Monika Basile's Blog: Confessions of a Bleeding Heart - Posts Tagged "voice"
The Voice
The things I regret in life are all of the things I wasn’t brave enough to do or to say or to be.
There are too many of them. There has been so many times that a gargantuan fear gripped me tight and I failed to follow my own inner voice. I wonder about that voice a lot and I wonder why it has never fallen silent enough for me to forget the chances I may have missed to be the human I was intended to be. I have no idea where the voice comes from, if it is mine or some otherworldly noise chattering up a storm and leaving me unsettled at times.
It isn’t a “beating yourself up” kind of feeling. It is more just a tweak of sadness that hangs about my shoulders. We can’t change the past. We can only learn from it. It doesn’t mean we actually do. And that voice—I think it sometimes chants in my ears to remind me that I am more than I am brave enough to be.
Some of my regrets are huge and some are just small tiny things and some I know are not that big of a deal to anyone but me. They are mine. I can’t blame anyone else for how I reacted to my life and I have to also learn a way to forgive myself for being a big ol’ chicken sometimes.
I finished writing my first novel when I was twenty six years old. I wrote it while the children napped, eating grapes and scribbling with a number two pencil into five, five subject college themed notebooks. When I was done I tucked it away, never brave enough to take the time to type it out and submit it anywhere. It still sits under my bed in a box. It took ten years before I got to finish another. But I learned. I wrote the next on a computer and I submitted it. I bore the rejection—the constant rejection—until it wasn’t rejected. I left a mark in the world even if it wasn’t more than a scratch. I regret not being brave enough sooner. I would be much further to my dream.
There were times I did not speak out when I should have. I allowed something to happen due to being afraid of how it would affect me and my life. Now, I live the aftermath of waiting too long and going to the wrong people instead of doing what my gut was screaming at me to do(which was to blow it all wide open to the highest authority). I regret that I wasn’t brave enough to listen to my inner voice and follow its instructions to the tee.
I regret the times I didn’t say something nice when I was thinking something nice and the times I said something ugly when I was feeling ugly.
There are those men in my life that I never was brave enough to tell how I feel. And there were those men that I wasn’t brave enough to kick to the curb at the time I should have been kicking hard. There are those words I withheld out of fear, the truth of my hurt or the honesty of my heart. I regret I didn’t say what I should have and I regret each time I let the anger get the best of me and said something I can never take back.
I hate that there have been times I have walked right on by someone in need because I was broke or in a hurry. I should never have allowed myself to be too busy or self-absorbed to not be a comfort at each opportunity presented. I am learning still and find it very hard not to stop now. But I think about all the times I was in such a rush that I didn’t stop to help thinking that someone else would. My inner voice tells me that in those cases—I may have been just the one that was put there to be of service.
I regret each pity party I have held with party hats and streamers, failing to see the joy that still spattered through. I regret each moment I have wasted. There are so few that we have to live in. I hate that I didn’t appreciate each one as precious no matter what. I am learning still.
There is so much more. There has been, there is and there will be so much more I can do that I won’t, that I will fail at, that I will forget to do or find something I will justify being more important. But I am learning—and I hope to still that inner voice somewhat or at least quiet it to a whisper. I hope at the end of it all the regret will be less and less and that whispering chatterbug in my head and heart says instead, “Hey. You did your best which was all anyone can do.”
Monika M. Basile
There are too many of them. There has been so many times that a gargantuan fear gripped me tight and I failed to follow my own inner voice. I wonder about that voice a lot and I wonder why it has never fallen silent enough for me to forget the chances I may have missed to be the human I was intended to be. I have no idea where the voice comes from, if it is mine or some otherworldly noise chattering up a storm and leaving me unsettled at times.
It isn’t a “beating yourself up” kind of feeling. It is more just a tweak of sadness that hangs about my shoulders. We can’t change the past. We can only learn from it. It doesn’t mean we actually do. And that voice—I think it sometimes chants in my ears to remind me that I am more than I am brave enough to be.
Some of my regrets are huge and some are just small tiny things and some I know are not that big of a deal to anyone but me. They are mine. I can’t blame anyone else for how I reacted to my life and I have to also learn a way to forgive myself for being a big ol’ chicken sometimes.
I finished writing my first novel when I was twenty six years old. I wrote it while the children napped, eating grapes and scribbling with a number two pencil into five, five subject college themed notebooks. When I was done I tucked it away, never brave enough to take the time to type it out and submit it anywhere. It still sits under my bed in a box. It took ten years before I got to finish another. But I learned. I wrote the next on a computer and I submitted it. I bore the rejection—the constant rejection—until it wasn’t rejected. I left a mark in the world even if it wasn’t more than a scratch. I regret not being brave enough sooner. I would be much further to my dream.
There were times I did not speak out when I should have. I allowed something to happen due to being afraid of how it would affect me and my life. Now, I live the aftermath of waiting too long and going to the wrong people instead of doing what my gut was screaming at me to do(which was to blow it all wide open to the highest authority). I regret that I wasn’t brave enough to listen to my inner voice and follow its instructions to the tee.
I regret the times I didn’t say something nice when I was thinking something nice and the times I said something ugly when I was feeling ugly.
There are those men in my life that I never was brave enough to tell how I feel. And there were those men that I wasn’t brave enough to kick to the curb at the time I should have been kicking hard. There are those words I withheld out of fear, the truth of my hurt or the honesty of my heart. I regret I didn’t say what I should have and I regret each time I let the anger get the best of me and said something I can never take back.
I hate that there have been times I have walked right on by someone in need because I was broke or in a hurry. I should never have allowed myself to be too busy or self-absorbed to not be a comfort at each opportunity presented. I am learning still and find it very hard not to stop now. But I think about all the times I was in such a rush that I didn’t stop to help thinking that someone else would. My inner voice tells me that in those cases—I may have been just the one that was put there to be of service.
I regret each pity party I have held with party hats and streamers, failing to see the joy that still spattered through. I regret each moment I have wasted. There are so few that we have to live in. I hate that I didn’t appreciate each one as precious no matter what. I am learning still.
There is so much more. There has been, there is and there will be so much more I can do that I won’t, that I will fail at, that I will forget to do or find something I will justify being more important. But I am learning—and I hope to still that inner voice somewhat or at least quiet it to a whisper. I hope at the end of it all the regret will be less and less and that whispering chatterbug in my head and heart says instead, “Hey. You did your best which was all anyone can do.”
Monika M. Basile
