I haven’t been on here in quite some time so I have no idea when this was posted, but I’ll bite and answer it regardless. Please note, I am aware this question probably comes from someone who’s adventures have already crossed paths with mine somewhere along the way.

Regrets are a difficult concept to catch hold of, as I don’t believe they are static. They are dependent upon our emotions at any one time - that is to say that if you are sad about something you might regret your actions, but when you move on and life gets better you might see your actions as justifiable and having reason. Therefore I try harder than most to live without futile regret in my life.
However, that said I can speak of two regrets that I know will never change.

Firstly, I am a classically trained string musician with my first instrument being the violin which I learned from the age of five, playing solo and as part of highly respected orchestras and ensembles along the way. I missed schooling for courses, touring and exams and my music was my life. At the age of eighteen I studied for my final ABRSM examination, to obtain my teaching certificate and to ascertain my future as a professional musician.
As a result of my teenage arrogance and lack of dedication during that final year, I did not pass that final exam. I rode on the compliments and praise constantly lavished upon me and felt, disgustingly, that I didn’t need to try. The examiner, a pretty lady with long dark hair and slim musicians fingers, saw right through me. My posture was appalling, my technique was sloppy and I did not deliver the performance she had been promised. The day I got my results, I took out my violin and I sat crying for hours feeling foolish, humiliated and self-loathing. When I calmed down I locked the case and pushed it into a corner of my room and have never played it since. That instrument was my best friend and sitting here now I can still see the case covered in dust left forlorn behind my television.
Now my regret is not that I haven’t played in over seven years, when I had previously played every day, as that is the consequence and to regret a consequence is silly. I regret the cause. I regret not practising enough, not caring enough and not appreciating the gift I had that my parents had fought and saved enough money to encourage me to pursue. And there will never be a time when I don’t regret that.

Secondly, and maybe this is more pertinent to whoever asked the question, I will say simply this - I regret allowing my condition to get the better of me. Now that I am on lifelong medication to control it, it is alot easier for me to recognise the ways I rolled over and let my condition control my behaviour and my logic. As an intelligent person I find this sickening and when I think of myself back then I struggle to understand that I was unable to control my bodily changes just by willpower alone, no matter how many doctors tell me otherwise. I regret that I didn’t recognise the problems sooner, that I left it too long to get the help my body required and I regret the prescious things I have lost at the hands of people who either couldn’t understand or couldn’t deal with the life I have ahead of me.

26th March 2012
15:33

“Even when I detach, I care. You can be separate from a thing and still care about it. If I wanted to detach completely, I would move my body away. I would stop the conversation midsentence. I would leave the bed. Instead, I hover over it for a second. I glance off in another direction. But I always glance back at you.” - David Levithan