ok, so it's about a boy. this one regret. my paris regret. and when i search my memories to find a companion for it, i can't find one. i've made mistakes. lots and lots of not great decisions. but only one true regret. (tom says i should regret writing yesterday's blog and making you all curious about the regret.....he makes me giggle).so in my mid-20s, paris was my home. for 5 or 6 years, when i wasn't there i was making plans to be there. i walked away from the biggest love i'd known or would ever know (until tom) to pursue her call. paris was a multi-layered lover. yet i still kept coming back to my michigan boy. i couldn't stay faithful to either one of them. i needed them both. and when i fell into a relationship of convenience in paris it grew ever more complicated. a man who was friends with my friends and who wooed me with his flawless parisienne french. this affair lasted a couple of years, complete with an engagement. but the truest part of me couldn't let go of the real love. and it made me a person i cringe to think of now, indecisive and whimpery at times. but i can't consider that my regret. my regret was simply this.....the last time i was in paris, 16 years ago. i was there for a month, wandering and photographing and seeing and thinking. sharing paris, absorbing her, and without knowing it, saying goodbye. i stood in one of the phone booths on the street talking to michigan, like i did so many days, with her blue april skies and the sounds and smells of her streets surrounding me. and he told me he had made arrangements to come for 5 days to be with me in paris. and i refused him. i told him not to come. that i didn't want him to come, although i did so very much. i didn't know how to reconcile all of the confusing emotions so i buried them and crushed him. that is my regret. and as a penance i have never returned. there were so many times the opportunity was there, but i felt tied and heavy and unable to bear the weight of my regret.
Oh dear Annette, maybe you had to be where you are now and the only way to get there was doing what you did there in that phone booth and this may count as well for michigan boy.
ReplyDeleteI do wish for you ,you will see paris again with a light heart, xx
well, i might be a bit insensitive now, but i like that you will always have Paris all to yourself...
ReplyDeletetotally irrational, but that's what life is made of. eventually you may move on, may forgive yourself, or you may not. I try not to have regrets, but I think there need to be some in everyone's life. otherwise we become complacent and forget to watch out. I only regret two things in my life so far, and these two things had a bigger influence on who I am and how I live than everything else together...
ReplyDeleteI am happy that your path led you to Tom. Although I'd rather you were in Michigan, I wouldn't want you to have missed out on what you have and who you are now. I love that Paris will always be part of you. You were there for such an important part of your life.
ReplyDeletei hope it didn't seem like i regret the direction my life took. no no no. i only regret that moment. i've hurt people before and i'm sure i will again. but for some reason i know i should have treated that moment differently. and i don't think the direction would have changed....he may not even have come. but it wasn't my place to tell him not to and crush his plans.
ReplyDeleteWe all say and do things that we regret. I am sure like you he has moved on to a better place. Now you have aired your regret, it will probably weigh less heavy in your heart - hope so
ReplyDeleteThis is such a wistful story! Who really knows what the outcome would have been had he came. In that one moment the course of your entire life changed.
ReplyDeleteWe all look back wistfully....wondering what would have happened if the circumstances had been different. But in the end, the path you chose was the right one for you!
Deeply, deeply moving... I felt as if I was there, in that phone booth... *sigh* Regret is something we have to, at some point, let go of. We've all got it...but dwelling on it takes us nowhere. But I did love reading this! :)
ReplyDeleteSo lovely and powerful. I feel the ache and longing. I love the way you allow yourself to go deep. And that you share it with us.
ReplyDeleteI have a story so like this in my past. I have it written in my blog called A Romantic Life. It is the first post and is called "Rooms Change".
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