Regrets
Someone asked me the other day if there was anything I regretted in my life such as passing up an opportunity or saying something I wish I hadn't; something that would have made a big difference in my life. After thinking about it for a day or two, I would say that one thing changed the course of my life in a negative way; being forced to move at the age of 15 to an extremely rural high school in my home state of Oklahoma. Had I not been forced to move at that critical stage of my life, many things that happened as a result of that move probably would not have happened.
I didn't go to college right out of high school like I would have had I not moved to a location that did not promote college. I got married too young to the wrong guy because of that move. I lost my childhood sweetheart as a result of moving and also spent the last 3 years of my high school experience terribly depressed. There was no prom of any type, so I never attended a high school dance. My brother got into drugs and many of my friends had affairs with the male teachers. On the senior trip, one classmate got pregnant by the principal, another had an affair with the basketball coach and on and on. The superintendent that year had an affair with the counselor (which I might add was the first time the school had ever had a counselor) and divorced his wife of 30 years and married the counselor. They carried on the affair while school was going on and would lock the door to the superintendent’s office and....(I think you can fill in the blanks).
That one experience had a profound effect on my brother and me that carried itself into many years. I found out years later that we moved because my dad was having an affair and my mother didn't want to be in the same town with the other woman. The ironic thing about it though, was the house my mother picked was just a short distance from the house the other woman had grown up in. It didn't change a thing for my mother, just for my brother and me which has carried far into both of our lives.
Another thing that happened because of the move was having to sell a prosperous business that we owned. We moved from a house in a nice location with all the amenities to a house that had no central heat or air, no shower, and the first winter we were there, I had to wear a hat and mittens to bed and have 5 blankets on by bed because my room was so cold, ice would form on the inside of the windows. We lived on 40 acres in the middle of no where, totally cut off from former friends because all phone calls were long distance. We were on a party line with 3 other people too.
Actually, it was comparable to that show Green Acres where Lisa was moved from New York to that shabby house and forced to move whether she wanted to or not. If I had it to do again, I would have rebelled against my mother and moved in with my grandmother because her decision has had a profound effect on what happened in my life.
Someone asked me the other day if there was anything I regretted in my life such as passing up an opportunity or saying something I wish I hadn't; something that would have made a big difference in my life. After thinking about it for a day or two, I would say that one thing changed the course of my life in a negative way; being forced to move at the age of 15 to an extremely rural high school in my home state of Oklahoma. Had I not been forced to move at that critical stage of my life, many things that happened as a result of that move probably would not have happened.
I didn't go to college right out of high school like I would have had I not moved to a location that did not promote college. I got married too young to the wrong guy because of that move. I lost my childhood sweetheart as a result of moving and also spent the last 3 years of my high school experience terribly depressed. There was no prom of any type, so I never attended a high school dance. My brother got into drugs and many of my friends had affairs with the male teachers. On the senior trip, one classmate got pregnant by the principal, another had an affair with the basketball coach and on and on. The superintendent that year had an affair with the counselor (which I might add was the first time the school had ever had a counselor) and divorced his wife of 30 years and married the counselor. They carried on the affair while school was going on and would lock the door to the superintendent’s office and....(I think you can fill in the blanks).
That one experience had a profound effect on my brother and me that carried itself into many years. I found out years later that we moved because my dad was having an affair and my mother didn't want to be in the same town with the other woman. The ironic thing about it though, was the house my mother picked was just a short distance from the house the other woman had grown up in. It didn't change a thing for my mother, just for my brother and me which has carried far into both of our lives.
Another thing that happened because of the move was having to sell a prosperous business that we owned. We moved from a house in a nice location with all the amenities to a house that had no central heat or air, no shower, and the first winter we were there, I had to wear a hat and mittens to bed and have 5 blankets on by bed because my room was so cold, ice would form on the inside of the windows. We lived on 40 acres in the middle of no where, totally cut off from former friends because all phone calls were long distance. We were on a party line with 3 other people too.
Actually, it was comparable to that show Green Acres where Lisa was moved from New York to that shabby house and forced to move whether she wanted to or not. If I had it to do again, I would have rebelled against my mother and moved in with my grandmother because her decision has had a profound effect on what happened in my life.
posted by Mines Broken @ Tuesday, May 04, 2004
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