Take a moment and think about it.

In the video series Fifty People, One Question: Galway, Ireland edition, 50 strangers were asked this question. The pauses, the comments, the confessions, the smiles, and the giggles.

It’s a strange thing to recognize, to see how everyone is similar in so many ways, despite their class, racial, political and religious differences. It takes a specific type of courage to open yourself up to the world like this. To be so vulnerable.

And while I watched this fairly short video, I knew to expect that oh so familiar wave of emotion to wash over me, the one that sort of feels like nostalgia and joy, all at the same time. Listening to some of their regrets as they announced them to the world, to strangers, to 670,046 of them to be exact (at 4:13 PM EST on April 8th, 2012), it made me think about all of the connections that we make throughout our lives, and how so many of their regrets felt like as if they too were tied into connections. The ones we keep, the ones we let go of, and the ones that show up out of the blue and change everything.

Last night I had a small little gathering at my place. It was a going away party for two friends who had both purchased a one way ticket to somewhere in Asia. They both decided to backpack through the continent together and to later return home at some undetermined time in the summer. And despite not knowing them for too long, I had gotten fairly close to these two people. We’ve hung out maybe three time, but in those nights, over hours and hours of conversation, we let our ideas, stories and opinions breach the gaps of time to pull us in together.

The last time I felt so inspired by the people around me was a couple of weeks ago, back in Montreal. On my first night in, my friend Mark and I sparked a conversation that lasted well into the evening. It was the type of conversation that left your mind completely at ease. It made you feel sane. It gave you a sense of direction and it inspired you to explore new avenues of yourself that you never once considered. It made you feel connected in an extremely profound way. Moments like these are rare, and in my life they’ve only ever happened with certain people. I can’t name it; I don’t know what that common characteristic is that runs through all of is, but whatever it is, I hope I never lose it.

Now back to regrets.

Back to those decisions (or lack thereof) that we made, the ones that haunt us when the world is quiet, when we can’t stand to look at ourselves in the mirror, or give ourselves over to someone; for a night or for a lifetime. What a fucking emotional trip. And I do have a few regrets, not many, but two in particular stick out: i) not going away for University, and ii) allowing him to kiss me.

But my greatest life regret?

Trying to hold on too hard. When I knew it was pointless. When I felt like it was the closest that I would ever get, to anyone. Allowing it to envelop me like it did. It bothers me that I still think about it from time to time. But eventually, I’ll stop. When something else comes along, something greater than I could ever imagine.

Today I stumbled across this interesting little article: Top 5 Regrets When Facing Death

Morbid, I know, but as simple as the regrets are, they made me think: Do we ever really learn? As people? As families? As mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, best friends, lovers, enemies? And the list goes on.

As silly as this may sound I find myself constantly thinking about death all the time. It began a few summers ago and it has something to do with my irrational fear of planes. I was flying the red eye from Edmonton to Toronto and my plane was practically empty. I’m surprised they didn’t cancel the flight because if I remember correctly, I had about 3 rows all to myself. At one point, I lifted all of the arm rests and lay down to sleep. For about three minutes that is, until I found it far too uncomfortable with the seat belt things digging into my back.

In the middle of the flight we hit some ridiculous turbulence. And I mean, ridiculous. It was the most terrifying event of my life. I was sitting alone in the window seat, back straight, body tense, ass clenched, hands gripping the arm rests for dear life, trying to think of beautiful life things, trying to remember if it was true that you lose consciousness before you actually hit the ground from the immediate free-fall and whether or not I said “I Love You” to my mother before taking off. I survived that flight, but the sheer stress alone took off at least 3 years from my life. My poor, stressed out little heart.

Now, I only ever fly with Ativan. And even then, it doesn’t always work.

But I digress, the point is, despite this absurd fear of death, every time since that I’ve gotten off the plane I revert back to my stupid, common self. Every promise I made to be better, writer more, be nicer to my parents—I forget. I become irritated when they ask me for favors, I leave school work to the last minute, I can’t find it in me to resist the urge of ice cream and rarely do I ever find myself motivated enough to finish an actual piece of writing. Oh, I do write, don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a lot of short stories and poems and screenplays.

They just don’t have endings.

And while I know that my parents are getting old, I still find it difficult at times to cut them a break. Am I angry that they didn’t spend enough time with me as child? Yes. Do I understand their reasons? Yes. Would I have done the same in their situation? Yes. Can I forgive them? No. Not until I’m at least 45 and facing the exact same problem with my own children.

Because for some reason, many of us refuse to actually listen, and when I say listen, I mean actually listen to what our elders are telling us. We must try to understand to our best abilities why they’re telling us, how we can learn from them and the best way for us to implement their lessons into our own lives so that we may avoid doing what they have done.

In other words, this is what happens when we tell ourselves “I will not be like my parents! I will raise my children with love and acceptance and understanding!” and then we fast forward to see ourselves clutching our chests in the middle of the night, screaming at our partners: “I’ve BECOME MY MOTHER/FATHER!!!”

Cue dramatic breakdown. Cue dramatic lighting. Cue dramatic Sarah McLachlan song.

So how do I deal with this? Once in a while I take a breath. Honestly, this works. When you’re angry and just fucking pissed off: take a fucking breath. For some reason, when you breathe, you calm down. And I’m talking deep breathes, not shallow tiny ones. In through your nose, feel the air going through your lungs and out through your mouth—Yoga style.

Your body will feel better, your mind will still be angry but you have to force yourself to let it go. If I were Christian, I’d say “Let go and Let God.” But that’s silly because as if God cares about your own petty problems, he’s trying to solve World Hunger and genocide and all that other bullshit!

So all we can do is let that bullshit flow through us. Just let it all go. The more you do it, the easier it gets, the more space you have in your mind and in your life to change, to find new habits, to run, walk, have sex, spend time with family/friends, and most importantly, to learn something.

It’s akin to taking an emotional poo/pee.

You feel simply divine afterwards.

It’s becoming clearer to me that for many of my elders, the road to happiness was one that was paved over the sad and desperate debris of the past. 

The things we give up, the things we lose and the things we do to ensure our own happiness. 

Pretty soon, we’ll all understand why our parents did what they did.