Forget #noregrets and cue #1millionregrets

There has been a lot of news lately, whether rhetorically or directly about how people can support Biden/Harris when they've held controversial, and yes even sometimes hurtful, positions on particular issues in the past. It got me thinking about the #noregrets culture that has been so popular, and how that has somehow been a funnel into the current cancel culture we are experiencing so visibly today. I am not sure how it started, or why it started, but I do know it is COMPLETE. BULLSHIT. I kind of went crazy in college and did some erroneous stuff. Gram, if you're reading this is where you want to stop, trust me. I lived in large houses packed in with several friends and we had some of the wildest parties I have ever attended, and our yearly Halloween parties were amongst the craziest. My friends and I would come up with wild costumes and fill entire coolers with everclear and any other liquor we could secure with our fake ID's (I don't mean put ice into the cooler and then put in bottled beverages, I mean just pour the liquor straight into a cooler and then ladle it out into a plastic cup). There are photos of me dancing on a pool table, mostly (OK, fully) nude and acting like a lunatic. I am not sharing all of this to relive the "good old days" but to set the scene for something I am about to type and put on the internet that I am so deeply ashamed and certainly have one million regrets over. One year for Halloween, I dressed in black face. Sigh. That sucked to even type out. I just typed and then deleted an explanation of why I did this because honestly it doesn't matter. It was hurtful and it contributed to systemic racism and is a blaring example of my white privilege. If I could go back and change it, I would. I am embarrassed and my views (obviously) have shifted dramatically since that time roughly twenty years ago. It's something I'll have to live with when I lay in bed next to my black husband and perhaps my daughter will see someday and to which I might have to offer an explanation. /// I say all of this to go back to the original point which is people change and evolve and hopefully their evolution is for the better. Thinking of my coming out story my own mother wept for her child, worried about his soul and if he'd secure a place in heaven for being gay. Fast forward a few years and she wept tears of joy at her son's wedding to the man of his dreams and wrote a blog for other struggling parents of LGBTQ youth. And it's not just changes from decades past. I regret deeply my tone yesterday with my husband. I regret not taking the plunge and restarting my career sooner. I regret not finding a way to spend more days with my sister and my dad and my Grandpa while they were here. We are all works in progress. /// A few years back I was really personally struggling in my retail career and somehow convinced my employer to let me be the social media "face" of our brand (sidenote, still can't believe they said yes). I knew I couldn't do the 60-hour-a-week intense job for much longer so I just made up a completely different job that I thought might fulfill me. The company flew me to New York City and I took a video making boot camp and was off to the races making videos for customers about the company, brands we sold, and showcasing my own parenting skills by including my daughter. Things went great for the first few months and I felt really happy with the 100K+ views my videos were getting. I would wake up sometimes in the middle of the night just to check the views. It was like a drug. I even flew across the country and made an "event appearance" at one of our store locations in the midwest. There were other blogger competitors in the field who were pretty unhappy about this and when I did a video on a product that directly impacted child safety (BTW, to which I was and still am totally unqualified to be talking about to thousands of people) the entire web lit me up. I started getting death threats in the comments, people sent letters to the CEO about how I was a baby-murderer, and one of these bloggers actually issued a post to their millions of followers calling for the "cancellation" of my entire company because they "let me post this inaccurate garbage to the internet." It totally sucked. But here is another example of this cancel culture. Should I have known better and done more research and been more prepared? Absolutely. I never did another video and wallowed in that job for another year before finally having the bravery to finally leave and pursue my true passion. It was a learning experience in listening to myself, that inner part of me and to "don't go chasing waterfalls."/// So back to the beginning. I have dozens and dozens of things I am deeply regretful of. I just admitted some of them to you. Sometimes a simple "sorry" just isn't enough, especially if you've hurt people. You have to just keep saying it, and more importantly SHOWING IT, and reconcile it within yourself. I've changed so much in the past ten years, and ten years before that, and tens years before that too. My learning has directly and indirectly hurt some of the people I love the most. So I don't buy into #noregrets and as I sort through this internally think it actually is really harmful to have this mentality. Growth is hard, but necessary./// Back to this election. Before anyone goes in on me, I get it---we can't have it both ways. I can't forgive Joe and Kamala for the sins of their past and not be willing to forgive Trump. But, here in proves my fundamental issue with Trump and his followers. I never hear "I'm sorry" or "forgive me." In fact, I hear that "systemic racism isn't real" and lots of bullying and mean tweets to anyone who demands an apology for the way he treated them or spoke to them. I can understand the defense of saying things you don't mean about war heroes or those with disabilities, but you've got to stand up and say sorry and change your ways. Maybe the "you're fired" and cancel culture are connected? As we all begin voting (PLEASE VOTE) my bets and hopes are on the empathetic person who I've seen overcome tragedy and heard time and time again, "I made a mistake, I was wrong, please forgive me." And even more importantly, I hope others see me this way too. If I have hurt you in the past (which is likely as I type this out) whether directly or indirectly I am so sorry and please forgive me.