How could a connection between two people just be severed or forgotten so quickly? Was it really destroyed or does it remain and is ignored by the unconscious of another who is continuing on with their life as if you never existed? What about the person who claims to care about you and want to be close to you, but never keeps their word? Why are people so wrapped up in their own worlds and always too busy too look back and make sure you are doing ok?

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.....

Life can be really unpredictable. We keep procrastinating. We leave phone-calls to friends, visits to grandparents and conversations with the ones we love for tomorrow. We go on thinking what’s there to lose, I’ll do this tomorrow. Until, one day a phone call, a news report or a natural calamity shakes you up. You want to just reach that person, by hook or by crook. Sometimes, there’s uncertainty about their whereabouts, in that case you’ve got hope to cling to. But sometimes, its just a phone call that tells you that there’s going to be no tomorrow.

The words ‘if only’ torment you. You wince in pain, trying to deal with the loss. If only you’d not have procrastinated. The pain would be the same, but at least there would be no regrets. If only…

My mind wanders back to his bed.

The first time I gave in and begged him to let me... and then stretching to bring him in.

My hand immediately goes to my forehead, as if I could massage the memory away like a headache.

But I can't. The memories never go away.

And then I remember the chilly woosh of air that raised the hairs on the back of my neck as he rushed to the door behind me at school, without even a glance in my direction.

I clench my teeth in anger. Rage. Hatred. I want to scream at him. I want to pound my hands on his chest. To feel the electricity of my hand slapping that smug face. That same face that begged me never to regret him. That promised things would never get awkward. That kissed my shoulder as he held me throughout those nights, hand in hand until our feet hit the cold morning floor.

I want to tell him this:

You made me promise not to ever regret what we did together. You never wanted to be another mistake. Another one to add to the pile of all the others you begged me to tell you about. And I did. I promised. Reluctantly. And I told you why I was reluctant. I told you how the story always went. I meet boy. I make friends with boy. I make boy laugh until he wants me. I take boy into my bed. I push boy out of my bed because the one I've always been with always wins. Boy and I never speak again. And I lose that friend forever. I told you all the times I should've learned from my mistakes.

But I have to say. I will never ever make that mistake again. Thanks to you.

And you said

But I don't want to be another mistake. We will always be friends.

And somewhere inside I knew better. But I forgot to shut the door all the way, and little wisps of all that smoke you were blowing managed to get inside.

And guess what happened, Mr. Z. Guess what happened when the time came for the sleepovers to stop. You started avoiding me. Made up lies and excuses. We stopped talking. Then stopped making eye contact. And now. Nothing. Again. Another mistake. But bigger than ever, because you convinced me to let the walls down, you convinced me to let you in.

And now I've never regretted meeting a person more in my life than I regret even speaking in your direction. I regret everything about any shred of contact I ever had with you. And I will never ever stop being ashamed of having anything to do with you.

You broke your promise. Things did get awkward. You did stop talking to me. You forced me to break my promise too.

It would feel so good to let him know all of that. But here's the wrinkle: I don't want him to know he had the power over me to make me feel anything as intense as the anger that I have at a low simmer on the backburner. I want him to think I shoved him in a box and tossed him into the river.

But I also want him to think about me.

And about those nights.

And miss me.

Maybe someday, when my anger has dissipated, and I look back at this whole mess and feel nothing, maybe then we could be friends again. Talk it out. Laugh at how ridiculously we behaved.

But somehow... I don't think so.

Thank god for running.

I don't know if you ever heard about OCTAVIAN PALER ? He was a Romanian Journalist, a most respectable one. He died last year, age 80. Click on his name to read some lines about his bibliography.

One of his most known and wonderful writing is "WE HAVE TIME..." ("Avem timp..." - the original title - in romanian). Click on the romanian flag to read the romanian version on Shalom - Jurnal de Pace.

BUT,

If you don't speak romanian, I invite you to read this writing in english, on another wordpress weblog, host by Aurel Mateescu. I am sure you will not regret. Click HERE to open this weblog and scroll down because the english version is under the romanian one.

Pictures flash before my eyes,

Glimpses of you rarely seen.

Each one holds a different angle

Some new facet of you I'd not known.

The joy in your eyes as you sat on my floor,

The feel of your hand holding mine.

The blue in your eye as you smiled at me,

The warmth of your arm on my back.

Your voice as you tell me of your hidden past,

The honesty writ in your face.

Sincerity echoing in your deep voice

As you told me you thought I was perfect.

The warmth at my side as we raced cross the street,

Your hand, reassuring, in mine.

The look in your eyes as you told me ‘Good Night,'

The happiness you couldn't hide.

The tone in your voice as the engine conked out,

As we drifted into the next lot.

Embarrassment tingeing your very next words,

That this could have happened that day.

The rush in my heart at the things that you did,

The gallantry in each sweet move:

The offer to carry the heavy gas can,

The insistence your arm was not numb.

When I ask you if maybe that spot just might hurt,

The lie when you said it did not.

The quirk of your mouth as you said if it did,

Telling me was the last thing you'd do.

Your calm composed manner as I leapt from my room,

Ready to seek out the spider to kill.

The touch of your hand as you placed the black band,

The sign of your birth, round my wrist.

Each flash is a portrait, another new scene,

Ripe with one more perplexing emotion.

To think that you're gone, and this all I have,

Don't seem real as the looks in your eye.

All I must do is close tight my eyes,

Focus on that point, deep down inside,

And like the white dots appearing at dusk,

You show up like a star in my heart.

Time seems to slow, you never were gone,

I'm back in that moment with you.

We're sharing that first meal, you staring at me,

And once again nothing is wrong.

I'm all alone,

You cannot see,

What love for you

Has done to me.

It's pushed me past

The jagged edge,

And made me jump

The lonely hedge.

I've had to climb

Across the razors,

Through the pit of

Flames and failures,

Down the moun-

Tainside of shame,

Where I have but

Myself to blame.

I'm all alone,

You cannot pledge

To save me from

This jagged edge.

Smile with the sad,
Love what you got,
Remember what you had,
Learn to forgive but never forget,
Learn from your mistakes but never regret.
People change and things go wrong, but just remember,
Life goes on...

Do not look back and grieve about the past for is gone,
Do be troubled about the future for it has yet to come,
Live in the present and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering.

If we're always guided by other people's thoughts
what's the point in having our own?

Every song ends...
Is that any reason not to enjoy the music?

But how you said goodbye

It’s not the fact that you’re not here

But that you didn’t know, that the

Look which you found on my face

Was more than ephemeral pain, was

A wrench in my soul which you couldn’t see,

A poison tipped arrow aimed well.

It could be that you simply would not see

That the light in my eye was a tear,

Or that you couldn’t tell your remark was

Worse than freezing in hell.

I’m laughing now not for the fun of it,

Not for your ridiculous news,

But rather I laugh because I’ve crashed,

Mere frustration is not enough,

Hysteria now grips me,

With a bit of desperation, as

The pieces are falling together quite rapidly,

Putting dangerous words into thoughts.

Suddenly all of your actions make sense,

Appear fully and in perfect order

I cry and I laugh as I hedge on insanity,

As your character comes into focus

My mind reels with the irony that

I could have loved you at all

As I realize you’re worse

Than the arrogant asshole I’d thought.

At others the rain would call..
We'd sleep outside during fall,
the stars were our only light,
we'll alway have that breezy night,
I wish we didnt fight...

And i try, but im too shy..
My eyes arent opening,
im too busy imagining,
When I was kid again,
Where has my goldfish been..
I barely remember him..

For all these uncertain years,
We'll both just come to tears,
and the last thing she hears,
"You''ll find a better man,
just how you imagined him.."

To be that unhurt kid again..

And now I've opened an eye,
to the truth of this strange sky,
It does its best to lie,
as the clock ticks to when I'll die..

and now the other eye..
The price was much too high,
now that I've seen my life,
will be so full of strife..

The tears and feelings come too fast..
I'd never leave you in my past,
You were the end, now lets begin,
Back when we can be kids again..

I'd Give everything to have it again..granted though I have nothing at present but pain.

I cleaned out all my comments in an effort to rid myself of some people that cuased me painful memories.Sorry honest-caring-commenters...re-comment away!

 Being that my intent is to impart wisdom regarding motivation, I failed to do so in my last post. Previously, I spoke on the point that every negative has an equal or greater positive. In my post on regrets, I failed to point out the positive to the horribly negative emotion of regret. My late wife Barbara always told me "that what you don't do for one, you will do for the other." I never believed her at the time, but now I see the wisdom of the phrase. Many of my regrets are the things I failed to do for her, like the frequent "I love you," the hug, or the kiss.  I took for granted that after forty years she knew that I loved her. Yet she craved to hear it said. Those regrets apply to the first part of the phrase, "what you don't do for one..." Therin lies the positive to this terribly regretful negative, I get a chance to do it differently with my new wife, and so the second part of the phrase, "...you will do for the other," applies. That is the positive born from the negative.

I am lucky to have another chance with a second wife, but how many widows and widowers never allow themselves that chance. They will never find the positive in their negative, at least not the way I found it. 

The best course of action is to make a goal to never, never, never, never, say or do something you will regret. Certainly not easy to do, but worth the effort.

Hoshimura Mai 13th single, Regret...
Release Date: 04-06-2008

Tracklist:

1. regret
2. Love.Tuning
3. Sakura Biyori x Kotaro Oshio
4. regret (D.Gray-man Ending ver.)
5. regret (Instrumental)

It was beyond me how he could have possibly found out where I lived until it struck me that he probably had called my mother. She always liked Johnny, always expected the ring on my finger, the white picket fence, the Sunday brunch by the time I was twenty-five. It was absolutely insane.

I didn’t want to answer the door but I was pretty sure he heard me swear through the thin wood. It came from me in such an organic fashion that there was no stopping the word ‘Shit!’ from spilling over my lips and filling the room with its oblivious lack of class or composure. But I meant it, through and through.

I took a breath and a long gulp, cringed like I was threatened with a fist, and opened the door.

He was holding two red Chinese worry balls in one hand, spinning them at a moderate pace. He had some uneven facial hair, and his eyes were full of wine. He slumped down on the couch for the first time like he had sat there a million times before, and looked up at me, offering his hand.

“What’s the deal?” I queried, because at this point I was worried. I hadn’t spoken to him since that day in the bar where he came in with the pink girl that couldn’t drink. And before that, God knows how long it had been.

“Do you have a drink?”

“Why, yes, I’ve had a few, why do you ask?”

He smiled and nodded. “Same old Jolie.”

I didn’t know what that meant, if it implied an insult or a compliment. I was choosing to take it as an insult because frankly, he didn’t know me at all anymore, and one off the wall comment shouldn’t have been enough for him to assume that he did. Years had passed since he had been a part of my everyday life. People didn’t usually lose their sense of humor.

He stood up and meandered to the kitchen, began rifling through my refrigerator, all the while spinning those worry balls.

The music was loud and the drink had started softening me. I let him find the booze and pour himself a short glass. We sat down at the kitchen table.

“I’m moving in with her.”

Her. It was interesting to me because it had just now hit me that I didn’t even know her name. I mean, it wasn’t that odd because in retrospect I had just thought of her as ‘the pink girl,’ or as ‘the girl scout’ occasionally, but I never had even stopped to think about the fact that her actual name was lost to me.

I raised my glass. “Cheers?” I realized immediately afterward that it had come off as insensitive, immature even. Obviously he was ‘giving me the news’ in a manner that was to prove him still a kind soul. Perhaps he thought I was still in love with him. Which could or could not have been correct. But I was offended by his obvious vanity.

I finished my drink. “Well, cool, I guess. Why’d you track me down to tell me?”

His hand fumbled over the table to find mine. “Because I love you. Because I’ve always loved you and I’ll always love you. But I’m moving in with her and I just wanted to tell you before you found out some other way.”

It was a sweet gesture. My eyes began to sting and it was incredibly frustrating. I fought the wave of emotion that was washing over me. Then there was my victory; I could feel my body rejecting that vulnerability. I breathed deep a few times, stood up to make another drink.

“Well, thanks I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I guess. Well what else should I say?”

“How about what you’re really feeling?”

This was one of many things about Johnny I did not miss. He was very womanlike in the respect that even though we could hardly call each other friends anymore, he wanted to know what I was thinking, what I was feeling. He wanted to know how he affected me, and he wanted me to know how I affected him. Well I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

I shrugged and sort of giggled. “I feel fine about it. We haven’t even talked in a really long time, did you think I was waiting around for you or something?”

He sighed and I smelled the alcohol on his breath.

“I’m like, seeing someone.”

His eyes widened. “Really?” I was of course, half lying. Could you call what I was doing with Drew seeing someone? Probably not. I wasn’t terribly unpopular; I still had my suitors and all. Even James from time to time would be around. But I didn’t have that feeling of home, that exaltation of not having to be out there anymore, searching for the bigger, better thing. I couldn’t even say I was in love, really.

Although I had begun having a love affair with myself, so that was something.

My mind crept to my mother’s reaction; my phoning her, telling her that Johnny was shacking up with a girl scout, and her sobbing uncontrollably. The lecture that would come later. How I should have been more ready to settle down, that if I kept on this path most likely I would grow up to be some spinster or God forbid, cut my hair short and become a lesbian. “He was always such a nice boy…”

The nice boy was way more taken than I thought he was.

I wanted to parade Drew and James and Rabbit in front of him. I wanted to show him a photobooth strip, as well as pictures of us all about town and on vacation, smiling, laughing, like in the photos that come with picture frames. But I didn’t have any photos like that. As a matter of fact, I had no photos at all.

That led me to pondering the importance of photographs. Was that something that only came with serious relationships? That the only people who took pictures together anymore were drunken girls with myspace in mind or people wickedly in love?

We said little else, finished our drinks. He left the worry balls on the table when he left. I don’t know if he merely forgot them or thought I would need them.

I still didn't know her name.

File name: Hoshimura Mai - Regret
Resolution: 640 x 480
Format: AVI
Size: 48 MB

Filesend (download)

all i have left

too many missed chances
too many words unspoken

too many kisses wasted elsewhere
too much time lost

nights spent wishing up at the stars
fortunes spent wishing in fountains.
wishing that fate hadn't separated us

a love so pure and beautiful it made the angels weep in jealousy
passion so fierce the slightest touch made our blood boil

but alas the fates had other plans and the heavens feared
our love was too raw our emotions too complex
it was feared by all

a beast that lay deep within us
forced to contain it
contain but not stop

and like the stars we wish upon our love was bright.
even the days and miles that separated us
could not lessen let alone erase such a love

but such a strong love was not enough
and while everlasting is shrouded in regret
why can't i have just one more kiss? one more embrace?

willing would i be to remain lonely and miserable
if i could feel that soft touch just once more

happy would i be to live out my days
in the shadow of our memory

if i could just hold you again
and let the whisper containing my hearts vow
be carried on the wind into your soul

however my wish will never be granted
apart we must remain, at arms length we must stay

thankful though i am to have my memories of us
so vivid the picture i have of your smile
so fresh is the sound of your voice

i close my eyes and let my soul reach out to yours
but as always you are too far...

... a single tear rolls down my cheek...
... that's all i have left...

one last tear

a heart full of foolish hope and

a love deeper than the pain caused by my empty arms

Michael H. Crown

How Do you feel about your choice to get banded ??? Please Vote !

Sorry i posted this by mistake in Intro section as well.

My Story

Hi, I'm new to the community and am scheduled to get banded on May the 13th !!! Soooo nervous and excited at the same time. Would really like to hear from some of you about your experiences. Does anyone here regret going through with the surgery ?

My biggest worries is that I may regret the surgery for the following reasons:

1) I may feel frustrated with having a foreign object telling me what I can and cannot eat (unable to eat foods like red meat, past and rice the rest of my life).

2) Feeling like an impostor in front of other people because I have something inside myself that I am hiding from other people. Like I will always be carrying around this embarrassing secret with me...

What do you think about my thoughts ?

BTW I am 23 years old and in college

And the answers are overwhelmingly positive. Well, I knew they would be. :) However, it's an interesting read because everyone has their own reasons for being happy or regretful. As for the poll in question, 283 say it's the best think they've ever done for themselves. 10 regret having been banded. And 51 haven't made up their mind yet.