More Graduation Contemplation

“We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.” ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery

I know people who say that they live without regrets. I don't buy it. I understand that you have learned and grown from every experience you've had and that those are what made you the person you are today...etc., and I definitely think that has validity. However I cannot believe that, given the chance or the choice, all of these people would not change ONE thing, however minor it is, and go back and do it differently. Whether it is as insignificant as going out one night instead of working on a paper (or vice versa) or calling someone just to say hi, or as life changing as walking away from a relationship. I would put money that every single person, even those "live with no regrets" people, would find something.

I am not one of those people. I have regrets. I have plenty of them. They range from having to do with not saying something I said, to apologizing to people more often. From getting out of a relationship sooner and not letting it change me, to one night stands I wish had never happened. And aside from having spent more time with my dad and getting to know even more of his stories before he died, there is only one other regret that bothers me on a daily basis.

Every time I go to New York, I feel with even more intensity that when I needed to make the biggest decision of my life, I chose wrong. When it came down to NYU or UMD, I should have forgotten about the price, the distance, the then boyfriend, and went with what I had wanted since I was 11. Obviously, I chose UMD. And I'm afraid I will always be mad at myself for that choice. [Not only that, but I am now positive that I belong in Manhattan. I love the constant go, go, go, the noisy nights, the people, even the gritty atmosphere. I WILL live there one day.]

As I am preparing to graduate in *22* days, I cannot help but think of how different my life could be right now. I wouldn't have wasted my first two and a half years in college fighting for a relationship that had long ago gone sour and which changed me in ways I am still working to reverse. I wouldn't have lost one-time friends, or potential friends, and I certainly would not have spent all that time working rather than going out.

I suppose this is a time in which it is obligatory to evaluate my life - call it a "quarter life crisis" if you will, as has become popular...almost everyone I know has a weekly anxiety attack about graduating into this economy with so few job options, having to pay off debt, and generally just feeling lost. In some ways, we are lucky. When people ask "what are you doing after graduation" it's now socially acceptable to say "I have no idea" and just blame it on the recession. We have more choices and options then ever, and moving back home to live rent-free is not frowned upon.

I still fit into that category. I have so many options, I don't know what to do. And I'm even more scared that I will make the wrong decision...again.