Regrets

You always hear people say that they have no regrets in life. I'm not afraid to admit that I have a few.

The summer after I graduated from high school, I went to stay with my aunt and uncle for a few months, just outside Depot Bay, a small town at the Oregon coast. I had been hired for a temporary summer job to earn a little money for college ..... or for whatever came next. I  wasn't entirely sure at that point.

When not working, I spent most of my hours in the basement bedroom of their house. Depressed over a girl from high school that I had a huge crush on but who I was always too shy and terrified to attempt to speak to. Graduation had seemingly ended any hope of overcoming my fears. So I spent the hours wallowing in self pity and listening endlessly to four or five eight track tapes that I had taken with me from home.

A three minute stroll from the beach and I may have wandered there once or twice that entire summer.

I look back and realize that my aunt and uncle were probably hoping for much more of a relationship. Years before they had lost their only son, who used to watch after my siblings and I in our childhood, lost to the gunfire of the jealous estranged husband of a woman he was dating. Looking back, I think they were hoping that I could fill a very small part of that void in their world. But I was too blinded by and selfish with my own problems.

These days I badly regret my choice to be a hermit that summer.

That girl from high school that I had a crush on? Many years later, I got to know her and spend a few days at Thanksgiving with her in Idaho, where she had eventually moved to. I haven't spoke to her much lately but we are still friends. (I think.)

EDIT ..... It's a little eerie .... Just an hour or two after I typed these words, she (my old high school crush) posted a photo on facebook that I loved and commented on. She replied, asking: "How are you my old friend?" It sometimes seems like yesterday, those days when I was terrified to speak to her.