"For in my heart I carry such a heavy load"

I have spent much of my time regretting what I am not. I regret that I am not 5'2" and 100lbs. I regret that I have been married three times. I regret that I didn't give my children the very best life.

I can never regret. I can feel sorrow, but it’s not the same thing.” – Unicorn.
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle.

I never understood that line as a child. I thought the lack of regret because the unicorn was immortal. I see it differently now. I see regret can be useful for changing behaviors that are negative. I also see that regret is a good way to waste time wishing for things that can't be changed. I could see where that would be a huge liability if you were living forever. It's certainly is for those of us who are mortal. I will never be tiny and petite and my children have the best life I was able to give them. Regret doesn't help in these cases. I can't redesign my body and I can't go back in time and alter my children's lives.

What I do regret and am trying to change is spending emotional currency I don't have to spare. When my husband and I bought our home, we specifically chose a loan that either of us could pay on our own. There were a number of reasons, but the big one was to prevent a situation where a run of bad luck would cause us to lose our home because we couldn't cover the things that inevitably happen in life.

I don't do that emotionally. I tend to dive in with everything I have and then some. I feel like the last few years I've been running with a huge emotional deficit. I see cognitive behavioral therapy analogous to emotional debt counseling. I need to learn new emotional spending habits and not chase after every emotionally shiny thing that my heart desires.

It hasn't been easy, old spending habits die hard. However, dealing with the aftermath of  my mother being held up at gunpoint and robbed in her own home really changed my perspective. I find that that I am less inclined to deal with someone making an unauthorized withdrawal on my emotional currency. Denying them was an easy choice. I feel bad that I couldn't be supportive, but I don't regret it.

It feels strange to be so mercenary about my emotional connections, but better that then to end up where I was in December, when I was about to lose my emotional home.