REGRETS

Regrets and conscience are brothers conceived together, live together, and die together. It's not just me who have those two brothers with me all the time, I am sure most all of us do. I would imagine we all have them in varying degrees. Certainly there are some in the world who do not know either one of them. Their purposes I don't understand completely. They arrive after the crime is committed, we need them before the fact. Well maybe that's their other brother, knowledge, that explains why we should not do such and such, but he arrives a little late in most cases.


Regrets, like a blues tune in full mournfulness seems determined to race with me to the end. It seems in my experience that the size of the misdeed mattered not at all. The really big ones are intermingled with the small ones for my constant attention. It's not that I am terrified of bringing them all with me to the great beyond on judgement day. I am a believer, but I interpret the do's and don'ts with the easy going judgement values situated in my head. The one thing I do believe is that God forgives us all if we really want to be forgiven. It would be nice if like in some religions the officiating religious official would listen politely, then tell us to do A,B, and C, and we would be given a blanket pardon and our minds and consciences would magically be expunged of a lifetime of erroneous, embarrassing, hurtful deeds. Maybe it does work that way, but I think I am too much of a casual believer to qualify for that bargain.

No, I think I am doomed to carry them all with me to the very end. It is not only misdeeds, but just plain stupid things I have said through the years to some people, some of whom I don't even remember their names. People who, I can only pray, have no recollections of me or my stupidities. I seem to carry a permanent 'jiminy cricket' on my shoulder, that I cannot lose.

So, come along Jiminy for the ride. I can't guarantee much improvement, because being a flawed human being with a brain that gets into gear too slowly, and a mouth that opens too frequently without pre-censoring what is going to come out of it; with advancing age and less inhabitions; I will soon need a keeper whose sole job will be to put duct tape over my yapping mouth. I don't need anymore added to my chain of regrets, of unthinking stupidities, added to my collection of a lifetime that I will ,like Jacob Marley, have to carry for penance it seems forever, or until my all too human memories fade.