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Regret.

For some reason, regret has laid heavy on my mind, lately. I'm not sure if it's the start of a new school year; that always makes me melancholy. I'm not sure if it's that my "babies" have overnight turned into a "gang." But thoughts are nagging at me, and I'd like to share them with you. Truthfully, I don't know why you need to know these thoughts; I'm sure you have regrets of your own. Part of me has the illusion that by recounting my mistakes, you might be saved some pain and trouble. But I don't really believe that.

It seems to me that in living, we all have to screw it up somehow, and that becomes part of our story. As much as regret hurts, I guess I think it's a necessary evil for love. So I will share this with you, not with the hope that it will change you, but with the hope that it will change me.

FRUSTRATION
My first regret is about helping. When my babies were born, helping, to me, was an ugly word. Like a small child, I stood stubbornly over my life, shouting, "I CAN DO IT MYSELF!" No matter how kind the offer, no matter how much I needed the help, I somehow felt that if someone helped me, my life and my babies became less mine, and I became a failure. Now I observe young parents quietly delegating duties to grandparents, young teen helpers, friends, spouses; I watch how they let the world help them, and in that way, not only become better, more relaxed parents, but also let their children trust in a richer world. Oh, if only ...

My second regret is about frustration. And letting my children feel it. When faced with shoe tying and bike riding and buttons and snaps and zippers, I was a coward. Whether it was laziness or the pain of watching them struggle, I became faint of heart when my poor babies tried something that seemed bigger than they could conquer. And so I withdrew. I chickened out. And in retreating, we all lost something. I lost a chance to guide them, and they lost a chance to feel loss and pride in a task fiercely fought. I regret that.

But I am ever so thankful that the world kept turning, kept demanding that they push back and try, that they push back and learn. And I am thankful that I had the smallest of instincts telling me to step back and let the world push.

ALWAYS TIME
My third regret is work. As with frustration, I denied my kids the pleasure of shared projects as a family. Oh yes, we occasionally made cookies, we sometimes played a game or once in a great while I tried to orchestrate a craft (not well, mind you). But as I watch farm families consistently work toward a common goal, horse owners share in real responsibilities, new home builders allowing their kids to build in some fashion, I regret that my kids were not part of something beyond themselves, something that needed doing for the family's sake. I watch my daughter's riding instructor and her children. They are together, all of the time, sharing in chores, aggravating each other, relying on each other, being so very necessary, and suddenly, the agendas I set for my family look fairly pale.

Yet I am grateful that I was smart enough to marry a man who with woodpiles and fix-it projects knew enough, or needed help enough, to share his work with them.

And finally, time. Always and forever time. I wish I had chosen to work part-time. I wish I had made the sacrifice, faced the voices in my head that called me lazy and useless if I did not have a full-time job. I wish I had joined forces with the world less and given in to the adventure waiting at home, much, much more. How I wish.

Well, thank you. While I always hope that what I write might help another, today was truly about me. I needed to voice these regrets so that I can learn from them, tuck them away and move forward. So now I gladly face another day with my family, an unwritten day. May I put my regret to good use, begin again with a new vision and with bolder and braver strokes to discover completely different mistakes.

Mary White is from the Malone area. She and her husband have five children, eight cats, two dogs and three guinea pigs. She has had the privilege of working with children and families (her own and other people's) for more than 20 years.