When I was in my teens, it was
like I had the world on a string. I had absolutely everything I could ever
want. I had come from a moderately affluent family who showered me in elaborate
gifts and taught me the appropriate way in which to appreciate them. I was born
with this ridiculous, innate musical talent that earned me awards that I barely
even tried for. I had a wild imagination that to this day keeps me stimulated
and inspired. I also had really, really, ludicrously enormous aspirations
because my parents assured me that if I wanted something bad enough, if I
worked for it hard and smart enough, I could be anything that I wanted. I could
have anything I wanted.
I was the daughter of a man who
played in the White House. Twice. I was the granddaughter of the man who threw
a seventeen year old Billy Joel out of his house for putting his feet on the
piano bench. I was a Visceglie, a child prodigy, a petite, upper middle class
European with above average intelligence. I had all sorts of things coming to
me. The world would forever be my oyster and I was destined to do amazing, marvelous
things. Just ask my parents! They’re the ones who told me so.
I had a lot of incredible dreams
and honestly, some of them were relatively achievable. My all time favorite to
this day? Female Vocalist. I’d imagine myself in this dimly lit bar filled with
Don Draper caliber men wearing pinstripe suits with suspenders, fedoras, and
sparkly Cartier watches. Just sipping their martinis, mumbling amongst
themselves until the lights dim completely, the curtains come up and I come
out.
I would use one of those swanky,
old school microphones and be dressed like Jessica Rabbit. (Probably not red
though. I mean, let’s be real: I’ve got the dimensions to pull off a slinky
dress like that but red? Red is not
my color. Probably black. Or maybe dark green?)
I would insist on this all male
jazz band to accompany me and celebrities would come from all over the world
just to hear me onstage. I would be getting calls from Ray Charles, John Legend
and Joss Stone to collaborate performances together and somewhere, in that
Tropicana inspired night club, I would have a closet full of those
aforementioned slinky dresses and Louboutin pumps. (It probably goes without
saying but I would also obviously have a sick mini bar…) I would be that sexy
songstress that everyone wants but knows they could never tame. The fiery
brunette with a sweet taste for jazz and liquor. The girl with the velvet
pipes.
Such a class act.
My one regret in life is that I’m not someone
else. –Woody Allen
But I had other dreams too. I’ve
always wanted to write a book. (I’m steadily working on that one.) I’ve always
wanted to work for Interpol or the FBI. (Sadly, that one will probably never
happen.) I’ve always wanted to be a psychologist and work with the chronically
mentally ill. (I’m steadily working on that one as well.) I’ve always wanted to
profile serial killers, study them in depth, to learn from them and understand
them. I’ve also always been very fascinated by the Catholic religion. I once
pondered (very seriously) moving to Italy and working for the Vatican.
But I guess that despite all
that, I was just always going my own way.
When I was eighteen, I gave up
all that and ran away from home. I remember when my mom would call me crying,
telling me that I was making a monumental mistake, that running away was never
any kind of solution. I remember this as clear as day, as if it was yesterday,
I said to her, “I’m not running away from home. I’m a grown woman.” But the
truth was that she was right. And even worse than that was the mistake I made
was so colossal, it threw me all off course for a long time. It was life
shattering.
So much had happened. I honestly
thought I was making an adult decision, one my very family oriented parents
would eventually come to appreciate. Because I presumed I was being so grown
up. Way more mature than my eighteen years.
But what happened was it ruined
them. My parents were heartbroken. I literally cannot even say this sentence
out loud without crying but my mom said to me, not long after I left, “Kate, I
sleep in your room, in your bed, because it smells like you. And I miss you so
much.” I will never forget that. It’s a couple of measly sentences that will
literally haunt me forever. I’ll never forgive myself for the way I disrupted
the family. My sister didn’t talk to me for months because she felt that I had
abandoned her. I had abandoned all of them.
I just packed my shit and left
because I thought it was a good decision. I thought it was what I wanted. And
the turnout was, I spent almost a year sleeping on the floor next to my
boyfriend’s twin bed because “his back couldn’t take it” and he “had fires to
fight tomorrow”.
That’s what I left home for. It
was the worst, in some ways scariest, experience of my life.
To regret deeply is to live afresh. –Henry David
Thoreau
I try not to have a lot of
regrets in my life because honestly, I’m neurotic enough. But running away from
home and unintentionally abandoning my family is something that I will never,
ever forgive myself for. The sequence of events that followed that next year or
so only further thickened my guilt.
My dad fell off a ladder during a
hurricane cleanup. Then he had a series of five heart attacks that left him
weak and unable to work for awhile. My mom was killing herself at work and at
home picking up the slack because I wasn’t there to help. Sure, I went down on
weekends here and there when I could, but I never made an impact. I jumped ship
and it aged them both. All so I could be shacked up with a man who was terrible
to me. And I mean goddamn terrible.
I will never forgive myself as
long as I live.
I feel this perpetual, aching
kind of loneliness whenever I remember those days. I would never trade the life
I had now and honestly, I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be. But
when I think of all that’s transpired, all of the pain and turmoil it appears
that I put myself through, I feel like I just ruined my life. Like I was given
a million dollars to do whatever I wanted with and instead of spending it
wisely, I just dropped it out of a plane.
I mean, over time, I patched it
all up and put things back together, only a band-aid to cover a fractured life.
Eventually I got back on track but it took a long time to get there. It was
sort of like I put all those dreams in a fireproof box and mailed them to hell.
I got them back but they were a little warped in the fire. I just threw away
all those things I loved and valued. I just pushed aside all those dreams and
said, “You know what? I think I would rather be kicked around by a twenty year
old volunteer fire fighter…” It was as if I was living somebody else’s life for
three years.
These mistakes, these regrets,
they’re the reason I incessantly punish myself. I drink them away every night
but they still erode at my confidence. And to this day, they make me feel
terrible.
We must all suffer one of two things: the pain
of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment. –Jim Rohn
I’ve often heard people say
things like, “If you learn from it, it wasn’t a mistake” or “Just keep living,
what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” and I suppose those things are true.
Because obviously, no one has ever died from a broken heart. (Although if you
were to ask my Grandpa Visceglie, he would tell you otherwise…) but these
trials and tribulations, these moments that forever riddle you with self doubt
and compunction, are they to be considered mistakes worth making? Mistakes that
may have hurt for awhile but eventually, faded away as you found your place in
society?
I mean, really. These things can
brand you for life. Even if you move past it and are somehow forgiven, your
mistake will always be there. The people affected could never forget because although
it’s been mended, you’re still the one who chipped away at their heart. You’re
the still the one, despite all your allegedly genuine apologies, who never once
considered their feelings while you were doing whatever it is you wanted. You
never mulled over how they might feel while you were busy doing you. What kind
of terrible person goes through life like that? So haphazardly hurting people
because you just had to do what you wanted to do. Because damn the consequences
or whoever else gets hurt, you really wanted something.
I have made two big mistakes in
my life and I’m telling you, despite the forgiveness I have been so graciously
granted, I still feel like half a person. Because that hurt I caused, it never
goes away.
Moral of the Crazy: It’s like
that Joss Stone song, Right to Be Wrong.
(If you haven’t heard it, please do yourself an enormous favor and LISTEN TO
IT. It’s my anthem.) We’ve all got our own choices to make and we’re the ones
left to deal with the repercussions. And the reality of it is that they aren’t
always so pleasant. And they don’t always go away.
But mistakes can be learned from and we can
become better people. No one is perfect but we try. And those mistake makers,
well, sometimes they turn out to leave you pleasantly surprised.
We all make mistakes but they don’t
label us. Maybe they instead help to shape us, persuade us to be more
forthcoming and formidable. And at the end of it all, when we awake from our
whiskey soaked dreams and guilt ridden hangovers, we possess the ability to try
harder. To be better. To remember those people we so carelessly hurt the first
time around.
And if we’re lucky, we learn not
to make the same mistake twice.
The past is a great place and I don’t want to
erase it or regret it. But I don’t want to be its prisoner either. –Mick Jagger
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