Ever Wish You Could Start Over?

Whether it be with a person or in a group, you ever wish you could begin again? First impressions have such weight and life goes sideways often on a dime. The learning curve is steep and memory lasts forever. What circumstance comes to mind? And what did you learn? Thanks.

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Sometimes, but then I realize if I began again I wouldn’t have the family I do now and I would do anything for my family. So I cut my losses and try not to be too regretful.

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Oh yes. Nothing specific, but I think that growing up as an Army brat one of the few benefits to moving every two years was a chance to start over. (There were also myriad downsides.) Now I’ve been in the same town for 30 years and well, it’s a real nice town. But… I often think something new might be nice.

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That’s what travel is for. New experiences, and then you get to come home.

Both are good.

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Yeah, unfortunately my husband has been battling an anxiety disorder for years and traveling is one of his triggers. I suppose I could go places without him but I don’t really feel like it, so we’re working on that. We were going to visit Vancouver in early 2020 and then… ya know

Really I just want to leave Silicon Valley and drop a match on my way out* but I’m not sure that my fantasy vision of living in Wisconsin is all its cracked up to be :cheese::thinking:

*not really, this place is flammable as hell and some of my friends still live here

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Please ensure there’s a firebreak protecting Lawrence Expressway. It leads to good pizza.

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The mistakes I made yesterday are the lessons learned today. Even the pain I have caused in the pain, gives me chances to seek healing and forgiveness today. I don’t desire to redo my past, but to move past it and grow.

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Off and on, although I like who I eventually turned out to be so I’m hesitant to want to change anything.

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Fond Du Lac, Wi beckons.

The trees!

The Lighthouse!

Driftless Area!

Stuff!!

It’s a nice place. :grin:

wisconsin GIF

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Driftless Area, you say… I admit I’ve mostly focused on Madison because I used to live there. Or maybe La Crosse. I think it would be nice to live near a river.

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The soothing waters?

You know, I hear that question from time to time, and the older I get, the more I’m like, “Nope with a side of heck no.”

I like who I am now, and I went through a lot to get to this point. I wouldn’t want to give all that up.

Could I turn out better? Maybe. Equal chance I could turn out worse. “What if?” is a mental hamster wheel that’ll burn ya right out. :woman_shrugging:

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True. Particularly if you obsess over it instead of gaining perspective and moving on.

There is one thing I would change if I could go back. I learned lessons from the experience that may possibly help me with what I do now, but I’m not sure the psychological abuse that triggered that learning was worth the lessons learned. I don’t know if I’d erase everything, but what I would do is realize that I could have asked for help sooner than I did, realize that what I was dealing with was not normal and shouldn’t have happened.

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I would have advised myself to wait a couple more years to go to grad school. I wound up going only a couple years after college and finished grad school in the middle of the Great Recession.

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There was a boy I was afraid to talk to because he was really bullied. I didn’t take part in this, but I ignored him. Towards the end of the year we became friends. I regret not giving him a chance earlier. My only hope is that having someone be kind to him helped him out.

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You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They’re the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away! I need my pain!

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Absolutely true. The mileage we accrue DEFINES us and the manner we proceed after dictates how much of ourselves we reach in life. Where it’s tricky is making it apart of you not in control of you.

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I didn’t care much for Star Trek V, but I have to say that was quite a good speech.

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Right there with you. I couldn’t place it til you did.

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