shades of regret

I got a newsletter today from a women's writing retreat where I spent 3 weeks what feels like 20 years ago but was actually 7. Which is still a pretty long time. Long enough to have lost the relationships that were alternately binding me and tempting me at the time - and to have lost more after that; to have left the consuming arts nonprofit job I had at the time that was so hard to let go for those 3 weeks; to have lost a parent and a grandparent and my reproductive organs (not a great loss considering the alternative, as the cause was ovarian cancer); to have moved across the country to North Carolina and then partway back across the country to Michigan; to have nearly forgotten the play I was writing there with such intense fervor. And also long enough, I hope, to have learned something along the way, to have stretched a few muscles I didn't even quite know I had 7 years ago. I've progressed in some way and I'm grateful for that.

And yet. I've lost something too. The impulse that took me to the retreat in the first place, that pushed me to apply even in the midst of being so busy and worn out with work that I had a crying fit the day I dropped the application in the mail. That helped me believe I had a reason to go there, something to say, a role in the world that included my writing in a way beyond marketing copy and grant applications. I was frought with fear and insecurity the whole time I was there, plagued by the useless but persistent anxiety that I Didn't Deserve It - but I still pushed myself to write most of a play in 3 weeks. Now I'm an alumna and I get the newsletters reflecting the glorious progress the place has made in the past few years right after returning from the brink of financial disaster and a purgatory of programmatic confusion. I'm delighted to see the progress they've made but can't help thinking, every time I get a letter, "If I applied now, I couldn't get in." This feeling is made all the more piquant by the knowledge that one of my exes is the executive director, responsible for the turnaround.

There are ways to move beyond this. I know. Tomorrow: a list.