)

1. Bullied other kids. When I first started full-time school I was bullied quite a lot, and adults in positions of authority didn't really react to it, so I chalked it up as just one more inexplicable thing about school life. I also drew the conclusion that I was "supposed" to bully younger kids, just as older kids picked on me. So I selected Noemi, a girl in the year below me, to torment. She hadn't done anything wrong, particularly, I was just jealous of her beautiful long silky hair. I was a bit half-hearted about my campaign against her, but occasionally I took my temper out on her quite violently.
   
   There's less excuse for the bullying I engaged in when I was in junior school, because by then I was old enough to know better. I had nothing at all against Eleanor, she was just the designated victim, but I ended up a bit of a ring leader. I enjoyed the admiration I got from my friends when I thought up clever ways to humiliate her, more than I felt bad about doing the wrong thing. And once I'd started I couldn't really stop without admitting that I'd been atrociously in the wrong in the first place. Luckily Eleanor gave me an excuse to end the vendetta when she "saved" me from a large scary wasp when we were about 11.
   
   
2. Missed a Jewish / Christian interfaith event at Hengrave because I was too obedient to skip a day of school. I particularly regret this because it turned out to be the most useless day of my school career (between the start of term and the beginning of mock exams), and also because it would have been my last chance to see Judith before she died. I generally wouldn't have considered taking unauthorized days off, but I knew that the conference was important and that particular day of supervised revision wasn't, I just wasn't stubborn enough to insist in the face of parental opposition.
   
   
3. Betrayed a relationship agreement when I was at college. It was partly because I couldn't cope with the intensity of my feelings, and partly because I was a bit naive, but none of that justifies hurting someone I cared about very deeply. My gf was generous enough to forgive me, but still, if I had a time-machine that's probably the one thing I would change about my past.
   
   
4. Procrastinated during the second half of my PhD. I suppose everyone does, really, but it got me started down a road of bad habits which I've found hard to shake ever since.
   
   
5. Quarrelled with someone I cared about in my early 20s. I said some insensitive things, having no idea that the person would absolutely cut me out of her life as a result (as far as I know she's still angry with me nearly 10 years on). But even though I couldn't have predicted just how strongly she would react, I still shouldn't have said those things. I really do miss the friendship we might have had if I hadn't lost my temper.
   
   
6. Lost touch with lots of friends because I'm rubbish at correspondence and they don't socialize online. This isn't really one thing, just a perennial ongoing regret. And, well, I suppose it's always open to me to fix it by actually getting into good habits of keeping on top of my correspondence, but no matter how many resolutions I make I never seem to manage it. Plus, it's really really hard to take up a friendship again when you've let years elapse without contact!

OK, that was a bit of low note to end the year on, sorry! I don't think I'm going to be around online much until the first week in January, and therefore I won't complete the last few sections of this meme until then. I'm about to go out for work Christmas lunch, and jack is on his way here. If he makes it past the snow monster, we're going to his family for Christmas and then I'm at Limmud next week, then plan to spend New Year with my family. My trusty smartphone will let me read stuff, whether it's posts, emails, tweets or texts, but I doubt I'll have time for a lot of producing content. I hope you all have a good year-end, including Christmas if you're celebrating.

Comments

[rho]

Thank you for sharing this.

I think that, to a large extent, most people have done things in the past that they aren't proud of and would rather other people didn't know about. So we never talk about them so everyone ends up with the impression that they're alone in this sort of thing. Seeing someone I like and admire admitting to making some of the same mistakes I've made is very uplifting for me.

[nanaya]

I think 6 is a regret a lot of people have. I know I do, and I know the difficulties. Everything seems so *busy* all the time!

Otherwise, thanks for sharing. It's good to be honest about stuff we're so proud of.