February 11: Poor Boy, Regrets, New Cartoon

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, "Poor boy!" and cried again.

"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff:  "but it's too late now."

"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.

"Nothing," said Scrooge.  "Nothing.  There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night.  I should like to have given him something:  that's all."

Scrooge has a lot of regrets in his life.  The one to which he refers in this passage is pretty small potatoes, as regrets go.  It's a missed chance for a small kindness.  Scrooge's list of missed chances is huge:  he's missed the chance to be married; he's missed the chance to have children; he's missed the chance to take care of his only kin, his nephew, Fred; he's missed the chance to enjoy his financial success for most of his life; he's missed the chance to alleviate the suffering of the London poor for most of his life.  I could go on.

Most human beings live with regrets.  Missed opportunities.  During the past two years on this blog, I've pretty much talked about most of my regrets.  It's not a very healthy exercise, this kind of naval gazing, wondering about the might-have-beens in my life.  It can lead to some pretty dark places.  For instance, if I had finished my Ph.D. (I was about a year from being done), I may right now have a full-time, tenured professorship at the university, instead of a part-time, contracted adjunct position.  That's a big one.

Regrets are kind of useless things to carry around.  They ruin the present and cast a pretty dark shadow over the future.  Thinking about my Ph.D. now, I struggle to be happy with my current jobs and life.  Instead of enjoying what I have, I regret what I don't have.  Looking into the future, I can become a little bitter as I see jobs at the English Department going to people who are younger, less-experienced, and less-talented.  The difference between me and them:  three letters--"P" and "h" and "D."  It's been happening for years.

I frequently interact with people who have no connection to the university.  Well-meaning people who are clueless about how academia works.  Inevitably, these people will ask me, "When are you going to get a full-time job at the school?"  Each time someone asks me this, I die a little inside.  My usual response is a joke:  "I'm planning to kill off all the poets in the department.  Do you know any hit men?"  They think I'm kidding.  And I am.  Sort of.

I could drive myself crazy with thoughts like this, spend my days bitter and angry, trying to make other people bitter and angry.  In short, I could be Ebenezer Scrooge.  I refuse to allow myself to fall into that trap.  If I do get caught in it, I gnaw my foot off pretty quickly and escape.  As I said earlier, I don't want to spend my entire life mourning the things I missed doing.

And now that I've said all that, I'm going to leave my regrets right here in this post.  Today, I'm going to enjoy the things I have.

Saint Marty needs to gnaw off an appendage now.

Confessions of Saint Marty