The poppy has long moved through history as a symbol of grief, memory, and awakening. In poetry and art, it marks the passage from sorrow into self-recognition—where what once wounded becomes a source of strength.
Regret used to be a word I avoided. Almost twenty years ago, when someone asked if I had any, I instinctively said, “None.” At the time, I believed it. Or perhaps I needed to believe it. I was immersed in a worldview that rewarded denial disguised as enlightenment — the “it’s all good,” “everything happens for a reason,” “don’t dwell on the negative” kind of thinking that leaves no room for honest reckoning.
Looking back, I see that I wasn’t free of regret. I was simply disconnected from it.
Today, regret feels different. It’s no longer a threat or a failure. It’s a mirror — one that reflects not just what happened, but who I was when it happened.
I regret the moments when I spoke too quickly, or too sharply, or not sharply enough.
I regret the times I acted from emotional turbulence instead of clarity.
I regret the choices I delayed, the boundaries I softened, the truths I swallowed.
I regret the years, decades, I poured into rescuing others, hoping it would earn me the validation I never received as a child. I regret the energy I gave to people who mistook my generosity for obligation. I regret the chapter when I immersed myself in a condo committee that drained me, distracted me, and left me carrying burdens that were never mine to carry.
I regret the financial decisions made out of survival rather than stability.
I regret trusting someone who love-bombed me, only to disappear with my savings and leave me alone in the wreckage. That chapter revealed something painful but necessary: when I needed support the most, there were no true friends to be found.
And beneath all of these regrets lies the oldest one — the wish that I had been born into a family emotionally prepared for parenthood. So many of my choices were not choices at all but coping mechanisms. Survival strategies. The adaptations of a child who learned early that she had to protect herself.
But here is what I know now:
Regret is not self-blame.
Regret is the moment you realize you’ve outgrown the version of yourself who made those decisions.
It is a sign of growth, not failure.
It is the body saying, “I see more now. I know more now. I deserve so much more now.”
I don’t dwell in regret.
I sit with it.
I listen to it.
I let it show me the patterns I no longer need to repeat.
And in doing so, regret becomes something else entirely — not a wound, but a threshold. A doorway into a life shaped not by survival, but by sovereignty.
If any part of this speaks to you, I invite you to share your reflections in the comment section below.
Peace and Blessings,
— Thea 💙
Thea's Truths & Thresholds 