#158 – My Biggest Regret This Year
A choice I've made with my story and must live through
This is Adventures in Storytelling your weekly note with resources, insights, and actionable tools for better communication through storytelling. May you live through your regrets and find joy in the aftermath.
So, I don’t really believe in regret, it’s not a state I choose to live in for long. But I couldn’t help but acknowledge the acrid burn of it roiling in my stomach two weeks ago as I burst into tears staring down at the puppy that had just peed on my grey and white knotted wool carpet for the second time that week. I have wanted a dog for as long as I can remember, as a child my mother held to a firm “no,” and as an adult I knew my life, which included sometime monthly work trips didn’t allow for it. Until the pandemic and starting my own business and resetting my life and work around new values. It felt like the time had come.
So, I invited a wild animal into my home 😳
I read all the books, signed up for an online course and felt ready. I was far from it. Not because of him—I’m told he’s an angel of a puppy—but because of the timing in my life. I had a rough summer dealing with family illness and other life stressors. I was just coming up for air and feeling as if life was settling into place again when I was expected to pick up my pup. At the same time projects that had been moving slowly ramped up and I took on two new clients. In a period where I thought I’d have time to focus on training a baby dog, I had meetings and deliverables to get done.
It was a lot. So, I regretted it, the timing and the circumstances in which I found myself. I even considered sending him back. My life is suddenly and completely different from what it was a few weeks ago and that feels uncomfortable. I have responsibilities that include a living being I didn’t have before. On top of everything else going on in the world and in my life.
My Re-Work co-founder, Natasha, calls this season of mid-November until the end of the year burnout season. It’s when we careen into the end of the year on our last bits of energy and dive right into the holidays. It can be a lot. It’s when work gets most demanding as you try to finish up projects and spend those final budget dollars while at the same time everyone and their uncle is having a holiday gathering that you must and have to attend. Oh and planning your own parties and buying gifts and all the things, plus all the things of life. It can be overwhelming.
I decided to throw a puppy into the mix. I’m not burnt out because I’ve spent the past two years working to build a life that helps me avoid burnout. But that doesn’t mean I’m not overwhelmed.
But. And.
It does get better. The hard times, the overwhelm, the peeing on the carpet does eventually stop. Life moves forward and things slowly improve. Every day with my little pupper, Logan, is slightly better than the one before and we’ve even started to have one or two good days thrown in there to keep me motivated. People on the street with puppies of their own commiserate with me and those with full grown dogs assure me gets easier.
Because that is my life and that is my story right now. So do I regret the timing and how hard it’s been? Yes, I could have made this easier for myself if I could have been patient and waited for next year (patience would have also served me well on this puppy training journey). But I also accept how my story is unfolding, learn from it, and continue to grow. Because that is how great stories come to be—by moving through the hard stuff even when you caused that stuff for yourself. And even when you didn’t. The only way out is through.
So as I move through burnout season and finish up these projects and take responsibility for a living being, I’m paying close attention to the subtle and big shifts in the story of my life. And finding little glimmers of joy where I can (like when my very serious puppy sometimes smiles up at me at 6am and I feel a little less like death from lack of sleep).
I’d encourage you to do the same; to seek ease in these final months of the year and take stock of and accept the regrets along with the wins. Those will be the tension and magic in the stories you tell moving forward. But first you have to live through it. You’ve got this.
A Story Well Told
New York Times Culture writer and one of my top 10 favourite journalists, Wesley Morris strikes again with a profile of Barbara Streisand that made me curious to read her book. And try Brazilian coffee ice cream.
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Isn't it a bit funny that this story about regret and tears and overwhelmingness the one that made me laugh the most? Perhaps it's because I'm one of those dog owners of grown dogs you wrote about and I'm laughing at how much I can relate to this and how you were able to describe all those feelings of new dog ownership perfectly. I thoroughly enjoyed "a choice I've made with my story and must live through." I don't know if I should mention it now, but it's been 10 years of Jax and Delilah and I still often wonder to myself, "What have I done?!" By the way, does Logan's name have anything to do with The Baby-Sitters Club?