Regrets

We shouldn't have them--but we do. And most of the time I try very hard to either not regret something or deny regret about something. But there are some things I keep coming back to, and I have to recognize them as some form of regret for something or someone.

A regret that has popped up most recently is one concerning people--people I've met in the past. People I wish I knew better. People I wish I had become better friends with when I had the opportunity. People I may or may not have a chance to get to know better. Maybe what I'm regretting really wasn't a possibility anyway, but how can I know that? Of course, being in college meant I met LOTS of new people and made lots of acquaintances in a very short amount of time. Some of those people I kept up with and still do to this day (and it means so much to me!), and others I kept up with for a while, and then we just sort of went our separate ways. Part of that was probably due to our different studies (I was definitely friends with a lot more music majors than any other major). Part of it was also due to our different lifestyles. To be honest, once I met Joe and we started dating, that limited a lot of this one-on-one time with different friends--particularly those who were single. As any music major knows, it's very hard to have much of a life outside the music building, so you either a) purposefully planned to hang out with someone or b) hung out with friends by happenstance. Most of my planned hang out time was with Joe, naturally, as we were eager to get to know each other and hang out together as much as possible. Much of the rest of my hang out time was spur of the moment get-togethers with other music majors or my roommates. I still made efforts, though, to hang out with friends who weren't in my usual circle of friends, because I was truly interested in becoming closer to them. Even so, those hang outs were few and far between, and not running in the same circles sometimes presented challenges for us. For instance, a friend of mine might invite Joe and me to one of their get-togethers, but since we didn't know any of their friends, it would be kind of awkward. Likewise, if I invited one of my friends to one of our group's get-togethers, it would be awkward for them.

Like I said, maybe it wasn't possible to keep up the kind of friendships I desired with all of these girls, but I can't help feeling the loss of those friendships--or rather, the loss of the potential of those friendships. And knowing what I knew of them then and know of them now, I feel an ache when I think of what could have been had our paths not strayed farther away from each other.

Yet who knows? There are some people you drift away from, and then later you're reunited with by very interesting turns of events. You just never know who God is going to bring into your path--or back into your path. :)