Regrets-I Got Them

I read articles about finding time to write. Nearly every one suggests using the time waiting for your kids at sport events, program and doctors offices. Go prepared with notebooks, project files and pen( when my children were young there were no cell phones, PDA’s, or Blackberry’s or laptops so those were not an option) The idea is sound. A lot can be done sitting in a car or on bleachers—an outline started, a character sketch rounded out, ideas listed, first lines grappled with.

Sometimes I feel guilty I didn’t utilize those abundant pockets of time. Maybe I’d be more successful now. Maybe, I’d have a book published or a chapbook in print. A heady thought, and sometimes, I beat myself up with the possibility.

I didn’t though. I spent those moments watching my kids play, or sing, or interact with their friends. I held my sick children on my lap, wiped their noses. I peeled oranges, doled out drinks, entertained the younger kids. Like those parents concentrating on taking video, who ended up missing the best part of the action, missing the cutest things their kids did, if I’d been writing I would have missed a good part of my children’s life. I’m glad I never took advantage of these times.

When I first started writing again, I promised myself I would never forget what was most important. It’s so easy to forget. Easy to get caught up in ambition and success. Everyone knows you must get your butt in the chair, do the work, knuckle down, write. And it’s true, of course. You must write.

But you must remember your life and what is most important there, too.

Did I lose a lot of good ideas? Yes. So often I was rushing from one child’s music lesson or sport event to another. Dinners to fix, treats to provide, neighbor’s children needing a ride. Will I ever retrieve the ideas and words I lost? Nope. Does that haunt me? Oh, yes.

Even now, I care for an elderly parent. I have huge blocks of time as we wait in doctors’ offices or in line. I could get more writing done if I utilized that time, but then, I’d miss my mother’s conversation as she reminisces, tells long ago stories. I’d miss getting to know my mother in a new, wonderful way. She takes my attention much the same way as my children did. Do I resent these moments with her? No, because I know those moments will come to an end, too soon.

And as every writer knows the stories are never silent. They go on whispering in your mind. Nagging to be heard, put down, exposed. I can’t completely ignore them either, but I quiet them as best I can with a promise of later, knowing all along that some stories will never be told.

But regret? No. I saw; really saw my kid’s triumphs, failures. I witnessed their heartbreaks, their joy. I was completely present. With advice, a shoulder, pithy remarks or a smile and a thumbs up. And they saw I was there for them, too. Priceless, I think now. They are adults with children of their own, juggling their own desires, jobs, and dreams. I’m not one bit sorry of the time or example I gave.

I’m not sorry about the time I spend with my mom either, getting to know her as a person, not just a parent, learning about her wishes and dreams and history. Am I losing writing time? Yes. Have I lost some wonderful work? Yes. Does that mean I may never be the writer I dreamed of being? Maybe. But it’s the price I’m willing to pay. I think it’s the price I have to pay to be the writer I’m meant to be, want to be.

I read this poem years and years ago in a writer’s magazine. It says it all, better than I can. It touched my heart so much with the truth. I keep it on a bill spike on my desk. It is a homage written by poet/mother, Laura Apol to another poet and mother, Lucille Clifton:

Tell me again about the poems you lost
and the babies you saved.
Tell me you couldn’t replace the children,
tell me you could replace the poems;
please tell me that lie because I, too,
have poems and children
and some days they play side by side,
tossing back and forth while I listen;
some days they fight to the death.