My Brain Hurts

I've been thinking lately, and you know that's never good.

I got beat in a game of online poker last night that was especially painful because I had the best hand and went all-in for a lot of chips after the first three cards hit the table, and a guy called me who didn't have anything to pair with what was on the board, but he didn't want to give up his high cards, so he closed his eyes and hoped for a miracle. He got it on the fifth and last card, and I was gone. I let off a string of profanities, punctuated with something like, "God, why don't you just kill me now? Please???" That's probably the 7,812th time I've asked for that to happen, and no such luck yet. My mind flashed back to a conversation I had with a friend a few nights ago. The friend asked me if there was anything about my life that I regretted or would change, to which I responded, "What wouldn't I change?" No matter how much the friend persisted, I couldn't really come up with anything other than dancing like an idiot and making mix tapes the night before I won the citywide spelling bee as a way of blowing off the building pressure as something I wouldn't change about my past. I've done pretty much everything else in my life in a manner that I wish I could go back and change, and I do mean everything. I then tried to apply that in my mind to the expletives and wishing that God would strike me down, and of course it would make sense that I would regret all those moments and wish I could take them back.

But I don't. I may be proven wrong if I think hard enough, but I don't believe there is a single thing I've ever said that I would take back. Every threat, every curse, every joke, every veiled insult had a purpose at the time, and I don't feel the need to reverse anything that has ever come out of my mouth. Yeah, I'd be very disappointed if I did have a heart attack and die the moment I asked to die, but shit, I asked to die, so how could I be that upset? It's how I felt at the time. At that moment, I wanted to be dead, so I wouldn't take it back because it's how I felt. And it's giving me a headache trying to figure out how I could possibly reconcile not wanting to change anything I've ever said against wanting to change everything I've ever done. That doesn't make sense. Maybe it's the whole "actions speak louder than words" thing, or, like I said, maybe it's just never going back on things I said because that's how I felt at the time. I really don't know. But I cannot think of anything I ever said that I would take back, no matter how embarrassing or alienating or asinine. They were my words, and I felt the need to utter them at the time, and I'm not ashamed. Okay, maybe a little.

And if you're confused after reading all that, imagine how I feel.