David McElroy

Yesterday when I was young
So many happy songs were waiting to be sung,
So many wild pleasures lay in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see
— Charles Aznavour (English translation by Herbert Kretzmer), “Yesterday When I Was Young”

Few things in life are as useless as regret, but few things feel as meaningful as my regrets. That’s a contradiction which I don’t quite understand.

When I was a boy, people warned me that my years would start flying by before I realized it, but I never quite believed that. Maybe nobody ever believes it until it’s too late. I’m not sure.

Some people say they have no regrets, but I suspect they’re either fooling themselves or else they have very selective memories. I’m burdened with a vivid memory. My mind can’t help drawing connections between my decisions and the emotional pain which I later experience.

I have a lot of regrets, but they serve a purpose. If I look at them in the right ways, they’re warning signs that allow me to adjust my decisions — while I still can.

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I’ve always believed it was my job to fix the world. To make everything perfect.

I never actually said that. I didn’t even consciously think it. But I walked through the world feeling a sort of panic — a desperation to fix things — that most people never experience.

Looking back, it’s obvious now where that fear came from. As I was growing up, my narcissistic father held me responsible for being perfect. I was punished for any deviation from what he thought was right and good. And he constantly judged everybody and everything around me.

Behind their backs, he ridiculed people who did things incorrectly. If he saw a public mistake — a timing error on a live television show or a typo in a newspaper, for instance — he used to tell me that someone must have been fired for the mistake. And I believed him.

I’m still afraid of my own imperfection. I still feel panic when I see others’ mistakes. After all these years, there’s still a nagging feeling inside that I have to fix everything — or else I’ll be punished.

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I didn’t pay much attention to the two women who sat near me at dinner. They weren’t eating anything, but they sat talking quietly in the dining room. It was a slow night, so the fast food restaurant was almost empty.

One of the women stood — almost nervously — as a man came in to join them. He had the air of someone who liked to give orders and who thought he should be obeyed. It wasn’t a friendly meeting.

“Why is she here?” the man hissed angrily to the woman who was still seated.

“Holly asked me to come so she wouldn’t be alone,“ the standing woman replied in a tone that made it sound as though she was trying to avoid trouble.

The man sat at the table and I couldn’t hear exactly where the conversation went at first. The seated woman pulled some papers out from a manilla envelope. She pushed the documents toward the man without much explanation.

Everything suddenly clicked. Holly and the angry man were starting to go through a divorce.

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