It's amazing what cleaning out your closet can evoke from you emotionally. Figuratively and literally. I'm doing just that this weekend, cleaning the closets in my bedroom, going through boxes and all the random junk that has accumulated over the last, I'd say, 2 years. Hence, the blog posted yesterday. I debated for quite a while after reading it whether to delete it or not, but have come to realize that it was something that I've been needing to say aloud, so to speak. Coming across things, trinkets, pictures, and memories alike, stemming from a 3 year engagement that went down in flames is an awakening of sorts. It's an interesting process of realization, to recognize that the thing you fought the hardest for, the person you truly thought you were going to spend your life with, really did walk away without provocation. A horrible sensation to not know the reasons why or what you did wrong, if anything at all, but at the same time a sense of survival. I don't believe in regret, I feel like it is the most wasteful and consuming emotion. We don't have time machines, and we are not able to change what has transpired in the past, yet I find people everyday that dwell on the what-if's and the could-have-been's. They are consumed by it. I can't fathom it at all. Even if there was such a thing as going back and changing what you've done, would it be possible for you to consciously forfeit who you are and what you've learned for what you deem a better practice? Would it result in a better outcome on your person at the close? Personally, I wouldn't risk the possibility of altering the person I am today. I am not proud of some of the things I've done, but I am in no way ashamed of them either. I've been through it; death and loss, deceit and lies, insanity and mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse, rape, ridicule, hell I almost died at the hands of my first boyfriend. It does not define me, but it has sure as hell made me who I am today. Strong, smart, and better able to live my life knowing the evils that lie in wait just outside my door. I don't regret the love that I have lost or the 3 years I spent thriving on that dream of ever after. I don't regret the experience or the feeling of completion, even though it has dissipated now. I will move on in life with that knowledge and take it with me, apply it to the next task and experience I encounter. I loved, I lost, and I fucking learned! The reminder is slightly painful, yes, but as it passes through me I know that I am human, I'm alive, and I can't express my gratitude for that in words.