You Can't Go Back

Devastation is not just a word to describe the ruin of my home, it also describes what I feel every 15 minutes.  I can’t stop thinking of all the things I should have saved. All the things I could have thrown in my car and would be able to hold in my hands today. I can only distract myself for so long before they start creeping back into my thoughts. I can see myself standing there doing nothing, I want to reach out and push me as hard as I can.

I know what you are thinking. I’ve heard it over and over.  “It can all be replaced. Things are not important, what’s important is that you are alive.” 

But that’s not true. Some of those things will never ever be replaced.  The jewelry box my husband gave me the day after our wedding, so many pieces of jewelry that each had their own story, my writing book full of thoughts I wrote down so I would never forget, the page from a coloring book my sister colored for me when she was seven years old.  I could have grabbed any one of those things or a hundred others, but I didn’t. I just stood there. 

I’ve often heard people say “No Regrets.” I’ll never be able to say that.  Regret consumes me. In fact sometimes it seems I’m more upset about how I reacted, than about the actual loss.  I can’t even say that I tried and that kills me inside.

But, I can’t go back. I just have to hope that with each day the sickness of regret will stay away a little longer.  I have to repeat to myself- What’s done is done. It’s over and the sooner you come to peace with that, the better off you will be.  Sometimes I listen, sometimes I don’t.