The Healing Project

Not enough regret

"Remorse
Is memory
Awake."

It's an Emily Dickinson poem.
Its meaning is:
We can't escape our past.

We're forced to live with what we've done,
For it's the only way
We will learn from our mistakes.

I saw it and thought a single, simple "yes".

The definition of remorse is:
Deep regret or guilt for a wrong committed.

I have remorse.
I regret hurting you deeply
Like I did when I broke up with you.
I never wanted to purposefully hurt you.

But you needed someone
That lately I couldn't manage to be.
You needed constant affection and attention,
Constant reassurance that I tried but was unable to give.

I am a very practical and reasonable person.
Sometimes it's not in my favor at all.
Like when you said you felt left out
Because I was talking more with the others at archery.

My mind thought:
- You're shooting at the opposite side of the range.
- Our instructors get annoyed if we're distracted
Or talk and chat too much in between sets.
- I obviously talk to who shoots in my same target.
They're right there, I can't exactly ignore them.

All reasonable and practical explanations.
But you were saddened by it nonetheless.
I regret not leaving practicality aside for once
And trying harder to make you happier.

I regret not posting more photos of you.
I regret not wanting the surprise that day.
I regret not showing my love
Like you expected or wanted me to.

My reassurance,
My displays of affection,
My amount of attention, 
My ways to show my love,

They weren't enough to make you happy.

I wasn't enough to make you happy.

I regret not being enough.

And if maybe one day you spoke to me again,
Though I could try harder to be more
What you needed, what you wanted,
I still don' think I'd be enough.

You were everything I could have imagined.
You were more.
I wasn't everything you had imagined.
I was less.

"We have different expectations of what a relationship is."
That was one of the reasons for the break up, wasn't it?
What a business-casual way I used
To say "I'm not what you wanted, am I?"

You wanted love expressed
In posted pictures
And constant attention
And visible reactions.

I wanted love expressed
In small gestures
And safe hugs
And silent trust.

I wasn't able to offer you
The type of outward love you needed.
And I think, at the end,
That you didn't trust my love anymore.

And yet.

And yet, you didn't want to break up.
It was clear when you offered a "temporary break".
You looked at me, looked at all my failures,
And continued saying you loved me.

Was it denial?
Was it heavy emotional dependence?
Or was it proof that love continues
Through hurt and sadness?

I don't know about you,
But I know mine was the third one.
I loved you through the pain
of knowing I wasn't enough.

I loved you when I broke up with you.
I loved you in the seconds, the minutes,
The hours, the days, the months afterwards.
I loved you every time I cried.

I loved you every time I had doubt, but thought:
"No.
It hurt and it hurts and it will hurt,
But they're happier without me."

I don't want to think about if I still love you now.
I know the answer anyway,
I've said it again and again:
I love you in some way.

But that "way" doesn't matter.
My regrets don't matter.
I'm forced to live with what I've done
In the hopes of learning from mistakes,

But that won't matter either.
Because everything, my regrets,
My way of loving, my learning from mistakes,
It would all be for you.