Mulligan??

K and I were talking the other day.  It was at the end of a long and busy day.  She was saying that she wanted to have a mulligan.  I asked if she wanted to do over just today or her whole life.


This got us to talking about changes we might make in our lives if we had the chance.  She said there were some things she might do differently, but she did not think she would drastically change much.  I was a little surprised since she ended up marrying a gay guy.


I thought about this too.  What would I change?  At first I was thinking I would have come out sooner, at least to myself.  I would not have married a woman and maybe found a man I could have been with.  At first, I thought about a lot of wasted time pretending to be someone else.


The I started thinking about how the good things in my life happened.  Before I met K, I knew people that she knew, but there really would have been no reason for us to meet.  It was only because I was looking for a girlfriend, that our paths crossed and eventually merged.  If we never met, we never would have become best friends (and more).  As much as she means to me, I simply cannot imaging changing anything that would cause us never to meet.


My kids would not be here.  I love all my kids and I try not to play favorites, but my daughter can light up my world like no one else.  Her innocence and 5 year old view of the world can just melt my problems away.  I love my sons and they each have added a unique richness to my life.  Again, I cannot imaging making any change that would result in them not being born.

Had I come out earlier, there is a good chance that my path would have not crossed T's either.  I might have found another.  I might have even fallen in love.  But it is just a likely I would have spend my life playing the gay dating game.  Drifting from one man to another.  One random sexual encounter to another.  At this point in my life I feel like I am very lucky to have his love.  Why would I want to change anything that might screw that up.


Then my thoughts turned to regret.  I have had a lot of regret over the past couple of years.  Now I have come to see how unproductive that was.  Regret itself is in unproductive emotion.  It's almost as if it was designed to make you stuck in some kind of a feedback loop.  The other (negative) emotions I have felt over the past 2 years at least can lead to something else.  Emotions like fear, sadness, guilt and anger at least will, eventually, cause you to act on something.  Regret is like a circle, when which there is no escape.  It keeps you trapped in the cycle of wanting to change the past, not being able to and then feeling bad that you can't change the past.


It all seems so simple now, but I was stuck in that cycle of regret for a long time.  I can see how easy it is to get trapped and how difficult it is to get out of.


While my life is not perfect and there is still much to do, I have past the stage where I regret.  Now I am looking forward.  I can't change the past.  The pain I have caused K (and may continue to cause to some extent) is not changeable.  I cannot stop being gay.  I cannot pretend to be straight.  I cannot return to the closet.


I have come to see that all of these experiences, good and bad have come together to make me who I am today.  It is the same for everyone.  You are the sum of your experiences to this point in your life.  Had those experiences been drastically different, you would be a different person.


If given the chance to make changes, would I?  Maybe.  But honestly, I hope I never the chance.  I am starting to like myself again and why would I want to change that?