Regrets? I’ve had a few.
None of them have ever left me either, from a short ball I clothed to mid-wicket in 1995 with a century beckoning in Oswestry, to a more poignant dismissal at the end of my drive almost 30 years later. Both were laced with consolation when my heart was set on more.
I think of that cricket pitch now and then, and whether other kids play there today? And I think of that last goodbye and an oversized knitted cardigan when winds blew chilly and cold.
That’s the thing about regret. The past is usually linked with happier times, when your mind convinces you they were better. I have no idea of how either would have panned out if I relived those moments again.
What would be the point anyway? I’d have inevitably succumbed on both occasions, only with different endings. Both deserve the sanctuary of my mind and a remnant of my heart, but nothing much more than that. Going back now would be pointless, with new innings to forge up ahead.
I felt weary up in North Shropshire from vague memory. It was an innings of thoughtless irresponsibility, laced with precarious biffs, perilous blows and zero aesthetic beauty whatsoever. The relationship, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. I regret the things I could never find a way of saying when I was too busy overthinking. Too busy playing with a straight bat.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been.’
It’s easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out and then you look back and wonder what the point was. And anyway, it’s not the life we regret not living that’s the real problem, but the regret itself, isn’t it?
I bumped into my boyhood hero today, who gilded so many childhood memories in a haze of old gold. Ooh Bully Bully! From 1988 until the day he hung up his football boots, he never ceased to deliver during my Wonder Years at a time when life felt so much better.
“Wouldn’t you love to go back and do it all again,” I asked him, pausing for a wistful second to drift back to the past myself. “Why would I want to do that?!” he laughed. “I did my bit and I wouldn’t change a single thing at all. We had some great times, some happy times and some sad times. What you’ve got today could be taken off you tomorrow, so look after it.”
The past still flutters inside me like an irregular heartbeat, featuring 306 Steve Bull goals and one or two personal regrets. They flicker, they stiffen and fade.
I’d go back and relive them all, but the great man told me there’s no point.
Never regret yesterday, he said. Leave it where it is and make the best fist of tomorrow.