"You'll regret that someday."
The mantra by which I can mark nearly every major event in my life. The horse they told me not to ride, the one that put me in the ER in under twenty minutes. The speed I never should have pushed my first car to, around a curve, during the rain, that sent me ass over teakettle into a ditch. That lighter fluid sold as rice whiskey at a back alley bar in Beijing; jesus it's been three years and I can still feel the wasps in my head. The car thief I once hooked up with just to piss mom off.
Ok I don't really regret him. He was smokin' hot.
In fact I don't really regret any of them, each having served in some way to make me what I am today and all worthy of free drinks at the nearest bar. The things I really regret are the ones no one ever told me I would. The road trip around the country with my best friend that never came to pass. The audition to be a roller derby girl that I chickened out on.
The most recently surfaced regret is that I have lost so many stories over the years. Deleted, thrown away, forgotten, easily hundreds. Some were bloody awful and the world is better for their loss, but there were some fuckin shiny ass diamonds in there as well. The regret is not for whatever commercial value I might be able to squeeze from them, but the fact that I can't go back, read them, and think "damn I wrote that!" or in some cases "aw shit I wrote that?" and I'm left feeling slightly cheated.
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