Risks and Regrets

Once upon a time there was a young girl named Rebekah.  She was seventeen years old, and she had just graduated from high school a few months before.  Behind her lay years of plain-faced anonymity and a life encompassed by family and academics.  Before her lay a new beginning.  College.  The land of infinite possibilities.

In the days leading up to her departure, she would often lay on her bed and write in her journal about the nothingness that had happened to her that day and dreamed about the somethingness that would happen to her in the near future.

Well, after reading the first 4 1/2 books of The Princess Diaries series, I figure I should probably start writing in my own journal, just in case something major happens, like becoming a princess, although not quite that extreme.  Maybe a first kiss, or...well, you know, something exciting.  And since I'm going to college, something new has got to happen.

Yes, that's correct.  Our dear protagonist Rebekah was nearing the end of her seventeenth year of life without so much as a peck on the lips.  She had even missed the age-old teenage experience of slow dancing with someone other than your father.  To perhaps illustrate her virginal innocence most clearly, she was still reading The Princess Diaries two weeks before college.

Days overtook days, and with a neatly packed pile of her belongings growing in the center of her room, Rebekah awaited the day that she would finally leave behind the oppressive shyness of her high school years and enter into a new era of her life: Rebekah, The Less Shy.

She spent most of her last week in New Orleans with her family, volunteering at a thrift shop with old women who were as equally celibate as her, and tubing with some people a few years her junior (to whom she was, by comparison, infinitely more advanced in wisdom).

This girl that went tubing with us, M--, is an attention seeker.  She's the kind of girl who'll talk about sex, etc. and stupid stuff --making her look like a fool--to get a guy's attention.  It's sad, and even sadder that I almost used to be like that (minus the sex talk).  My last year at camp was like that.  Immaturity is depressing to look back on, sometimes.

Depressing, indeed.

Believe it or not, even in those days, Rebekah was a devoted writer and reader.  She had recently completed three years of intensive study in creative writing, where she'd read hundreds of books and poems and written dozens of her own pieces.  Her focus on the craft added an unexpectedly thoughtful layer to her otherwise jejune character.

Oh my gosh!  I just finished All American Girl by Meg Cabot. I make fun of A-- for liking Anime characters, but am I any better? I'm in love with someone in a book--a fictional book.  Oh well...I'm sure there's someone out there to make my heart flip in the same way.

Another great book (though way more depressing and with much better writing) is The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury.  If I could only write with the precision and detail and emotional subtlety he does, I'd be psyched!  I have no idea where he gets his ideas, nor how he can balance tell and show.  I'm still trying to figure that out with Austen, too.  Such great writers!  How will I ever reach that level of talent?

Years later, as she typed about herself in the third person, she would wonder the same thing.


As excited as Rebekah was for college, she had her doubts.

College is going to be a good experience, though, I know.  Everyone keeps telling me this, but all of a sudden, now that I'm on the way, I'm not sure I'm exactly ready for college.  I'll just have to get ready because we get there Friday, and I move in on Saturday.

And she did.  Get ready, that is.  She spent five years at the University of Virginia, during which time she earned two degrees and made life-long friends and cracked her shell and dated a boy for a year and a half.   Though she didn't get any taller, she grew.

Fast forward nearly thirteen years.  Rebekah sits with poor posture at a table in the home she owns, pondering her upcoming trip to Quebec City.  She doesn't write in a journal anymore, but she does occasionally write blog posts that are so terrible she doesn't publish them for fear that people will realize that she's about as far from Bradbury and Austen as it gets.

I leave the city in three days.  I would say that I'm excited--and I totally am--but I'm also very nervous.  I've managed to bite my fingernails down to the quick, and I spend too much time pre-planning in my head how things will go.

Her thoughts turn with anxiety.  She worries she'll forget to pack something important.  She worries the security lines at the airport will be so long, she'll miss her flight.  She worries her rusty French will make her look foolish in conversation.  She worries it will be so cold that she won't be able to wear tank tops or shorts, and she'll lose what vaguely resembles a tan.

She is excited, but like thirteen years ago on the road to Virginia, she's scared, too.  It's too late to turn back, and she doesn't actually want to turn back, but every part of her reptilian brain screams, Why are you putting us through this?  Why couldn't you just stay at home and watch Netflix and hang out with your friends like everybody else?  Why do you feel this compulsive need to go to new places by yourself and risk loneliness and discomfort and isolation?  It reminds her that things could go terribly wrong.

You could hate Quebec City and the program.  You could feel oppressed by the distinct lack of single people without children in Decatur.  The guy in San Diego could be dating someone, and it could be super awkward to stay on his couch.  You could get lost and die.

She lets her brain reel through these feelings, fears of rejection and un-belonging, before remembering why she's going.


Because she's never taken a risk she regretted.


Sure, it's sucked being lonely in another country, being uncomfortable at a new school, being

overwhelmed by the responsibilities of home ownership, being rejected by men.  But the only things she really regrets in life are the times she could've taken a risk, and she didn't.  When she didn't dance with that boy in middle school.  When she didn't try that club in high school.  When she didn't go to that party in college.  When she didn't tell that man how she really felt.

Rebekah pauses and leans back in her chair, thinking about critical moments in her life, the risks and the payouts.  I'll just have to get ready, she reads again in her old journal.

She stands up.  She carries her suitcase to her room.  She starts packing.

She smiles to herself.  Let's do this.

Rebekah slow danced the shit out of this night.

Ah, Rebekah's boyish figure.

Awkward but happy.  Story of Rebekah's life.