1 regret

I often wondered what it would feel like if I hadn't been born into this life as I held onto it by a thread. A life of wealth and connections, one where you didn't need to approach people and they approached you instead.

As I lie in this bed with machines hooked into my very veins, attempting to keep me breathing one moment longer, I reflect.

You know that whole 'life flashing in front of you' thing?

It doesn't really happen. At least not to that extent.

Rather it's the moments that made an impact on who we have become that we recollect. It's regrets that we think of. The dying I mean.

When I was young I didn't understand the difference between classes. I didn't think twice that there would be others out there who didn't have two loving parents, their own rooms, and people to clean up after them. It was unimaginable to me that any other life existed.

Then I went to school and realised how very naive I used to be. Not everyone has two loving parents. They might not be loving for one, there might not be any, maybe the person lost one of them or maybe they never knew them in the first place.

I learned that the first time I made one of my classmates cry when I had asked them when their parents were going to pick them up.

I still remember the look of pain and the tears that followed. I didn't know at the time that they had lost their father in an accident and that their mother had died giving birth to them. I hadn't known that they had been adopted by an upper class family that clothed and fed them but didn't treat them as their own.

It's the first time I realised how much power words carry and I still remember it to this day because it's the first time I realised how much privilege I was born into.

Maybe not to the extent I understand now, but that day made a crack into a fixed worldview I had been living with.

I didn't have to grow up before my time, but I was surrounded by those who hadn't had the same luxury.

I became more careful after that day with my words. I started paying more attention to the people around me. Not just to what they said but also to how they said it. I learned to pay attention to the unspoken words in between.

It seemed as though everyone hid behind masks and only extraordinary circumstances would make a crack in those façades.

Without realising I started wearing one myself. A mask that refused to crack by those who tried.

There were so many that tried.

Maybe people just don't like those that haven't had a bad day in their lives. That grow up protected in a bubble unaware of the struggle outside it.

This doesn't mean to say that I wasn't still a brat because I very much was. I was spoiled. I grew up protected from pain. I didn't have a want that wasn't fulfilled the moment I spoke about it. I never really had to struggle. School came easy to me, and so did friendship or whatever imitations of it you can find in the upper class of society.

I never had a goal to aspire towards, however. I would grow up, enter my father's company, learn the trade and take over when he was ready to let go. My mother would set me up with someone, we would get along - perhaps I'd be lucky enough to fall in love. We would get married, have children, and so forth.

I wish I'd shown more ambition. I wish I'd confronted people I called friends. I wish I hadn't hidden become so guarded that people were unable to see behind my own mask. I wish I hadn't made it so strong that most days even I couldn't see behind to the person I was.

I wish I'd taken the time to figure out who I was. I wish I'd been there more for my parents. I wish they didn't have to censor themselves around me.

I wish the first time I realised my headaches were getting longer and longer I had told someone about them.

What dreams go unfulfilled? What potential untapped? A life that could have been.

I guess that remains a mystery unsolved as I take my final breaths and regret.