the portrait
Note: I feel bad about writing that glib post yesterday. I hadn’t realized at the time how awful the storm was for a lot of people. So I’m extremely sorry if your house got washed away while I sat here looking confused and waiting for the rain to increase!
And, appropriately, this is a post about regret.
I don’t often feel regret. I often feel anxious that I will feel regretful if I don’t do certain things a certain way. That might have been what a lot of that book, Stumbling on Happiness, was about. I can’t remember.
I’d like to blame my mom for the way I can’t say no. It’s always easy to blame the mother, so that feels a little petty. So instead I’ll blame the way I interpreted my mother. She sees everything as an opportunity. She was always urging me to try things. Always imagining the good places those things might lead. She was worried I might miss out.
I became too worried that I might miss out, so I sometimes said yes too often, to things I could have just as well missed out on. I spent nearly a year working for free for a guy who told me he’d pay me, soon, really soon. He kept telling me it was a good opportunity. I kept believing him just enough to keep going. Finally, I left, and it took a lot of deciding to leave, but I did it. And then I waited for the regret, but it never came. And then I thought, “Of course it hasn’t come! What were you even doing there?”
I taught kids for a while, for an organization that could never quite get organized, and the parents of those kids kept asking me, “What year are you in college?” even though I was in grad school, and then, even when I had gotten my MA. It wasn’t that they should’ve been able to tell from my worldly look– it was that they couldn’t imagine anyone more advanced than a college student being involved in the organization. I kept staying, because I kept being told that I was needed, and special, and that it would lead to opportunities. And when I finally left, it was a big decision, and I felt guilty, and it was hard to tell everyone I had to go, and then— I felt nothing. It was over. I was a little surprised I’d stayed so long.
But you know what I regret?
I regret not buying the portrait.
It was two years ago, and it had been around three weeks since I met Bear for the first time. We were eating dinner outside, on Broadway, by Lincoln Center, when a man appeared beside the table, street side, and asked if we’d like our portrait sketched.
“No thanks,” I said immediately.
“Oh, come on!” he said cheerfully. “Such a good-looking couple! And the girl is Jewish! You think I don’t know? I’m Jewish, too!” He whipped out a Jewish joke and I laughed a little, in spite of myself. Bear looked at me like, “Should I get rid of this guy?” but I wasn’t sure. I wanted him to leave, because we were eating dinner, and I didn’t really want to talk to a stranger who would obviously ask for money at some point soon, and I was a little annoyed that he thought that because he was funny he could interrupt us– there was something so basically rude about the whole thing. But his face was gentle and his manner apologetic and clever, and he was already sketching the portrait as he talked, and I wished that instead of us telling him to leave, he would just decide it was time to go.
It turned out that he was from Cleveland. He spoke lightly, bantering, so that I hardly noticed him working on the drawing. I wondered why he was on the street now, interrupting easy target couples at dinner. I wondered what the arc of that story was. But of course I didn’t ask.
He flipped his sketchbook around and there we were. A dashed-off version of us, but definitely right. It was sort of elegant, in a way.
“Offer me something for it,” he said. “Anything. It could be a penny.”
“No thank you,” I said quickly. I felt as though he had manipulated me. I was going to stand firm.
He looked at Bear, “You don’t want it?”
“No thanks,” said Bear, sticking by me.
“Last chance!” he looked a little disappointed in us. Or at least, I thought that was the expression. Maybe it was just hunger.
“No,” I said again. “Sorry. No. Have a good night.” I looked away from him, wanting him to disappear.
“Alright,” he said, defeated and frustrated, his smile slipping. He walked away.
I took a bite of my salad with pine nuts and arugula. I looked at Bear. “Should we have bought it? We could’ve just given him a couple dollars.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Did you really want it?”
“No,” I said. I wasn’t sure.
(I kept trying to sketch us. It was hard. I couldn’t make me look like myself at all)
And now, two years later, I am still thinking about that sketch. Not just because I do really want it, and because it captured a moment in time that I wish I had a better record of, but because it was ridiculous not to give the man something for his effort. What did I think I was proving? Why did I think principles were important in a situation where someone has to cleverly banter while cleverly, frantically sketching in order to make a few dollars from strangers at dinner? I did the wrong thing.
I was willing to work an extra eight months in a situation that didn’t make sense. I have participated in so many things that don’t make sense for me, just in case they’re good for me, and when I say no, I’m always relieved. It’s always the right choice. So regret catches me off-guard. I’m not sure what to do with it. I want to find the guy and buy the portrait, and it frustrates me that I can’t. That the moment is irretrievably, irrevocably, eternally gone.
And that it embarrassingly exposes how poorly I sometimes understand what I want.
* * *
Unroast: Today I love the way my neck looks in my shadow. My shadow is sometimes very graceful.
P.S. Not long after we met, I asked Bear to tell me a story, and he told me one about a princess and a Bear. That might’ve been where the name came from. I forget. But I sketched them, too, and that one came out better:
Kate on August 30th 2011 in Uncategorized
Kimmy Sue Ruby Lou responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 1:12 pm #
sometimes regret is a beautiful reminder, in the form of a memory, that we don’t always know what to do…being in the moment and open, truly open, to a singular experience such as you’ve described is often missed opportunity…beautiful story, thank you.
Barbara responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 1:17 pm #
Moments of regret. This is a lovely post. Small choices we made, or reactions to something some one said, or things we could have said or done but didn’t. Wishing that it was a rehearsal and we could turn back the clock and replay the scene.
Thanks, Kate. This is very thought-provoking. My mother might say those regrets form your conscience.
LIT responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 1:25 pm #
Your sketches are quite nice- the one of you about to kiss is amazing. But the princess and the bear is my favorite!
My regrets are the same: knowing that I really could have helped someone out by doing (or giving) so little. We just have to try to remember these things when these random opportunities arise again.
Lili @ Relatable Style responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 1:38 pm #
Wow, great post with a lot of food for thought! This could have been written by me as well. Probably in less quality, but still! The feeling of “missing out” and not wanting to regret things is strong in me. I can get really, really upset when once in a while I want to do something in particular and my boyfriend doesn’t, but I can’t go without him (or don’t want to, I often go alone anyway as he works 80-hour-weeks). I feel like missing out something spectacular, even if it probably isn’t that spectacular to begin with and also repeatable some other time.
With this feeling also comes the ability to like a lot of things. Like your mom said, there’s opportunity and fun in so many things! Downside of this is, you can’t dance on every wedding and sometimes this is a little sad. I also can’t say no to opportunities, and this is why I’m hopelessly overworked right now.
Thing is, I don’t often feel regret either. Maybe it’s because I plan so carefully not to feel it and analyze a lot. But even if I felt I was missing out on things, the reget I felt was short-lived. maybe I should let that feeling of “missing out” go, because I’m not actually missing out on a lot (if anything) when I look at the big picture.
Strangely enough, I have a similar story of regret where I said no to someone years ago and I still cringe at the thought. I was walking to my car, probably sometime in the early 2000s, and there was a beggar approaching me. In a voice that gave away slight mental problems, he asked me for 2,50€ for a roll with ham and mustard (!) from the gas station nearby. I was so surprised by him that I said no, and he just walked away. I felt really bad about it later. It was the situation and the way he said it and what he asked for… I wouldn’t have felt bad if he called out on me and asked for a can of beer. I don’t know. It is just strange that I still feel bad whenever (rarely) I think about the incident.
Thank you for this post, it gave me a moment to think about my not wanting to miss out and my ongoing and constant anxiety of doing something or not doing something I’ll regret. And especially what these feelings do to my communication and interaction with others. If there was a weaker word for cathartic, I would use it to describe these thoughts on this dreary day.
B1 responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 1:42 pm #
Hmmm… regrets… guilt… manipulation. To me guilt, which leads to regret, is a form of manipulation. It has been used over the centuries by everyone to get people to do things that they normally really wouldn’t want to do. I have discovered that since I made that realization, when someone tries to guilt me into anything now, I tell them flat out that guilt won’t work on me. I don’t like people trying to manipulate me. It really ticks me off because I had adults who tried to manipulate me most of my childhood and now I won’t tollerate it.
Regarding your post from yesterday, you have nothing to apologize for. You prefaced you ‘flip’ comments and if people read on and were upset or offended by them, that is their issue. I was in church once and I remember the pastor saying something about when people take offense to something, it is generally something that they have a problem with. So my humor turned offense to fence and decided that when people took offense, it was their fence to carry, not mine. I have my own fences that I carry, and I don’t need to carry those foisted upon me by others. So, take a breath and start letting some of your fences go and you’ll be amazed at how much less things will bother you. 😉
Katie @ ktmade blog responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 2:14 pm #
Ah Kate, this happens to me far too often. And in similar situations – I’m caught up in my own world, thinking about “important” things and someone comes up and asks me for money and I’m annoyed with them for bothering me, for interrupting the space in my brain, and I immediately say no. And then something in me stops, and I turn around and it’s a woman and her little daughter, who’s looking at me with big, wide eyes. And I can’t look away from her face – I reach blindly into my purse to try to get out my wallet. And they cross the street and it feels weird to run after them waving a few dollar bills. So I stand there for a moment and then turn and walk towards the metro. Only a few seconds, but I remember them. And I regret.
Kate responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 2:24 pm #
@B1
Thank you!
Kate responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 2:24 pm #
@Katie
Exactly.
Stephina responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 2:47 pm #
@Katie
Next time, run. It’s not nearly as awkward as you might think.
Beauzeaux responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 2:49 pm #
This is called growing up. I really think that your first 30 years or so are about figuring out what you’ll regret least. After all, every decision to do something means you’re not doing something else.
Which will you regret more?
If you marry, you have to give up all the good (and bad) stuff about being single. There’s plenty of good stuff about being married but there’s a down side too (very little privacy, having to accommodate another’s feelings, compromise). I used to come home to my apartment in NYC and think “Thank god, there’s no one else here!”
Now I’m married after many years of being single because the good points outweighed the bad.
From my viewpoint, there are no unalloyed experiences in life. The best things have some negatives and the worst things have some positives. Sometimes hard to see at first — but they’re there.
So learn from your regrets. You won’t always get it right but you get better with experience. (Now that I’m an old fart, I’m a good deal better at figuring out what I actually want and at getting it.)
Kate responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 3:02 pm #
@Beauzeaux
I used to feel that way about my apartment, too, when I was single. It was awesome. Sometimes I talked to it. I’d be like, “I’m home! Did you miss me?” I felt like it probably had 🙂
And now I love knowing that Bear will come home later, too.
Raven responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 3:24 pm #
I agree with Kimmy. I also know that my greatest regrets are, most often (but not always), because of something I didn’t do.
I have a question for you, Kate, since you mention being pushed by a mother who wanted you to explore every opportunity. As I’ve probably rattled on about before in the comments, I’m homeschooling my daughter, and being a bit on the shy side, she sometimes doesn’t take the opportunities that come to her. I usually nudge her into seizing those opportunities, and when she does, she often thanks me afterward. But is there a balance? Any suggestions from the perspective of someone who was the child in the situation on how a mom might guide a child to take opportunities but still recognize when the potential opportunity is not worthwhile?
Or perhaps, like the function of regret, it’s just a learned experience?
Kate responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 3:31 pm #
@Raven
I think the thing that had a negative impact on me was when I could tell that my mom was nervous that I might miss out. When she simply thought something might be worthwhile or fun or allow me to meet interesting people, that came through, and I thought, “Oh, Ok…I’ll give it a shot,” and often it was a good thing I did. But when she was afraid that I might fall behind in some way or maybe just not get ahead if I didn’t do something, I felt afraid, too.
So I think if you can just make it really clear that your daughter is successful whether or not she joins that group or takes that class or job or whatever, that’s the most important thing.
(My mom definitely made it clear that she thought I was successful, and I don’t want to imply she didn’t…it just gets a little more complicated sometimes, I think, with homeschooling, since you’re so attuned to one another!)
San D responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 3:39 pm #
As Frank Sinatra sang:
Regrets, I’ve had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.
Many years ago when I thought I might not have long to live, I looked around at my life and thought: “hmmm, I always told everyone I loved them, I ate everything I ever wanted, I traveled and saw things I wanted to see, and I bought a hell of a lot of shoes”. I’m ok. Then, when things worked out for the best, I made a mental list of things I would like to accomplish and set about to do that, and have. I don’t regret or sweat the small stuff. That said, if I ever said or did anything that I immediately regretted, I immediately rectified it, even if it meant tracking down a student to their next class and apologizing for being “short”, or calling my sister in law up and re explaining myself after hanging up from a phone call. I have to say that everyone always laughs at me because they haven’t got a clue why I tried to make ammends.
Spelling responded on 30 Aug 2011 at 4:53 pm #
Wow. What a touching post! When I meet ‘that guy,’ I want to be the mom who is willing to let her daughter try anything and everything, whether it is soccer, beauty pageants, or boys’ baseball. I want to be everything my mom has never been. Growing up, my mom never let me try anything, no matter how much I wanted to do it. I always felt like I never fit in because the other kids knew eachother from this sport or that activity. But now I see that I should be careful with what I let my kids do.
Thanks for a very thought-provoking post.
Lynn responded on 31 Aug 2011 at 8:05 am #
Very poignant post 🙂 I have a few regrets regarding things I did and wish I hadn’t, but like several of the previous commenters mentioned, most of my regrets are for things I didn’t do, moments when I could have been open to something and I wasn’t, and I really don’t know why (like you said, “what did I think I was proving?). I hope that this something I can be more open to in the future 🙂
Val responded on 01 Sep 2011 at 12:55 am #
Kate,
Just so you know, I’m 49 and have lots of kids, and we been homeschooling forever, and ALL of my regrets are those times I wish I’d been kinder. It’s all times I wish I’d have lightened the heck up.
Do over, do over! Nope. We don’t get those.
I understand. You’re not alone. love, Val
Beauzeaux responded on 01 Sep 2011 at 3:21 pm #
“ALL of my regrets are those times I wish I’d been kinder. ”
Me too. And I have a daughter older than you. 😉
mallory responded on 01 Sep 2011 at 10:01 pm #
this was a great post. Also, the first commenter Kimmy sue ruby lou – your comment is absolutely perfect!