Whelp, it seems it’s about time to start writing again. Right.
I’ve avoided writing for what feels like years now, but in reality been close to nine months. It was October of last year when I received an official rejection from Northwestern’s MFA program. I had applied for some strange hybrid of poetry and fiction prose with the intention pursue a career as an author of children’s books.
I use the word “intention” loosely here since I can hardly say I really ever took the process seriously. I paid the admissions fee and put together the required materials, but I knew I wasn’t going to be admitted to a program an ivy league school. Not without so much as a viral social media post or publication in a small collegiate magazine to show my work had merit. I had just wanted to say “I tried.”
After all, no one wants to lie in their deathbed looking desperately to the past for some trophy they didn’t win or some lips they never kissed. I know I don’t. The idea of a deathbed is what drives me forward. It’s what moves me. It moved me to Chicago. It moved my legs 140.2 miles across Santa Rosa through water and sun to complete two Ironman triathlons. It moved me to drop everything and spend my father’s last year as his caretaker, desperately trying to forge as many positive memories as I could. Regret.
Regret has always moved me.
Is it regret or fear that makes a person sweat in the cold of a dark night? For me the words are synonymous. I fear I might regret. I regret succumbing to my fear. For some reason, I often find myself trapped by the whims of my anxiety.
Recently, I’ve been joking about wanting to get a tattoo. It’s half a joke and half serious. I want to get the word “Regrets” tattooed on my leg. The joke part is that I want to use the Wingdings font, so that it looks like the following symbols: [sun] [finger pointing left] [finger pointing up][sun][finger pointing left][snowflake][water droplet].
I like it because I think it’d be funny to get a tattoo that is incredibly stupid since tattoos are permanent. When people ask if I think I would regret getting a tattoo of a joke, I respond, “I can always add ‘No’ in front so it says ‘No Regrets’ instead.”
I have also always wanted to get a tattoo of a dumb joke on me. I think it’s because I spent the better part of my youth obsessed with cartoons and sitcoms. I loved jokes. I loved committing to jokes. Commitment always made things funnier.
But I think the real reason I can’t get this idea out of my head is because “regrets” live with me. I don’t just mean in the form of fear or anxiety. I mean I have done things in my life that I can never take back. Things I can never change or make better. I will carry these things with me all of my life, whether I commemorate them in ink or not.
So, I like the idea of having them with me as a little joke. Something stupid I can’t really get rid of on my leg. Something that most other people will never know is there. Something that, even if others see it, is meaningless without explanation. Something I can explain away as meaningless to strangers, as a joke to acquaintances, as a meaningful joke to friends, and as a living reminder of something deeply painful to strangers on the Internet.
It’s funny.
hi friend