Time and Money
There are lots of things I regret not doing and a few that I do - although I no longer spend "a lot" of time torturing myself over either - and I always thought those things involved time and money, but I now realize they involved more than that.
More than time and money?! Yes, indeed.
The two main things I regret not doing are (and they actually fall in this order, for some reason known only to the Deep and Profound Gawd of Priorities):
1. Not being with my cat when she was put to sleep.
2. Not going to my grandmother's funeral.
I know, I know. But somewhere along the way my cat and my grandmother kind of morphed into one soul, anyway, so putting my cat first isn't really as bad as it looks.
I always thought the first was about money and the second was about time, but I was a homemaker with three toddlers for both and now I'm a working girl with three teenagers so I know it was about something else entirely.
It was about not thinking I was worth the time or the money to spend on things that would have given me peace of mind but would have taken away from the immediate needs of others. If it sounds like I feel martyred, I don't. I feel a little (not a lot, a little) sad for me back then because I realize now I was probably depressed.
But if there's one thing I do not regret, it's my life and all the stages of it - including the bad times.
I guess I'm a bit of a Big "C" Catholic, at heart, because I really do feel it's the bad times that make for a soul. And in my case, I'm one of those "born with a horseshoe up the ass" types who never knows she's in bad times until she's out of them. It's my saving grace, what makes me an optimist, and why I believe so strongly in socialized medicine, welfare, subsidized housing - using the tax dollars of the functioning workers bees among us to spread around to the... well... people who weren't born with a horseshoe up the ass and when they're in bad times - they know it.
And there's something about not thinking you're worth it that keeps people, I'm sure, from experiencing the kind of success in life that most of us take for granted. For instance, I know now that, if I could, I would go back in time and pay the extra money it would have cost to be with my cat when she was put to sleep - and I would take the time away from my family to go to my grandmother's funeral.
At the time, though, I couldn't see that it was worth it - that I was worth it. Everything I did was calculated down to not cause a ripple of effect on others. That's because I thought everybody else's time and money mattered more than I did and than my peace of mind did.
Well, it didn't. And if I'd stood up for myself, no one would have said, "No - you can't do that." Although I think I thought, deep down, that that's exactly what would have happened. But really, it was just me saying, "It's not worth it." And by that, I really meant, "I'm not worth it."
I can see it now. My living circumstances are so much different than they were then that I'd have to be... well... still depressed not to see it. And since I know that about myself, I can't pretend I don't know that about other people. And I can't imagine trying to live in this world thinking the time and money of others is more important than me and my life.
Anyway, we often hear the expression, "We can't just throw more money at the problem", but I think that's maybe all we can do. I also think it's what we should do. Because at some point in the at-home years, our family doctor referred me to a psychologist. She felt that talking to somebody would make a big difference in helping me see my situation the way she evidently saw it - that I didn't think I was worth the bother of life - and she turned out to be right. And because she was a doctor referring me to a psychologist, it was covered by my husband's health insurance plan. It still cost $30/hour, but that was better than $150/hour. To say it was worth it is almost beside the point, but without her referral and our insurance coverage, there is no way that it would have happened. Not that anything earth-shattering did as a result, you understand.
It just made all the difference in the world.
And if I was running the country, I'd make sure anybody who needed it had access to such a good thing. That would be my priority.
