MetaChat - What’s the one thing in your life you wish you could do over again?

1979 - 1989, inclusive.

posted by bmarkey 10 April | 03:10

When I was in the radio biz in the late 70s, there were a bunch of 'psychics' who did guest shots on all the local talk shows - I had many opportunities to 'test' their abilities but never did. Then, in late '84, I spent a depressing Saturday Night hanging out at a station where a friend worked and a psychic was doing a show; at the time, I was just getting over a bad breakup and my mother was in the hospital in another state. So, I decided, what-the-heck, and I used an internal phone at the station to impersonate an outside caller; the psychic wasn't told who I was. He predicted a speedy recovery for my 'ailing family member' but then warned me rather ominously not to get romantically involved until next April. Well, my mother passed away three days later, so I consciously decided to disobey his warning and find somebody ASAP. Thus, I met and fell in love with the woman I now refer to as my "crazy ex-wife" in February. And I wonder to this day, who I might have met two months later? I know, it's a stupid story. And the psychic... he died of AIDS a couple years later, and I made the disrespectful comment: "He couldn't have seen THAT coming?"

posted by wendell 10 April | 03:37

I interviewed at MTV NYC in the early nineties and when asked what I wanted to do, I said "advertising". I wish I had sold myself better, since advertising is MTV and MTV is advertising and really, how fun couldn't a gig at MTV have been? I had a portfolio full of great ideas and I'm sure i could have come up with plenty for MTV since it was all shows and cool edits anyway. Dumbarse me.

posted by dabitch 10 April | 06:15

College. I would have chosen a different school, and a different major.

posted by LoriFLA 10 April | 06:44

Me, too, LoriFLA!

posted by By the Grace of God 10 April | 07:33

Make that me, three!

posted by phoenixc 10 April | 07:49

One thing? Oh, crap...decisions, decisions. Lotsa bad ones meriting do-overs. Where and how I finished HS, college, career, marriage, choice of where and how to live, whether and how to become a parent....gawd, what a list. (Trying to figure out now how to work with what's left, donchaknow.)

Well, maybe one that's not quite so "movie of the week"...

I bumped into Tom Clancy, quite literally, one late summer afternoon somewhere in there about 1989-1991, coming around one side of the statue of Gen. Reynolds at Gettysburg -- he was walking around from one side, camera slung around neck, with one of his kids, and I was comin' round the other. I'd heard and seen him on radio/press/TV enough to know instantly it was him.

He'd been explaining the battle to his son, and I wish I'd stopped to chat with them and listen to him talk about the Civil War as only he could. But no, I just had to get over to Little Round Top to find the marker where Joshua Chamberlain's 20th Maine Regt. made their stand -- if you've see the movie Gettysburg, it's the big battle sequence where Jeff Daniels and a relative handful of Yankees are trying to stop what looks like the entire Army of Northern Virginia. The late-afternoon sun was slanting into twilight and I was all tasky and mission-oriented and stuff. Stupid, stupid me.

My hair was really short and I was wearing some old surplus BDU pants for pushing my way through the brush, so possibly Clancy thought I was an ACDU type on leave; I wasn't, but there's no telling where that convo might've gone -- we're both submarine enthusiasts, and if the name "Tom Clancy" hasn't rung a bell, his first (and some say best) novel The Hunt for Red October not only was made into a movie, it stimulated a whole genre, the military technothriller. I'd've loved to have bought him dinner if Mrs. Pax had been game.

posted by PaxDigita 10 April | 08:14

Me three and a half- different school, same major.

posted by BoringPostcards 10 April | 08:14

High school. Why? I'll let Trent Reznor explain since he grew up 70 miles from me and 7 years behind me. The emphasis at the end is mine.

"I don't know why I want to do these things," Reznor says, "other than my desire to escape from Small Town, U.S.A., to dismiss the boundaries, to explore. It isn't a bad place where I grew up, but there was nothing going on but the cornfields. My life experience came from watching movies, watching TV and reading books and looking at magazines. And when your fucking culture comes from watching TV every day, you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool, places that seem interesting, people who have jobs and careers and opportunities. None of that happened where I was. You're almost taught to realize it's not for you."

posted by mischief 10 April | 08:18

I try not to carry too many regrets, too many "might have beens," but I do wish I had tried to make and keep more friends in college. I went to a small school, and it wasn't like I bred active dislike in anyone, but I was only really close with my dear boyfriend, whom I started dating freshman year.

posted by muddgirl 10 April | 08:36

I don't regret my decisions, I just wish the people who were influential during my adolescence had been more open-minded, educated and ambitious.

posted by mischief 10 April | 08:43

Being born.

posted by econous 10 April | 08:43

Where to begin? Fucking up college, not applying myself to various jobs, abandoning writing for so many years, acquiring so many bad habits....

posted by jonmc 10 April | 08:49

I would have started dance lessons very early in life, instead of age 14, and I would like to have realized at age 9 or 10 that spelling bees are something that one can study and practice for, not just something you win by luck, which is apparently how I thought at the time.

posted by JanetLand 10 April | 08:55

That time down by the railroad tracks on the hood of my car, looking up and seeing stars, yeah, that was fun.

No regrets.

posted by rainbaby 10 April | 09:08

I wish I would have tried harder in school/got into MIT.

Though mostly I'm happy with where I am right now.

posted by drezdn 10 April | 09:14

There's something about Railroad tracks, Hoods of cars, and Stars in the sky that seems very alluring right now.

posted by hadjiboy 10 April | 09:32

Realized the high school was a game. . all of it. .grades, girls, etc. And not cared.

posted by danf 10 April | 09:35

College. I would have chosen a different school, and a different major.
posted by LoriFLA 10 April | 06:44

Me, too, LoriFLA!
posted by By the Grace of God 10 April | 07:33

Make that me, three!
posted by phoenixc 10 April | 07:49

Me three and a half- different school, same major.
posted by BoringPostcards 10 April | 08:14

....

/me panics

posted by CitrusFreak12 10 April | 09:46

I would have not messed up my chance to become a child actress when I was 2 or 3. I coulda been a contender!!!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 10 April | 10:09

I would have let certain people affect me less while letting others affect me more. Also, I wouldn't have dated my exbf, he turned out to be crazy.

posted by LunaticFringe 10 April | 10:22

How can a two or three year old mess something up? Stuff happens or doesn't happen, good and bad - one can only exert influence over the future.

posted by rainbaby 10 April | 10:22

Sense of humor, aisle 3.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 10 April | 10:28

Dose of reality, aisle 4.

posted by rainbaby 10 April | 10:34

Oh, get over yourself-I WAS KIDDING. I often wondered as a child why my fabulous talent didn't translate into my a child star. I could be as rich as the Olsens! I figured my parents probably were trying to shield me from the pressures of fame, making sure I had a normal childhood, yada yada yada. Then one day my Mom told me that when I was very small, she took me to one of those big casting calls and I got shy and clung to her and wouldn't walk the runway. I ruined my own chances!! Curses!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 10 April | 10:37

well i've said it so many times here that its probably boring by now, but yea i wish i'd gone to college. its not too late but after a certain age life kind of intervenes and you get tied down by day to day survival.

although, hadji, please indulge me while i give you a dose of the same strategic advise i recently gave the kids i coach at cycling (copied from an email). granted this is specific to survival on two skinny tyres at thirty miles an hour in close quarters, but i'd like to think it's somewhat decent philosophy for life as well. i call this particular strategy 'You Can't Go Forward By Looking Back':

stuff that's behind you is just that: behind you, therefore it doesn't concern you. if you're looking over your shoulder, you're not focussed on your job, which is a) going forward fast, b) helping your teammate(s), and/or c) getting to the finish line ahead of the rest of those nutjobs. not to mention you're liable to run into something. so quit worrying what everyone else is panicking about, relax and concentrate on what you're doing. yea i know it's scary, but the guys who consistently win are the ones who are able to block out all the crazy and focus on sliding thru the gaps. if someone crashes, unless its right under your front wheel, it doesn't affect you. you tend to steer where you're looking anyway, so fixating on some mess, nine times out of ten, is gonna do nothing but put you right down in it. bottom line; if i see your head swivelling around while something important's going on, ima smack it for you soon's i get a chance.

posted by lonefrontranger 10 April | 10:38

not spent four years of college floundering around, getting away from my family's insanity and negativity a lot sooner, not trying to do what other people did or wanted when it wasn't what i wanted and i wasn't good at it anyway, working harder at things that were hard for me and not giving up so easily, i could go on and on. most recently, i regret jumping head-first into a relationship that broke my heart. not saying it should never have happened, but i should have at least slowed it way down due to the circumstances of the time.

posted by wens 10 April | 10:43

I wouldn't have wasted so many years dating extroverts. (No offense to any in the room, it just doesn't mix with me on a dating level).

posted by scarabic 10 April | 10:44

I would have taken a year or two off between college and grad school.

posted by gaspode 10 April | 10:54

1) I would have never gone to law school.

2) Never started smoking.

3) Never would have gotten back together with Greg...twice.

4) Never would have given up everything I tried because I feared I wasn't good enough.

5) Never would have had sex with certain people who I slept with especially those who were a bad lay.

6) I should have stayed in LA longer and not chickened out and moved home and agreed to marry the guy in #3.

7) I shouldn't have skipped so many photography classes.

8) Really...I shouldn't have skipped any classes.

9) I should really start applying myself. Even now.

10) Credit cards. Bad idea. Nothing I've bought with credit has been worth the cost.

I could go on forever but still I don't regret any of my choices. Each choice brought me to a place where someone new came into my life and for that...I wouldn't change a thing. Even if I believe I know better now...except that credit card thing. Debt sucks and it certainly wasn't worth the free water bottle I got in the dining hall for signing up for the damn things.

posted by Lola_G 10 April | 11:05

I regret nothing.

Just kidding, I regret just about everything. Seriously. I just wish I would've listened to myself more. Everything would've fallen into place after that.

Am I the only one who gets bummed out by threads like this?

posted by Hellbient 10 April | 11:07

i wish i had learned how to photosynthesize my own food while learning how to grow a bean plant in a ziplock bag in 5th grade.

posted by stynxno 10 April | 11:09

Good question. Mostly I have few regrets.

I absolutely *hated* law school and was crabby and miserable most of the time. BAD attitude. If I could go back I would try to make the best of things and create my own experience.

I feel a lot of regret-guilt about ending my relationship with my ex-husband. But it's hard to say what (exactly) I would do differently -- sometimes I think I should have left earlier, other times I think I should have left later. (More written, and deleted.)

posted by Claudia_SF 10 April | 11:13

Lola_G, your list made me laugh. I'm with you on number 5 and number 10.

I don't know if this is a regret, but I look back and :shudder: about some of the strange personas I tried to smoosh myself into before I just sort of relaxed into who I am. I spent at least two years trying to be camping-rock-climbing girl, because I decided that that was "cool." I remember a year or two where I decided to be "less intense." These projects never worked.

posted by Claudia_SF 10 April | 11:19

I wish I'd never drunk alcohol. But then, I wouldn't be the person I am today without my journey through recovery.

Also, what John Betjeman said.

posted by essexjan 10 April | 11:29

That one time? On the stairs? I'd do that over again. Over, and over, and over...

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 10 April | 11:42

Leaving Spain when I was 18. If I'd held on a little longer there's no telling where my life would have gone. I'd been offered a modeling contract in Barcelona; I had a chance to move to London; there were all kinds of weird possibly glamourous wild 80s things I could have gotten into. But instead I listened to my parents when they said they were going to disown me if I didn't come home and go to college and so I did just that. Should have stayed in Europe.

Of course, if I'd done that I wouldn't have had my kids and while I don't regret them, I do kind of regret not knowing either of their fathers for more than about 6 weeks before I got pregnant. Getting pregnant at 18 wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done (oh, hey, birth control pills still work for a month or two after you stop taking them, right? Eeesh.) and then getting pregnant again at age 27 with a guy I barely knew was another not so bright move. Ah well.

And yeah, I wish I'd transferred to a bigger college and gone to grad school and then later on I should never have quit my job at the Walters and then too I should have quit my job at the art museum here a lot sooner than I did. All these regrets, coyote.

But LFR is right, you have to look ahead, always ahead, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. And if I wasn't the kind of person who leaps first and looks later I wouldn't be me at all.

posted by mygothlaundry 10 April | 11:46

I wish I had done High School differently. I should have dumped choir and taken art/photography courses. I should have applied myself in general - quit reading in class and actually paid attention to what was going on. If I had taken the harder courses my counselor said I should, I might not have been quite so bored and enjoyed it more.

posted by deborah 10 April | 11:49

Am I the only one who gets bummed out by threads like this?

Ooooh, I hope not, coz I was kinda wondering about that today, I've been on a negative slope for some time now, haven't I?
Okay, happy time.
I like all the mistakes that everyone's put in this thread, because it makes them all the more real to me. I'm not a very educated person, so I can't converse with you all the way I'd like to, but feelings are international so it's something I feel I have in-common with all of you.
And when they're feelings of "guilt" or "unhappiness" at not doing something that you've wanted to do, then that's me talking.:)

posted by hadjiboy 10 April | 12:00

College. Having been the first person in my family to go, I didn't really know what I was supposed to do when I got there, and I wasted a lot of it. Not enough participation in sports or activities or student governmenent, not interesting enough research and projects, didn't study abroad, didn't get pally enough with professors. had I known to do college differently I'd probably have gone right to grad school when it was a good time to do so, rather than make my life miserable trying to do it as an adult with a real job.

posted by Miko 10 April | 12:01

Claudia_SF, I can relate to your search for identity.

posted by hadjiboy 10 April | 12:07

Ok, screw MTV and countless other turns I didn't or did take - what I really regret is not listening to my own intuition and trusting it a lot sooner/more often. It's right every time, I just have to pay attention to it and not care what other people think. I'm much better at that now than I was, and I think that many things would have been different had I just stuck with my guns and gut more often.

posted by dabitch 10 April | 12:26

Oh, I would totally do college over, starting with applications and not letting my parents read them.

Though really I want to just start over at 6th grade, because I was the biggest goddamn dork ever.

In fact, if I could do everything all over again the first thing to change would be not listening to my parents so much.

posted by casarkos 10 April | 12:45

What essexjan said. Demon rum.

posted by netbros 10 April | 13:06

When my wife finally lets my son have access to the Internet, I hope I remember to steer him to this thread -- "not listening to my parents" and all.

And "not listening to my intuition" -- yeah, me too -- I've gotten MUCH better about not telling it to shut up while I'm busy being all noble and stuff -- I've learned when to disengage and back off before I find myself in yet another no-win.

posted by PaxDigita 10 April | 13:41

Hey, wait a minute...

Are we talking about doing things again DIFFERENTLY?

Or just reliving an experience?

It looks like It's Raining Florence Henderson might be the only MeChatter with a friggin' clue in this entire thread.

If that's the idea...I won't repeat her name, but ever since that weekend I know how Lou Costello felt on his deathbed when he said, "That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted"!

posted by PaxDigita 10 April | 14:03

One other thing: when I was a 'radio sidekick' on a low-rated morning show in LOS ANGELES, all I wanted to do was get out of town and develop my own 'personality' in a comfy smaller market (preferably San Luis Obispo); I missed various opportunities in L.A. from TV writing to voiceover work because of that obsession, and when I finally got out of L.A., it was to 50 miles south of Fresno as Ops Manager of an automated station where I learned (a) L.A. wasn't so bad and (b) I actually enjoyed playing with computers (even the prehistoric one that ran the tape machines for the station). Still, it taught me to NOT hold on so tight to a specific dream, which has made it easier for me move on from all my failures and only-partial-successes since.

posted by wendell 10 April | 14:10

School. By choosing school, it puts me at the age of five which is where stuff started going wrong for me. If it were in a different location, even better.

posted by King of Prontopia 10 April | 14:51

Can I just wipe the slate clean and start from the beginning again, but with the knowledge I now have?

posted by dg 10 April | 16:25

As a 17 year old college freshman, I'd have said "No, thanks!" when Phil E. asked me if I'd like to meet a girl he knew from high school... Bad mistake, that.

posted by paulsc 10 April | 16:34

Wouldn't have married a Republican. Seriously. What the hell was I thinking, and why didn't my friends say something. He's really a jackass, most of which isn't because his politics suck, but he represented himself to me so dishonestly. But the Republican part? Didn't help. Didn't help at all.

posted by theora55 10 April | 17:32

I would have come out of the closet a hell of a lot sooner (I came out in my early 20's & get jealous of others when I hear about them having come out in high school -- but I should count my lucky stars -- I've known guys who didn't come out until retirement age). Oh, and that one time I took 8 hits of a certain psychedelic compound -- I wouldn't do that again.

posted by treepour 10 April | 17:44

1. finished college.
2. never started a career in corporate America.
3. travelled more.
4. rocked out with my cock out.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 10 April | 17:58

I wish I'd really looked into the career the apptitude test said would be a good fit for me (in eighth grade). I wish I'd really gone to college, instead of taking various courses at the local community college. I wish I'd lived on my own as a young adult. And while I wish I hadn't married husband #1, I'm glad I did because of my sons. The whole experience made me a stronger person; the abusive marriage, learning to stand up for myself, being on my own (with two small kids). And I've always said I'd go through all that again if that was what it took to lead me to husband #2. 99% of the time, I mean it, too.

posted by redvixen 10 April | 18:41

I wish I'd been diagnosed with depression at least a decade earlier. So much of my life, my potential, has been given over to a malfunctioning brain.

posted by Five Fresh Fish 10 April | 21:57

10 April 2007