Day 13 of 31 Prompts
Do You Have Regrets:
I have regrets. It's unfortunate, but true.
I have regrets about myself. At times when I wasn't the best I could be, or wasn't as nice as I should be. I have regrets about money spent in the past. I regret listening to others when I should have listened to myself.
I also believe regrets don't help. I believe I shouldn't regret moments in time. The only thing to do now is change things, and move on. Learn from it.
However, there is one thing I really do regret, and it can't be changed. I'm working on it now, and that's good. What I regret the most in my life is the years that I stopped writing.
The novel I wrote has been in my head for years. YEARS. I didn't start writing it until after I came back to Saskatoon in 2011. I could have been SO much better and sure of myself if I'd been writing all along.
I'd be so much farther in this career (hopefully) if I had continued writing after University. I don't know why I stopped, and I don't want to spend a lot of time getting into 'past Erin's' brain.
As long as I continue writing now. No more 10 year breaks. No more breaks.
Possibly, I didn't have the faith in myself I do now. I wrote short stories in high school and university, but I never tried to do anything else. Then, I travelled, and blogged a bit, but not a lot. I wrote in a journal a bit, but not a lot. I didn't spend any time doing what I loved. I used my journal for negative writing, but forgot to write about the good.
The negative might have taken over. Once I started blogging about the bad things in my past/present, I was able to move on to the good things. I had to fight through the bad to get to the good. It still took me five years to do that though. (And another two to three before I started writing my novel).
I regret not writing. I regret not knowing how much writing would help me emotionally, and I regret that I could have started a writing career earlier in my life, but I didn't bother. These are my biggest regrets. Everything else, I can deal with in one way or another.
It probably has a lot to do with environment and support. I've had a lot of support these past few years. Once I told people that I was writing, I've had nothing but encouragement, confidence, and pride in what I'm doing. That helps me. My own confidence helps me as well.
Just imagine, how thick my skin could be if I had sent a novel years ago to publishers. I'd be tough as hell by now because of the great rejection letters that all writers deal with.
At least, I can look at this regret, and see that I'm doing something to fix it now. I've learned from not writing. I've learned that I need to write.
So I will.
My new goal is to live a life with no regrets. (No more regrets). Looking at the past, and feeling bad about things you can't fix, doesn't help the future or the present. It's not an easy goal, but it will be worth it.
March Prompts: Here gets you to another link and here.
As always,
"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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