"Regrets? I've had a few . . . ."

"Regrets? I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention."  The lyrics of that Frank Sinatra song were running through my mind while L and I again visited a local campus--the same campus that I wrote about here.

L was invited to attend a "Distinguished Scholar" day at that campus and she really wanted to attend (maybe because two of her best buddies were attending?).

Yesterday, the college administration "wined and dined" high school scholars from around the state with the hopes of convincing those scholars to choose that particular university. I felt perhaps it would be a bit redundant since we had only just been there, but I am always L's 100% supporter. So we did attend.

Lo and behold, we had an even better day yesterday than the already good-enough day we had had a couple of weeks ago (despite rain, wind, and a dying umbrella that drew blood) and it did not feel redundant. Our day was capped off by a dinner and entertainment in what looked like a Hogwarts dining hall and then each scholar was presented with a certificate awarding scholastic achievement.

I have to say there are so many things to like about that university. I do not know if that is where L should go to college--whether it would be the right or best choice for her--but I am completely won over. Therein hangs the tale.

As with our earlier campus visit, I kept reflecting back on my own senior year of high school.

I received a full-tuition scholarship to this same school. I did not apply for the scholarship. It was handed to me at an end-of-the-year scholarship banquet and I was thoroughly surprised. I was not an excellent scholar like L--but I was a pretty good student and I was extremely involved in extra-curricular things. Maybe my mother had a hand in my receiving that scholarship, convincing the school counselor to go to bat for me, since my mother was so universally liked. Be that as it may have been, I had the scholarship and all of my plans set in place for going to that school. Then, somewhere around the end of August before I was to attend, I changed my mind and I went somewhere else for college. And never looked back . . . until now.

Around the time that I became an adult (some would argue as to the exact moment that occurred or whether it has occurred at all! :o), I have forced myself to absolutely spend no time on regrets, on "what-might-have-beens," on "if-onlys," as I have gone through my life. I have felt that if I went back in time to those same pivotal moments where I could have changed something, either doing or not doing something, AND NOT KNOWING THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW, I would have made exactly the same choices, because I have always been "carefull"--as in "full of care," serious, weighed down with thought--about trying to do the best I could do under any circumstances regardless of whether I actually did well or not, or whether things turned out well or not. For better or for worse, this philosophy of not entertaining regrets has continued with me for the past several decades and I have spent almost no time taking out my regrets and looking at them. Yes. "Regrets? I've had a few."

However, as I walked around that campus--twice--and heard all the glowing things about that campus--twice--and felt myself thoroughly converted to the idea of that school--twice, I have wondered: What would have happened if I had followed through on my long-ago plans to go there? How would my life have been different now but for that one decision?

I recall my decision very well--I felt I absolutely could not go there--period--that I absolutely had to go closer to home to the other school. No if, ands or buts. And, as it turned out, I did not even LIKE that other school I attended my freshman year and I quickly went to another school for my sophomore year. As it turned out, I did not like that school either, but decided I was the problem, not the schools, so I just stayed put and eventually received my bachelor's degree from that school.  Chances are that I would not have liked any school I attended.  Chances are that I would have changed schools after my freshman year no matter which school I attended first. Who knows?!

As I visited this school of my original choice, through my mind paraded so many experiences that were unique to the other schools I attended (three different schools, to be exact--one of them after college graduation, and one of those schools I attended two different times--and liked the second time, btw).

Hands down, I believe I chose for my freshman year the more easy-going and accepting set of roommates (whom I love to this day) in my choice to change schools--and both of those roommate sets were choices that I fell into and didn't orchestrate on my own.

Some experiences have been so pivotal to who and what I am now that I cannot imagine NOT having had those experiences--people, places, things. Would I have experienced the exact same kind of growth and in the same ways if I had gone to the school of my original choice? Would I even be the same person today? Close on the heels of those thoughts comes the thought of all the experiences I would have been happy to avoid. . . . Don't we all have those?!

As with all self-discussions and mental perusals of regrets, the answers to all those questions are unknowable, which is one of the main reasons I do not like to entertain my regrets. The real crux of the recent thoughts is this: Would things have been BETTER if I had gone to the school of my original choice? Would my life have been DIFFERENT in significant ways if I had not changed schools before attending this school to which I am now obviously converted?  Or did everything turn out exactly the way God wanted, despite my seemingly willy-nilly school choices?

Like it says in Alma 29:3--"But behold  I am a [person--as opposed to a God, perhaps], and do sin in my wish [to know the unknowable, ala "It's a Wonderful Life"]; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me."  So, once again, I go back to my life philosophy of putting regrets away.  Likely things turned out just the way I needed them to be for my personal growth, likely just the way God intended and "allotted" them to be, I would imagine.

Regrets, you say? I actually have had a few. But then again, they are just too, too few to mention . . . .

Law School Graduation.