What Remains After Regret

Christina had always been a birthday diva—not for the attention, but because she believed in marking life, in making joy a ritual on “your day.” Growing up, her birthday was always celebrated with love and care. It was one of the few times she felt entirely comfortable being the center of attention—deserving of every candle, every gift, every off-key chorus of “Happy Birthday.”

With a summer birthday, celebrations were always near water. Her mother made her favorite foods. Her godmother baked a homemade cake. Even her father—despite his chronic absence—sent elaborate handwritten cards. Everyone around her made her feel like magic. Those memories etched a glow around the day, one she carried into adulthood like a sacred torch.

At 35, she embraced her birthday with full-bodied devotion—a festival of self.

This year, she celebrated hard.

The first weekend was a backyard BBQ and swim day—her favorite kind of gathering: unfussy and drenched in joy. Her best friends hosted at their country estate. Her parents and sister brought the food. Her niece and nephews (both blood and by choice) splashed in the pool. Her husband kept the cooler stocked and her glass full. Laughter, loud music, and a cookie cake melting in the July heat filled the day. They grilled hot dogs, floated on pool noodles, and lingered after sunset, wrapped in towels and soft conversation.

The next weekend, she and her husband drove into Cherokee land for a float trip with their bar family. Lukewarm Michelob Ultras. Pizza Lunchables—the only acceptable river snack. They floated beneath a canopy of trees, stopping to nap on sandbars and skip stones. That night, around the fire, they roasted s’mores and swapped stories, each one dissolving into laughter or tears—or both.

Two weeks later, she dressed in a little black off-the-shoulder dress for a slow, elegant dinner at the Casnino. Just the two of them. Candles. Steak. Oysters on the half shell. Wine. Giddy like teenagers, they tucked themselves into a corner of the 19th-floor restaurant, the sun setting beyond the windows. She watched him with quiet gratitude—this love was different. Not dramatic or hard-won, but steady. Deep. He knew all her angles and loved her anyway. Or maybe because of them.

It was the kind of birthday she’d once dreamed of. Not a single day, but a mosaic of connection and delight. She felt fully awake for all of it. Present. Alive.

And still—something lingered.

The boxes had been in the garage for three years. Packed neatly after the move. Labeled things like “Kitchen,” “Books,” and the vaguer, heavier “Misc Christina.” She’d meant to go through them, but life had kept moving: new city, new job, the beautiful chaos of building a marriage.

She was reminded of them while digging for camping gear.

So, one slow Tuesday evening, she opened the garage door. Dust danced in the fading light. She stepped past lawn tools and holiday bins and found the boxes—stacked like a forgotten self, waiting patiently in cardboard silence.

She sat cross-legged on the concrete floor and opened the top one. The first thing she touched was paper that still smelled faintly of ink and time. High school poetry. College planners. Scribbled half-dreams. Printed MapQuest directions.

Inside: journals, photos, letters, tear-stained pages.

A pink 2011 planner.

She flipped to her birthday week. Her own looping cursive read: “Goals Before 30” — Write the book — Take a solo trip — Forgive Bill — Laugh without apologizing — Be happy — Stop shrinking — Start living

And at the bottom, faintly in pencil: “Don’t forget who you are.”

Her breath caught. The planner slipped from her hands. Her chest tightened, as if someone had tied a rope around her ribs and started pulling.

She had spent years avoiding this part of herself, telling herself that forward meant forgetting. But now, here it was. Her ghost, gently tapping her on the shoulder.

That night, she didn’t sleep.

Lying in bed, she watched the ceiling fan slice lazy circles through the July heat. Every time she closed her eyes, the phrase echoed back: Start living.

What had she been doing, then? Existing? Performing? Taking care of everyone else? Trying to be palatable. Productive. Pleasant. But living?

No. Living meant risk. Pleasure. Presence. Living meant being seen.

She slipped out of bed, careful not to wake her husband, and padded down the hallway. In the quiet hum of the living room, she turned on a lamp, wrapped herself in a blanket, and pulled a spiral-bound notebook from her bag. A sunflower on the cover.

She opened to the first page.

Dear Past Me,

I owe you an apology.

I haven’t been kind to you.

You were doing your best with what you had.

I should’ve said that sooner.

I see now how hard you were trying.

To be loved. To be enough. To disappear.

I’m sorry I let shame become your compass.

She signed it quietly, pressed the notebook to her chest, and exhaled a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

She didn’t sleep that night. She didn’t plan to write again the next day. But she did. And the day after. And again. Soon it became ritual.

After coffee. Before email. Before social media. Before noise.

Two letters each time: one to her past self. One to her future.

Some days, the words poured out:

I’m sorry I didn’t leave sooner. You didn’t deserve to be hurt and then asked to understand it.

You have permission to want more. Needing isn’t weakness—it’s proof you’re alive.

Other days, all she could write was:

I’m tired. But I showed up. That counts.

On Day 7, she apologized for the summer she stopped writing.

You didn’t fail. You froze. That’s what trauma does. And you survived. That counts for something.

She cried—not from bitterness, but because she finally let herself feel the betrayal she’d buried.

With each letter, something began to loosen. The grief that had calcified into numbness began to move again.

She took long walks without destination. Whispered pieces of her letters into the wind. She stopped texting people who only remembered her when they needed something. She deleted an ex’s number.

She started eating breakfast again—first reluctantly, then joyfully. Eventually, she took it outside, no screen in sight.

On Day 13, she returned to a memory.

She was 17, standing on her grandfather’s porch. He handed her the keys to a convertible and said, “It’s a pretty girl car. Might help you find a man at college.” She’d giggled. Said thank you. But the smile wasn’t joy. It was armor.

She wrote:

You should’ve screamed. Or cried. Or thrown the keys. But you smiled. You believed. You tied your worth to beauty, to being wanted. I know now that smile was protection. I would never make you shrink like that again.

The next day, she didn’t write. She felt hollow. But not in a bad way. It was the kind of hollow that makes space for something new.

On Day 19, she stood naked in front of her mirror and wrote a letter to her body.

You were never the problem. They taught me to hate you because they hated themselves.

I’m sorry I made you carry that. You deserved softness. Starting now.

She filled the bathtub with too much lavender and sang power ballads into the steam. She didn’t check her phone once.

On Day 30, she reread her first letter. The writing looked small and fragile—like it had been afraid someone might read over her shoulder.

She wasn’t afraid anymore.

Dear Future Me,

I hope you’re still soft.

I hope you still write, even when it’s messy.

I hope you wake up some mornings and just breathe, no expectations.

I hope you keep forgiving me, as I learn to do the same.

You are not a product. You are not a performance. You are not a second chance for someone else.

You are a life.

And I hope you’re living it.

By Day 40, Christina realized she was no longer writing to the past or future.

She was writing for the version of herself barefoot on the porch now. The woman who stopped measuring her worth by output. Who no longer believed love had to be earned through suffering.

She had spent so long grieving the life she didn’t have.

Now, the grief had become something else.

Not regret. Responsibility.

She couldn’t change the past. But she could tend to it—and grow something different.

She didn’t tell many people about the letters.

When a friend asked what had changed—why she seemed lighter—Christina just smiled and said, “I stopped lying to myself.”

The friend nodded, unsure. That was okay.

Some transformations are too sacred to explain.

On the final page, she wrote:

Dear Me,

I think it’s time I stop writing to you from a distance.

You are here. You are whole.

You don’t owe anyone your suffering.

There is no timeline for becoming. No checklist for worth.

You are allowed joy.

You are allowed softness.

You are allowed to begin again.

I’m not sorry anymore.

I’m proud.

Love,

Me.

She closed the notebook and placed it gently back in the box—not to hide it, but to preserve it.

One day, she might write another.

But for now, she had a different kind of blank page in front of her.

And she was finally ready to live it.