One Sorrow.

There are many things that I would change had I been allowed to write the story of my life. My mom would not had died when I was 20. I would have loved someone who was truly capable of understanding what love is. I would have beautiful, astute children of my own. I would have had a successful singing career and transitioned into some other arena by now, with millions to show for it.

However, as it is none of that can be changed and I find myself sitting with many regrets. Some of those regrets are for things that I have or have not done. Others are for things that were done to me that made it impossible for me to make a different choice.

I am an intensely private person in many respects. Unless, of course, you look at my trail of paper. I have recounted every hurt, every thought, every dream and every wish I have ever had on sheets of paper. Paper has often been my only friend. It has captured my tears and smiles all the same. Unspoken apologies lay between the pages of journals and notebooks, written in the most sincere penmanship. Hopes are inked there also. As well as the anger, disappointment and angst that I dare not speak of with my own tongue.

If you peered into my notebooks you would, no doubt, fully understand how I have come to be so guarded. You would be able to see how I can relish being alone in a world filled with so many wonderful people. You would grasp why some things cannot be changed no matter how I might wish them to be so. There are some relationships that cannot be mended no matter how much love is there. There are some places that I must go that no one can follow.

When my mother died, so much of me was changed forever. The life that I had thought would be mine was no longer possible. There were people who were a part of me that would never be again. I was powerless to stop it. I often look at that period of my life and wonder how so much went so badly; from a childhood full of wonder and folly to an adulthood full of loss, pain and confusion. It was a stark and abrupt transition. One day I was carefree and open to all the possibilities of live and the next there was no life left. My mother's death brought so much darkness and since then there had been flashes of light. There were some really great days but there was mostly darkness. First, it was reflected in a recklessness that almost willed death to claim me. Then, it was reflected in a hopelessness that allowed me to be uncommitted to everything; living only so that others would not have to mourn another death. Then came the period of searching; searching for pieces of my mother to make the whole again, trying to find her in old corners of the life she had known. Finally, came the period of pouring myself into things and people that probably should not have received my attention, yet, they filled a massive hole and kept me from having to feel pain.

Now, into my life has come joy. It is a sense of being overjoyed. Sometimes, though, it is tinged with the pain. Every time that I look at my niece, the granddaughter that my mother will never know, I am so glad and sad. I watch her grow and take shape and regret that she will never meet the beautiful woman who raised me and know the silly, funny woman she was. When she makes me laugh and smile I wish that my mom could have been there to see it. I realize that there is no one that I can ask if my niece's characteristics match something that her mother or I did as a baby, for who knows these things better than a mother?

However, my journey is uniquely mine and no matter how it has hurt, I would not be who I am had I not gone through it all. Still, I have so many things that I regret. I regret not giving myself to the people who have truly loved me and guarded me. I regret not indulging myself more, not valuing myself more. I regret spending so much time not acknowledging how much I want my mommy, to feel her hug me and hear her say it will be okay. I regret all of the conversations she and I never got to have and the experiences we never got to share. I regret losing all of the people that she loved and held dear. I could go on and on but none of that will change what is...life filled with loss and hope and joy and sorrow. Life all the same. It goes on whether we regret it or not.