5 Things I Feel Kind of Sorry About (In No Particular Order)

Seriously.

I try not to live a life of regret. I try to frame the maybe-not-so-positive events that go down in my world as life lessons. This way of thinking makes my therapist very happy and I’m a pleaser so there you go.

However, sometimes I do find myself second guessing decisions I’ve made. Wondering what the fuck I was thinking about in certain instances.

And because it’s the end of August and absolutely nothing is happening in my life – at least that I can write about – I thought I’d share the Top 5 things I’m fretting about right now.

I know, you’re welcome.

  1. Sex With Strangers

I was paying my AmEx bill last Friday afternoon and noticed a charge for theater tickets and was like, “What the hell?” A quick search in my inbox turned up an email confirming tickets my girlfriend and I had bought a few weeks ago, kind of spur-of-the-moment, for an Off-Broadway play that got a great review in The New York Times called “Sex With Strangers.” The two-person show stars Anna Gunn – Skyler White from “Breaking Bad” – and some super-hot, sexy young dude named Billy Magnussen and the review said it explored real vs. social media personas and the struggle for writers to find commercial success while staying true to their artistic sensibilities. So up my alley. “HOLY FUCK,” I texted my gal pal, “We have tickets to see that show tonight!” Usually, if I need to get into the city from New Jersey, I need a game plan because it can be a real pain, especially on a Friday afternoon. But we got our acts together and took a ferry into Manhattan and even had time to spare for a glass of wine and big bowl of mussels at a restaurant bar before the show. And here’s where the trouble started. Here’s where, maybe because of the wine or the pretty sexy show, I got a bee in my bonnet about an itch that I needed to scratch. It had been brewing for a while but the show kind of set the wheels in motion for something that happened later in the weekend. And whether it’s a relief to have scratched at that itch or, like poison ivy, I should have just left it alone, remains to be seen. Well, everything is copy, as a certain hero of mine has said. But the show is at the Second Stage until the end of the month and as long as you don’t harbor a secret hankering for a much-younger man, I highly suggest you get tickets and see it. Maybe just leave your cell phone at home.

  1. Hermit Crabs

Haven’t I made myself clear? Haven’t I told my kids, time and again, I was not interested in bringing anything else into this house that needs to be kept alive? Like, I don’t even own a houseplant. But my third child gets teary-eyed when she thinks of all the pets I’ve allowed her older sister to own/kill over the years. The frog. The mice. The poor guinea pig that slowly fossilized in our basement. It pisses the younger sister off that she never had the same opportunity to torture small creatures. So, now I see – via some videos she’s sent me on Snapchat – that she has righted those childhood wrongs and bought herself two hermit crabs while spending the week away with friends down the shore. I’ve already watched them skitter across the floor of the beach house where she’s staying. I am not thrilled and wonder how long it will take for those things to shrivel up inside their shells the way the hermit crabs we had, like, 15 years ago for the two older kids did. I give them two weeks and they better not fucking smell while they’re at it.

  1. My Raging Narcissism

There was a time when I really knew what was going on in the world. When I’d wake up early each day and read the paper cover-to-cover. But lately, I get up and grab a cup of coffee and immediately start writing about myself in my journal – documenting my weight and daily alcohol intake – while tragedies unfold in St. Louis and Iraq and I still can’t tell you the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite, much less what ISIS stands for. I can, however, report that I’ve lost almost 10 oz. since yesterday.

  1. The Fantasy of the Only Child 

Don’t tell my three older kids, but for some time now I’ve fantasized about what it will be like when they’re all off in college or starting their grown up lives and it’s just me and their little brother left at home. I’d imagine how clean our kitchen would be and all the cool things my little guys and I would be able to do together in the older kids’ wake. But, just like the reality of how things like being a grown up or marriage never quite stack up to how we imagined they’d be, having an only child is far from perfect. In fact, it’s kind of boring. Sure, my house is a little cleaner and he’s happy eating taquitos night after night, but I kind of miss the chaos of all those other personalities. Turns out, I really like having them around.

  1. The Summer of Amy

You’ve heard it here before, how my 10 Days of Fun somehow stretched into my Summer of Amy. How a lot has transpired over the course of the last three months. I have danced and I have kissed and pretty much made up for all those nights home, cooking for kids and working, over the last five years. And although I normally can’t wait for summer to come to an end, am almost pushing my kids out the door for the first day of school, this year is somehow different. I’ve loved having time off from work to screw around on my blog, sit on the beach with my kids and focus on my love life (such as it is). And I know in no time, I’ll be back at work and rushing to make dinners and go grocery shopping and it will all be a distant – fabulous – memory. So, who in the world would ever think they’d hear me say this: I am really sorry to see the summer end.

What, pray, are you sorry about, nowadays? I’m an equal-opportunity venter and would love to hear what’s bringing you down. Misery does love company, you know.