We often hear people talk about what they’d like to change in their lives, about their regrets… It’s not uncommon for someone to say, “I should have traveled more… I should have enjoyed my youth more. I should have saved more, made better choices. How I wish I could erase that period of my life…”
I’ve probably said that too, without really taking the time to think it through, because it’s such a cliché that repeating it seems almost normal. And yet!
If I were offered the chance to change something—to erase the negative things that have happened to me, to alter the path my life has taken so far—I wouldn’t want to, to tell the truth. Every step I’ve taken, whether through mud or on marble, has led me, one by one, to you, my children, my loves.
There were those difficult moments when I got pregnant at the wrong time, but they gave me an amazing son through whom I learned to become a mother.
There were times when our finances were a struggle, but that forced us to put our desire for a second child on hold… The wait brought me the most wonderful daughter, four years later, without whom I wouldn’t be the same and without whom I can no longer imagine life.
Every choice I’ve made—good or bad—has led me to you, to the role you play in my life. Every one of those days when my life wasn’t at its best led me to meet you, despite the difficulties.
Like everyone else, I’ve had my doubts; life has brought me both immense pain and immense joy, but there’s no mountain I wouldn’t climb again, no storm I wouldn’t weather once more to have you—just as you are—in my life, by my side. Exactly, precisely, perfectly, completely—from you to me and from me to you—what we are to one another and with one another: nothing needs changing because everything is perfect, even our flaws, even our conflicts.
There is no regret big enough to make me doubt my path; there is no trial great enough to stop me from believing that my destination was you—a boy and a girl whom life sent my way and who make me proud and happy beyond words.
There isn’t a single journey, not a single adventure from my youth, that would have any value without you… There isn’t any amount of money in my bank account that would make up for your absence. From my pregnancies that changed my body to your love that changed my outlook on life, know this: I love you.
No, not at all—no, I don’t regret a thing…