Biggest Regret(s) of Your Life
 

Young guy at work has kinda taken a liking to me lately. He found out about my “former life”, and he’s been filled with questions and always chatting me up.

He’s a good kid; bright, handsome, and hopefully doesn’t fall into the trappings of life before he even has a chance to get started.

At any rate…. While sharing some stories, I fell upon one that turned into my total regret, combined with rummaging around in some old boxes where I found a few “treasures”, an old photo of my dad with me and my siblings. Been looking for that photo for a long time, and it’s more special after my dad’s passing a few years ago. Found my old Blockbuster member card. An old flyer from my band of 20+ years ago. A huge chunk of ticket stubs from movies and shows I went to from the early 2000’s. And a buttload of old call sheets from the first movie I worked on. Then I found an unopened card/letter that was meant for Spencer Grammer. My heart sank.

I briefly dated her in 2001/2002. We worked together at first, and I was her trainer. We had immediate rapport and chemistry in spite of our age difference. She was only 18 and I was 25. We’d worked together for several weeks before I discovered she was a star’s daughter. Was a busy Saturday and I’m working the info stand, customers everywhere, and I’m locked in on the search computer when I hear her familiar voice, “Hey Tom! Just wanted to say hi! And this is my dad!” I no longer than have the words, “hey Spence”, out of my mouth and there’s Frasier ****ing Crane. Oh. Right. Grammer. Well **** me…

Things were pretty much normal for the next several weeks as we worked aside each other. We were closing together one night and it came up that I had a bootleg DVD of Royal Tennenbaums. She hadn’t seen it, and asked if we could hang out together after work and watch it at my place. Folks, I had reservations knowing her age, but **** it, it’s just watching a movie, right? Well, we’re about 30 minutes into the movie and she puts the moves on me, flat out asking if she can kiss me. So yup. You can imagine how that played out. And it played out again several more times over the following weeks. And it was great. We got along perfectly. No games, no arguments, just pure chemistry.

And then she was going to take off to NYC for a couple months for classes…. And during this time I ran across an online article with her and her dad and according to the site, she was only 16 years old. I FREAKED. I ghosted her completely. She’d call, I never answered. Emails. Nope. Finally talked to her after hearing she was in a serious car wreck and I told her that we couldn’t see each other anymore. Well, turns out the online article’s dates were wrong, she was in fact 18 turning 19, and while it was maybe a slightly inappropriate age gap, it wasn’t illegal, and I wasn’t a sicko getting hunted by the FBI.

I ****ed up. Colossal **** up. I’ve found love a few times since. Plenty of relationships. Nothing has ever worked out. And now I’m middle aged and still single. I haven’t obsessed about her or thought too much about it, but yeah, I regret how that played out. I was naive, listening to my friends too much and not trusting myself enough at that time. I’ll never know if we could’ve continued to be a couple, but I’ll be damned if I haven’t had several moments of wondering what could have been.

Second worst regret…. I’m ashamed to admit I got a DUI after graduating college. Was on my way from the bars with a buddy to grab a bite to eat and “sober up”, but I was driving 7 over the limit, got popped, and spent the night in the pokie. Mom picked me up the following day and her favorite cousin had died the same day. I wished the world would just swallow me up. I spent a good chunk of all the money gifts from graduating college on paying fines, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more ashamed in my life.


So what about you CPer’s? What are your most regrettable moments?

Made the big trip from the UK to Kansas City last November. Didn't take a shit in Kohl's. Devastated.

Getting married. What a colossal waste of time and effort that was.

Nothing, wouldn't change a damn thing. Every dickhead I had to deal with built my character and lead me to be the man I am today. Every skank I wasted time on lead me to my incredible wife, and every shitty job I had to drag myself through lead me to my current role running a $10 million dollar company with my best friend of 20+ years. Maybe I've just been incredibly blessed, but it sure as hell didn't feel that way for a long time until I changed my perspective. I truly believe the universe/God (take your pick depending on your beliefs) has a plan for everyone. I saw a great quote recently about the perfection and uniqueness of even the smallest snowflake; if the universe/God puts that kind of work into a tiny snowflake, what makes you think your life is any less significant? You're walking the path you're meant to.

I'm a big believer in the butterfly effect. That chick you're thinking of likely would have just ended up breaking your heart. If you didn't get that DUI, maybe you keep drinking and driving on the regular and end up killing someone or yourself. Hell, maybe it even happens a little bit down the road if that cop doesn't stop you. You really have no clue.

I realize we're all first world Americans living better than 99% of all humans who ever existed and to many people suffering, this would all sound like bullshit, but it's how I've centered myself and stopped dwelling on the past, which I used to do quite a bit. Live in the moment and believe you're meant to be where you are, and your life gets so much better.

Being a Royals fan, especially now.

Reading that long ass OP is up there for me

Not spending more time with my parents and telling them I loved them more often when they were alive….#****CANCER

Selling some of my old cars and trucks.

Telling Gordon Vadakin I couldn’t join the WSU Bowling team in 94-96 because I have to drink when I bowl.

Dumb AF kid shit…

Super interesting story Gaby. Sucks that you were misinformed, but your instincts took you down the right path I think. If you even had a whiff of someone being underage you run like hell IMO.

I agree with what Wisconsin Chief said there, that every decision I've made, good and bad, has led me to where I am, and where I am isn't bad at all.

But if I could go back and make a different decision to save myself a lot of grief and anxiety, I wouldn't have gotten married just because I thought it's what I was supposed to do. I had dated a lot of ladies and was not finding anyone compatible. Until I came across my ex wife. Educated, great job, we got along great, good family situation. So I figured marriage was what I should have done. It ended in cold and bitter divorce after only a few years. The whole process was so invasive and had me losing hair, sleep, and a LOT of money. It was the worst couple years of my life.

But like I said, it got me to where I am now.

Since we really don’t know what other flaps of the butterfly wings would happen had you gentlemen not endured what you experienced, I don’t imagine regret does you much good.

Like those cool books where you pick your storyline, I wouldn’t mind seeing some re-enactments of what my life would have looked like with different choices.

But purely out of scientific curiosity.

To be fair, this Gordon Vadakin guy sounds like he was the one in the wrong.

My biggest regret, well change I may make, isn't really a negative as I have had a great life, career, family, etc. However, I absolutely love football and after playing in college I had a chance to coach or pursue a career with my Econ major. At the time, early 90's, coaching wasn't a lucrative career path and was a long road. I have had a very successful and lucrative career, but also coached HS football for 20 years and absolutely loved the process, breaking down film, game prep, in game strategy and adjustments, and helping young men reach their potential. I believe I could have been really successful as a coach and the money today is nuts, however, I have no complaints and continue to look forward, not backward.

First marriage. Moving to Illinois.

I would say marrying my first wife (now referred to as "The Practice Wife") but I love my children too much to say that. I will say staying in that toxic relationship for so long. Life is too short.

My first marriage. We dated 4 years in college and it was just expected that we were going to marry. Both of us knew it was a bad idea, but neither of us said anything. It ended badly. I wouldn't say the time dating in college was a waste, but it took several years after the divorce for me to get past it.

Fortunately we didn't have time to have kids.

Ruff guess...but I'd estimate 98.9% of the responses will involve a woman...not buying Apple stock is a distant second.

Gabbykeepsmeselfreflecting.

Biggest regret (out of my control): Being homeschooled in high school. For a lot of reasons, but the biggest being that I didn't get pushed to persevere through things I didn't get right away (hello undiagnosed-until-41-ADHD). It affected what I studied in college and the career field I went into (I went into something that was easy for me, that I was naturally good at). I should probably be an engineer.

Biggest regret (circumstance):
In 2003, before my junior year of college, Mrs. Idaho and I were at the same house party. I had recently broken up with a long-term girlfriend, and I was on the prowl. Our paths didn't cross at the party, randomly. I met someone else and dated her for most of that year of school. It left me with some scars that almost entirely screwed up things with Mrs. Idaho.

I'd give a lot to have one more year with her.

That I never Served.

At the very least, I went to Law School to go into the JAG corps. Got waitlisted, took a job. Got accepted but felt I owed it to the firm that took a flyer on me to play it out. If I wasn't going to grab a rifle and stand a post, I should have at LEAST done the Jag thing.

But inertia took over. I've done well enough and things have turned out pretty nicely for me (most days). But I can't imagine even a short term in JAG would've changed things THAT much and maybe I'd have gone career. Hell, I'd be nearing retirement eligibility as a Lt. Col at worst right about now.

{shrug}

Also wish I'd have left the state for school at least once. Undergrad doesn't bother me much -- that was free college, seemed silly to turn that down. But I had some pretty nice little acceptance letters from schools across the country for law school and I just kinda let inertia and a little laziness win that battle again. Didn't feel like going through the headache of moving to NY or NC or Texas or Colorado or Massachusetts (funny enough, with a handful of top 50 schools accepting me, it was the damn party schools in AZ that said thanks but no thanks; I'll always kinda get a kick out of that...)

So again, I took the scholarship and the simpler route. At some point I should've grabbed my nuts and gotten out of the midwest for awhile. Or at the very least gone to Wash U, paid a hell of a lot more but I'd have had to push myself harder.

I think my issue was a realization that I can do well at about 70% effort most of the time so that's just kinda what I did. And eventually you're gonna find yourself wishing you'd have maxed out a bit more at least a time or two.

I found Cave/PatMahomesIsGod's biggest regret:

https://onemileatatime.com/news/amer...-fatally-shot/

not investing in BTC early on...

For me personally not going into law. Should have went that route for a career. Always thought it was just the Johhny Cochran or ambulance chaser types instead of all the different avenues you can specialize in.

My great uncle had an even greater one. He was friends with Bud Walton. Bud and Sam would come out and bird hunt all the time at his farm. They wanted him to invest in their new venture a discount store in Arkansas. That discount store became Wal Mart.

Not buying BTC when I first found out about it. I could be chilling on the Adriatic coast instead of sitting in a factory shitposting.

Had the money to get it all solved in my twenties.

So when did your great uncle eat a bullet? Yikes -- that's a tough blow...

Weirdly, I was an acquaintance of one of the guys who was involved in starting The Players Tribune. It sounded like a neat idea that I never thought would get very far. He wanted me to be an editor for them but at the time it would've been one of those unpaid things that looked like a whole shitload of work in my off-hours as I was starting a family. It would be (essentially) unpaid and I was pretty sure I'd be doing it for a year doing nothing but reading trash articles from minor leaguers because this guy didn't really seem to have any 'ins'. I passed and a couple years later you have HoF players announcing their retirements with them. I guess he ended up locking in with a big agency and got Jeter on board and things progressed pretty quickly from there.

So...yeah. Oops. Probably should've taken him up on that one.

Not signing up for Chiefsplanet sooner.

Not many really. Probably the biggest is not saving money when I was younger. Sure, I had a lot of fun, but it sure would be nice to be able to retire now.

The other one is that I don't have a single picture of my '72 El Camino I had 40 years ago. Damn that was a sweet ride.

I think the closest to a regret I have is not knowing what career I wanted to pursue in undergrad. I ended up completely changing careers around 30. Truth is though, I currently have a job that utilizes both backgrounds, so it's hard to say where I'd be without that experience.

now that you mention it. I did own 37 bitcoin in 2014...investor in a mining operation my uncle had... did OK and made some good money, but man oh man, if I could have imagined...

Tough regret but he lived a great life up until he passed away at 95.

Mine for investment was when I just graduated high school. Summer of 03, had an old guy come into the family business. Was talking to him, he told looks like you just graduated probably got some money right now. I told him I did. Told me to look into investing in oil companies that were in the Bakken up in North Dakota. Which at the time not much going on. Thought whatever I'm 18 I need a new truck instead. Well 2006 they hit up there, I would have been a multimillionaire before I graduated college. Could have been retired essentially before age 30.

I was in tech early. At the time I could have bought almost every website you have ever heard of or had value. Each domain, at the time, cost $75 to register the domain. Furniture.com, LA.com, Groceries, Taxes, broadband.com etc etc

I knew Google was going to win the search wars because their results were real and marked sponsorship placement. The others put sponsored results first.

I was is a mining Bitcoin with a group while I was still on a dial up modem. Only got about $8 total over 4 months so I gave my 11 Bitcoin to another dude.

I tried to convince the wife to grab these above but she said no, we cant gamble when we have no money. I couldnt even tell her that the .com was going to be the domain for business. It was about 60/40 at the time with .biz. We were piss poor at the time. So we'd have to spend $150 to cover one site to park.

Cant complain about my life I did get to lead. Where I ended up as a retiree. Yes, I still give her shit about saying no.

I agree, I would be interested to know how my life might have unfolded if I had made one different decision early in life. But I am good with where I am and who I am so no regerts here.

That decision was the choice of a stupid 18 year old. I graduated HS in 78 and started going to Oregon State for computer programming. I had shown a bit of an ability during the one semester of programming available in HS and really enjoyed it. But, I also had my first girlfriend who was a senior in high school. Every weekend I was going back home to see her. After about 6 weeks, I decided I was a smart guy and I could be making as much money in 4 years without school.

Of course, if I had followed through and graduated in 82, there was a smallish company in Remond Washington that I might have been able to get on with. Starting during the early years with Microsoft just might have made my life a little different.

Always wondered what that might have looked like.

Probably going to college and getting a job. Wish I had just dropped out and pursued poker right then instead of waited until 2012. Missed millions and millions that could have been earned from 2003 to 2012.

I've more or less come to the same conclusions as people who are far more spiritual, but from the opposite direction.

Being cheerfully nihilistic, I think everything happens for a reason, and that reason is randomness and the chaos of the universe, and being idiots. Deal with what comes at you the best you can in that moment, knowing you're ultimately a dumbass just like everyone else, and you'll have minimal regrets.

I'm not butterfly-effect in terms of decisions ultimately leading to your best possible life... sometimes you **** around and permanently find out... but, I also wouldn't change something 5 or 10 or 30 years ago with zero knowledge of what all it would impact for better or worse.


Probably the biggest thing though would be wishing I had put more effort towards knowing my grandparents and many extended family members more so when I was younger... I was pretty antisocial growing up and my immediate family really only saw extended family at holidays (definitely didn't come from the outgoing wing of the family). As I got a bit older, I definitely could have put more effort towards those relationships (one example, my mom had a big falling out with her mom, so I didn't see my grandmother for years growing up. I saw her while I was working at a restaurant when I was ~16 or 17 and she told me "just so you know, you can always stop by anyway"... :( ). Grandparents have passed, as well as some other extended family members.

The one that got away.

dont jump over a hurdle at age 34.


other than that, small decisions I would like to undo. But nothing major

I didn't register to this board in 2016 when I discovered and started reading it.

Not killing myself years ago.

I spent three years working for JAG lawyers in the Navy. A Few Good Men very accurately portrayed what they were like. For the most part, the good ones, like Cruise's Caffey, do their time, rack up experience/get JAG on the ol' resume and move out, not up, as soon as they're able. The bumbling micromanagers like Moore's Galloway end up staying in forever. Caffey would have ended up a multi-millionaire PI lawyer with his own firm doing annoying TV commercials, and Galloway would have made admiral and ****ed up everything she touched along the way.

Rooting for the Raiders and Pirates.

Nothing but misery.

When are those assholes going to call up Bubba Chandler?!?!

God almighty, that kid is impressive. Like....might well end up a 1b to Skenes style impressive.

If he can dial in his fastball command, he's as good as a prospect gets. And I watched him in that Spring Breakout game (maybe against the Phillies squad?), he CAN paint with it. It just seems to come and go on him a bit.

Kid has absolutely vile stuff. If they'd have called him up to start the year, I think he could've won the ROY. Hell, he still has a shot with Sasaki scuffling.

It was 1983 on a warm summer day in Ohio, I friggin lost my mind and bought a 1978 Chevy Chevette. Wow that was a regrettable day.

I had an idea ten years ago that mobile phones should automatically be able to reach out to other mobile phones of your friends and create available time slots for meetings, meet ups, etc.


It seemed like something Google and Apple had missed. I never moved forward with it and now see Calendly (which implemented one smaller piece of it) worth 3 Billion dollars.

Not being younger when I had my son. I don't regret my life or anything in it, or even most of my decisions, as I'm in a good place. I just wish I could have 15 more years with my son than I'm going to get.

In terms of actual changes I would go back and make, it would be eating a healthier diet. I'm paying now for bad decisions back then.

There are other events that were bad, but I survived them and they led me to my current life, which I'm very happy with. So I wouldn't risk upsetting that path. I learned something from the various bad things, so maybe having those experiences kept me from having them again later.

Here's an oddity, though, and I wonder if I could have avoided some major headaches without changing my path.

What actually happened: After college, I took a job in St. Louis mostly to mollify a girlfriend and my mother, who both wanted me to stay in the Missouri area. I spent five years there, and was miserable the entire time. Nothing went right, except for one key thing: I met my wife. If not for that, I would easily root for changing my decision there. And it's possible that I could do it anyway. Why? See below.

What could have happened: I had two nearly identical job offers, one in St. Louis and one in Texas. I wanted to move to Texas, but didn't for the reasons cited above. But let's say I did. I would have dumped the girlfriend, which would have been a huge positive, and gotten some distance from my family, which would have been another huge positive. The jobs were more or less the same, so that's neutral. But what about meeting my wife?

Well, I met my wife when she took a job in my company. So would I have met her if I hadn't taken that job? As it turns out, she moved to Missouri from Texas to take the job. Her old job in Texas? It was at the very same company that had offered me the job. The two companies were partnered on a big contract, so she was working on the same project that I was, just at the other company. So it's quite possible that we would have met even if I had taken the Texas job. If I went back in time and took the Texas job, I could have avoided a five-year dumpster fire in St. Louis and still harvested the one positive takeaway.

I swear Rain Man is Walter Mitty.

I definitely made my share of mistakes along the journey, but I really only regret 2 of them.

The first was electing to stay in KC out of High School so I could play football at William Jewell. I had the opportunity to essentially go anywhere I wanted (not for football) and I probably missed out on some experiences because of that decision. I like where I am now, so regret may not be the right word, but I do think about it from time to time.

The other one, and this one is a legitimate regret, was cheating on an ex. It was a complicated situation, but it was definitely a scumbag move.

And what if Luv is 15X the mom because of when she had him, and Rain Man avoided the murderous Cowboy stalker that wifey unknowingly escaped, and Showtime developed an unhealthy obsession for cocaine and Funko, and Frazod was crushed by a brand new refrigerator, and DJ ended up in jail for espionage, and Pepe didn’t traumatize the car full of children by jumping off the bridge, and allllllll those ****ing MN kids that would be even dumber without teacher.

Live in the present.

I invented Twitter in 2003.

Maybe not the biggest but there was this really hot girl that I worked with in college that really wanted to date me but I had a rule that I would never date anyone i worked with and wouldn't make any exception. I should have went for it.

In recognition of the butterfly effect, I think an interesting alternative to the 'regrets' question is this: if you could see a magical YouTube video that documents your life in an alternate reality where you made a pivotal decision, what fork in the road would you choose as your starting point?

I don't know if it's a good idea to even watch such a magical video, but it would be really interesting. A lot of us, or likely all of us, have made decisions that put our lives on a fundamentally different course compared to making a different choice. It would be weird to see myself with perhaps a different wife (though we've already confirmed that the universe set me on an irreversible course to my current wife) and a different job and maybe kids and living in a different place.

I would be interested in seeing the results of three different forks in the road.

Fork 1. When I was eighteen, I was going to be an architect. No question about it. That was the plan. Then my high school had a career day. I went to the architect's talk, and heard how it was not a great job and it paid low, and all the cool stuff you see about being an architect is fiction. I then went down the hall where an engineer told us how fantastic engineering was and how it paid great, so my plan changed on that day. I'd like to see how my life would have turned out if I had stayed home sick that day in high school.

Fork 2. When I was eighteen, I won a full-ride four-year scholarship to my dream college. I was stoked. I was all in. Then a couple of really bad things happened, and I couldn't go. Both were out of my control, so it really hurt to give that up. I'd be interested in watching the video of my life in a scenario where I was able to do that.

Fork 3. This one is more of a lark because I didn't really consider it seriously. But it would be a great video to watch to see how far off my life path I could have wandered. When I was graduating college, the Navy was hiring engineers to run nuclear reactors on submarines and aircraft carriers, and I found it really intriguing. I didn't have the gumption to do it, but I wonder how my life would have progressed if I had jumped out of my normalcy to do it.

I wouldn't trade any of these alternate lives for my current life, but it would be fun to see how they would have turned out.

Oh I’m so doing sports management next lifetime.

While befriending Patrick Mahomes II in his childhood, I presume.

Now that you’ve manifested it, I have no doubt God is writing it down right now. 🥰

I’ll befriend Bronze one day.
But of everything I’ve learned this past NFL season, I get far more of a rush watching the crowd in the stands than the product on the field.

And I recognize the easy lay up joke there, I’m not really allowed to make that joke, so let’s just leave it alone. 😁

I treated some people pretty poorly along the way which I regret. I turned that into a learning experience and raised my kids to do better.

My biggest regret was not patching things up with my brother. This was a work in progress and on me for plodding along with it. Unfortunately he was in a car accident and passed at 18. I missed my chance. My fault.

He was the bowling coach for the Wichita State Shockers. He coached for like 40yrs.

Being a Chiefs fan from 1970 to 2017 before Mahomes was drafted. I could have saved myself years of stress and false hopes......

There wasn't one specific fork when I was choosing a college, but that's kind of the issue... got some junk mail, applied to Northwest Missouri State, went there. In-state tuition, close to KC. I guess the fork could be thinking twice about that, even though I never really did.

In college, a buddy of mine got an internship at DisneyWorld along with several other people... I didn't get it and was pretty bitter about it at the time. I don't think life would have turned out better, but it would be interesting to see it play out (my buddy never left Disney; guessing I would have after one summer, since the initial intern was mostly just amusement park labor and had zilch to do with IT.. but who knows, maybe just the name on a resume would have helped, too).

Other interesting forks would be career-related... if I didn't move to Omaha for an IT job or never moved to Arizona. The former was huge jump for my career, but who knows, could have easily landed elsewhere later (and I ended up moving back to KC a couple years later anyway). The Arizona move was kind of on a whim... I imagine the other side of that decision would be someone traveling through time with me in that multiverse and saying "and this is what your life would have looked like" and future self says "oh god no, take me back to Arizona!" and multiverse me is all "what the **** was that?"

Regrets?

I've had a few

But then again, too few to mention

So, you’d give up on the 10” python, mullet and Camaro? That’s loser mentality, bro.

I have a couple of younger relatives who are sisters. The older one got one of those Disney internships, and my impression is that it was just a fun summer lark for her. She's a competent person so I'm sure she did a good job. The younger one had a complete Disney obsession, embracing all things Disney growing up, so she applied a couple of years later and was very excited about going ... and didn't get it.

I think I might be a bit young to have regrets lol. Or I'd likely be told that by the older folk.

So yeah seriously my single biggest regret is divorcing the mother of my kids, my high school sweetheart and only one true love... hell I was young and full of beans, my naive ass didn't know how deeply it can impact your life

I should've preserved my family

Giving DeBerg his thread starting privileges back.

I don't remember how long it took, but pretty sure he didn't immediately go into IT after that summer was over either... there wasn't exactly a light at the end of the 4000% humidity tunnel, they just kind of string you along for a while . It's been ~20+ years though on top of living in Florida, so they must be doing something right. :shrug:

I'm pretty happy I'm still alive and mostly in one piece and not too economically stressed.

There are a few hindsight things I might do a wee bit differently.

Like a literally hold my beer while I jump into the top of this white water rapids (no floatation) just because I'm young (and drinking beer) and indestructible.

The women I let get away I figure I would have divorced anyway.

Believing that the 2025 Royals would be fun to watch.

I had an opportunity to go to the 2022 AFC Championship and passed.

Let my mom buy me a house in a neighborhood without curbs

When the arbitration deadline arrives.

Whoa. Nice story. Sorry for your loss. She would have been a great pull back in the day.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_Grammer

He has a fantastic mind.

Eating the rest of that 20 piece mcnugget after thinking the second one tasted a little off. Still can't stand down wind of that shit food factory without feeling like I'm going to hurl.

In May of 2019 I bought something that I didn’t understand bc my friends did. It was small at the time I just understood it enough to spend some spare cash buying it.

I spent around $7,700 to purchase 1 Bitcoin and ended up selling it bc I thought it was unreasonable and wouldn’t be what I was being sold it would be.

Today Bitcoin has gone up 11 fold to 85k and the high was 106k which was nearly 14 fold growth. Lot of money lost on that one unfortunately.

I've had alot of bad experiences in my life starting with my mom dying when I was 12, dad when I was 20 and 1st wife when I was 30. Problem is most of everything that has happened to me weren't due to my choices. Haven't had many 50/50 choices, most were 90/10 do this or you're totally screwed. The sum total is that I'm sitting here in CO watching it snow on 4/19/2025 with a 2nd good woman in my life sleeping in the other room in a warm house drinking a cup of coffee. I'm don't know what I'd risk changing to get better than where I'm at now.

When my Mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer, I wanted to take her to Ireland. She refused and I regret not forcing her to go.

Damn, that hit me. Poor gran..

On a similar note, back when I was in college I had an aunt reach out to me via Facebook. This would have been back when everyone and their mom was joining FB to keep in touch. I hadn’t seen her in years so she was just like “Call me so we can catch up”. I told her I was a little busy but I’d give her a call soon. I never made calling her a priority, a few months passes, and she died unexpectedly to pneumonia. I felt terrible.

Then a few years later I had a great uncle pass from cancer. It was a drawn out battle in which he basically wasted away, according to my grandma. I wanted to give him a call but it always sounded like he was pretty weak and had his hands full as it were so I never called. Fast forward maybe a year or so after he passes, I randomly went through my message requests on Facebook and I had one from him, reaching out to me. That shit made me sick. I don’t know why the **** that message never came through to me.

I really wish I could go back and change the outcomes there.

Ohhhh, yes. I think about this pretty frequently, actually, though it is tough to settle on what exactly you consider pivotal. Personally, I think you could argue that damn near any decision made about who your friends are, who you date, the job you take, school you go to, etc. could be considered pivotal. All of those will literally change the course of your life.

To make it easy, I would say..

Fork 1: Trying to figure out what to do with my life. I graduated high school at 17 with no concrete life plans. At that time, I had no job, no car, no money, and wasn't enrolled in secondary education. I ended up getting a restaurant job to get my money up, took a gap year, then did the traditional four-year college thing..

But my dad was pressuring me heavily to join the military. I never had any desire to join and always felt like he was just trying to get me out of the house. I also never liked the ides of being what amounts to government property. They tell you where to go, what to do, all that. I wanted some autonomy. In retrospect, I think he just had some remorse for leaving after only 8 years and wanted to live vicariously through me in a way. I remember when he turned, like, 38, which would have been right around the time I graduated high school, he’d always talk about how he could retire now if he'd only stayed in. He always said he loved it.

In my early 20s I knew quite a few people who chose the military path. Some were stationed in really awesome places like San Diego, Hawaii, Japan, etc. Maybe I wouldn’t have been that lucky but who knows? Even if I hated it, I could have left after 4 years. I’d have been 22 with a great resume addition and a GI bill to pay for school.

Fork 2: Still trying to figure out what to do with my life. Like I mentioned, I did the four-year college thing. That’s totally fine, but I’d like to see it done differently. Long story short, I worked full time throughout school. I didn’t have a plan so I started by taking Gen Ed classes. I got my Associate’s at the local community college, then transferred to UCF to finish. In doing so, I had to pick my major and just went with Poli Sci since it most closely matched the classes I’d already taken. I didn’t choose the pre-law track and I didn’t want to get into politics so from the jump, I didn’t make the optimal choice. That’s landed me in some roles/industries I’m not fond of.

A major fork is that I had a good friend who joined a nursing program right around the time I was transferring to the university. She told me I should sign up so we could do it together. She became a nurse, did that for a few years, and is now a nurse practitioner. I’d like to see an alternate reality where I took her up on her offer.

Fork 3: I seriously considered breaking up with my wife back about 1 year into our relationship.

10 years later we’re still together and doing well but it would be interesting to see an alternate reality where I ended the relationship.

The Disney College Program! I have so many memories from the other side of that. I’m local so during my fun college years, that program was in full swing. So many girls rotating through that program every few months lol

Don’t mean to rub it in or anything but you would have had a ****ing blast. Those people were wild.

rugrats, I had a few...

Remember a couple of years ago when Disney whacked 75% of their I.T. staff and used HB1 visa techs from India to save money. Make them train their replacements. It was a disaster. They did what they were told to do and nothing more. and their code was for shit. Full of errors.

That following year they called me asking to meet to have me get them back on track. I thought they had seen the error of their ways and was bringing back the Americans to bail them out. But, no..... They wanted me to supervise them and take control of their Architecture. I told them to **** off to their faces. I understand Americans are not cheap. Disney is as an
American company as they get, using these indentured servants is total BS.

The HB-1 visa program is just a way for these huge businesses pay a foreign indentured servant shit instead of paying Americans to do that job. Rant over....

Hopefully you got some poontang for your trouble.

I also wish I would have gotten along better with my brother and parents when I was growing up. I feel bad looking back on it and have spent my adult life trying to make up for being a shithead teenager.

When my brother turned 21 I gave him a choice to pick anywhere in the USA to go and party it up on me as an apology and we went to Vegas and lived it up. So hopefully he has forgiven me for being a prick.