{"id":2086,"date":"2026-04-06T00:02:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T00:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildpoise.com\/?p=2086"},"modified":"2026-05-18T17:04:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:04:59","slug":"2026-04-18-regret-has-layers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildpoise.com\/?p=2086","title":{"rendered":"Regret Has Layers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Regret Has Layers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Day 146 – April 18, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regret has layers. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been sitting with today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not the dramatic, one note version. Not just \u201cI wish that hadn\u2019t happened,\u201d though obviously yes, I do. And not the performative wise woman version either, where regret gets turned into a neat little teacher and everyone nods reverently because apparently pain is only respectable once it starts sounding useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Real regret is much messier than that. It\u2019s layered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is the obvious regret. The clean, immediate kind. I regret that what happened to me happened. I regret that violence entered a life that was already trying so hard to become something honest and beautiful. I regret that a man made himself part of my story in a way he never should have been allowed to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That layer is easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there are the other ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I regret the time it stole. The peace it stole. The ease. The innocence. The way it made my body less simple to live inside. The way it complicated things that should have been ordinary. The fact that even now, in spring, in womanhood, in all these beautiful little daily moments, there is still this undercurrent of insult running through my life because he is free and I am the one carrying all the cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That layer is harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there\u2019s the stranger regret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regret for all the versions of me who deserved better. The early transition version. The hopeful version. The one still learning her face and body and rhythm. The one who was just beginning to step into herself more fully and should have been met with tenderness, protection, possibility, not violation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That one hurts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it\u2019s not just regret for what happened. It\u2019s regret for what was interrupted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And those are not the same grief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that\u2019s the part people miss. Regret is not always about wishing you had chosen differently. Sometimes it\u2019s about mourning what would have unfolded if someone else had not made a cruel decision that changed the architecture of your life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That kind of regret has nowhere obvious to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It just lives there. Low and sharp and strange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I\u2019ve been trying not to flatten it into \u201cgrowth.\u201d Because honestly, I think one of the most disrespectful things people do to pain is force it to become meaningful before it\u2019s allowed to simply be painful. Some things are just losses. Some things should not have happened. Some things deserve to remain terrible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is not bitterness. That is accuracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, regret is not only grief. It\u2019s also information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It tells you what mattered. What was sacred. What deserved protection. What should have gone differently. What kind of life you are no longer willing to hand over carelessly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s useful, I guess, though I deeply resent useful things that arrive by ruining your day and half your worldview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Very rude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roger, of course, has no visible regret unless he gets caught doing something and even then he mostly just acts like the evidence is circumstantial and I\u2019m lucky he\u2019s willing to hear the case at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His self concept remains flawless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I admire that too, in a way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because maybe part of healing is letting regret have its full shape without letting it become your whole atmosphere. Letting it say what it says. Letting it point to what was lost, what was interrupted, what was sacred. Letting it ache honestly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, maybe, deciding it does not get the final draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not there every day. But I\u2019m circling it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chaos in one hand. Grace in the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And regret, layered, intelligent, infuriating, and real, still teaching me what deserved better all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 146 – Regret has layers. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been sitting with today. Not the dramatic, one-note version. 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