I have to start with a couple of stories before I get to my point. I would imagine that by the time I get to my point, you, Dear Reader, will have gotten the point. Let’s get going shall we?

Back in 2004 I met a woman online. This was before “swipe apps” and dating sites were really just starting to become a thing. If my memory serves me correctly, I met this woman on MySpace.

She and I begin a dialogue, which turns to checking out each others pictures, which turns into both of us sending each other more recent pictures, which turns into flirty texting, which turns into phone calls, which turns into Skype calls, which turns into both of us deciding to meet in Vegas for a weekend getaway.

This woman lived in Seattle and I lived and still currently live, in Salt Lake City. We both figured that Vegas would be a good “middle ground” and would also be neutral territory. Besides, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?

Fun thing happened when I went to get on the airplane to go to Vegas. She was already on the flight. Her flight from Seattle had a layover in Salt Lake, and was my flight as well. So there we both were.

It definitely made it easier logistically. Now neither one of us was going to arrive before the other. There was no need to contact the other person to find out where they were at, figure where to meet them, so on and so forth.

It was a great weekend to be sure.

Now, let’s fast forward a little bit. This woman and I continued our “romance” for about another 3 or 4 months. She ended up catching a flight to Salt Lake and stayed with me for a weekend, and I ultimately did the same thing and ended up spending a weekend in Seattle. I’ve never been to Seattle before my visit with her, it’s a beautiful city.

So now let’s fast forward to 2005. Seattle gal is a thing of the past, and enter Delaware Woman. Meeting her was pretty much the same thing as Seattle gal, so I’ll not bore you with those details. I believe it was in August, September, or maybe October of 2005 that I caught a flight to Delaware to meet this particular woman. Delaware is beautiful as well, and up to that time, I had never been there before either.

What I remember most about both of those amazing women (besides personal details and intimacies that I’m not going to share with you) is travelling around with them and the travelling I did to get to them.

Could I have met women closer to me? Of course. In fact, I was doing that as well as pursuing these two women. Just because these women were in completely different states from me wasn’t a reason that I couldn’t meet them.

I wasn’t kidding myself and they were not kidding themselves as to the status of our respective “relationships.” I wasn’t going to uproot and move either to Seattle or Delaware, and they weren’t going to uproot and come live in Utah. But that wasn’t going to stop us from having adventures.

Here’s my point:

I don’t regret meeting these two wonderful women. If I had to do it all over again, I would do it in a heart beat. I don’t regret that it took longer to meet them than if they had lived closer to me. I don’t regret the money that I spent to get to them.

The things that I do regret are the chances that I never took. The opportunities that I have missed out on because of hesitation or fear. Those are my regrets.

I don’t regret getting married in 2009 only to get divorced in 2015. I don’t regret that that particular relationship was the hardest relationship that I’ve had to date. Yes, marriage and relationships can be work, but when it’s fairly constant work, there’s more going on there than at first glance.

I don’t regret dating a woman who is twenty years younger than me. You would be surprised to find out just how much we had in common despite our age difference.

I don’t regret that I’m single again. There’s things that I am doing now that I would have not had the time, the energy, or the motivation to do those things if I was in a relationship.

I don’t regret that I told my Mother goodbye hours before she died. We both knew it was coming and inevitable. We both said what needed to be said to each other.

I only regret a few things.

I regret that I never went up and talked to a woman that I knew in school. Her name was Suzanne. She was stunning. She had the most piercing blue eyes that I have ever seen. I wish that I had had the balls and just gone up and talked to her and asked her out. Even if she had blown me out and told me no, that would have been okay. At least I would have known.

I regret that I never kissed another woman named Shannon. The worst part of that one is the fact that I knew, I fucking knew, she was in to me. She told me she was. And like a complete dumbass, I did nothing with that information. I was too chickenshit at the time.

You might see a pattern here. It has to do with women. I don’t regret the jobs I did or didn’t take. I don’t regret the money that I have or haven’t spent. I don’t regret the stuff I did or didn’t buy.

I regret not taking the chances with these women when I could have, and the opportunities that I have missed out on. I regret not knowing what kind of memories I could have made with them. I regret not knowing who and what those people were about. That’s what I regret. All because of fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of not doing it “right.” Fear of failure. And even in some cases, fear of success.

When it’s your turn to die, when you are lying on your deathbed, what are you going to regret? I know I won’t regret not spending more time at the office doing someone else’s work to make them more money. I won’t regret taking the chance on approaching and meeting someone new, and they aren’t interested in what I’m offering them. At least there, I’ll know. And if it doesn’t work out the way that I had wanted it to? Oh well, things don’t always go the way you wanted them to, but at least I tried.

And for that, I have no regrets.

P.S. If another opportunity presents itself, and I have to hop onboard another airplane to fly to another part of the country, or another part of the world to meet someone new and see what that’s like, what do you think I’ll do?

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