Reverb 13: Prompt 4 - Hindsight

Prompt: Is there one moment you wish you could do over?

In short? No. Not because there aren't moments I wish I could change, but because there's not ONE moment.

I suffer from acute Analysis Paralysis. It's a term my mom and I tease each other about to, endearingly, refer to the family tendency to over-think many situations. Sometimes the over-analysis helps - considering all possible outcomes of a situation can help you be prepared for every possibility. However, as the nickname implies, this process can lend someone to be paralyzed by the sheer volume of decisions to make and plan-for. I suffer from this in both past and future events. I continue to embarrass myself over little things that no one else even remembers, let along thinks less of me for. 

It's a habit that doesn't prepare me for moving forward, and it doesn't fix anything in the past. 

The only thing that really comes to mind that would change anything is finding out I was laid-off while in Israel. I wish I hadn't turned on my data. I wish I would have been okay without trying to check work email. I wish I could just turn off my workaholic brain long enough to truly enjoy and embrace that one trip to that impossible place and save the emotional trauma for when I got home. Because the trauma and the hurt was coming. I don't even want to undo the getting laid-off. I just want to delay finding out so that in 5 years when I look back on the trip I won't think "Can you believe what an incredible trip that was? Oh, and can you believe I was laid off in the middle of it?"

I want to remember The Wall. And the food. And the history and emotions and the people. And I do now. But I also remember The Text followed by The Phone Call. And it doesn't change anything and it won't change anything.

I could (and do) hope to change other things, of course. The little tone I used - I could have taken 5 second to take a deep breath and be a little kinder. I could have called more. If maybe I'd just done this differently... But I'd beat myself up (and I do) imagining all the different scenarios and it makes me sick. And I try to cut back - because the older I get, the more futile I find the Analysis Paralysis to be (unless, of course, you're analyzing vacations...).