A guilt hoarder

Living a life without regrets is something the 'me' from the two years ago would have thought a luxury. I don't know if hoarding guilt was a thing but that was exactly what I did. Situations where I knew I wasn't at fault or circumstances that were unavoidable but ended up making the other party involved feel bad, always had me thinking about ways I could have done things better. If things hadn't gone the way they had, would the outcome have changed? And for that week or even months after, I'll still harbour the guilt of everything that happened. Not minding if the person involved didn't even remember the incident again.

Three years ago, I lost my brother. We were everything siblings and best friends. The age difference between us both was just two years so we easily understood whatever the other was going through. We loved as siblings could, bantered as siblings did and reconciled over things like food, the television remote and the likes just as siblings did.

That Saturday night, we were eating from the same plate and he kept on sneaking chunks of meat into his mouth, leaving almost nothing for me. At a point, I got angry. I knew if I let him be, I would end up not having anything left. So, one time I caught him in the act, I used my spoon to hit his and the meat fell back down. We argued over it and in anger, the rest of the food became a matter of 'survival of the fittest'. If you didn't get any meat to eat, it was your luck. Somehow, we finished the food in mutual anger that subsided after a while and we both did whatever it was we had to do that night with unspoken reconciliation.

That was the last night I ever got to talk to him as his was a sudden death. I remember crying and crying and begging for him to be granted more years on earth that I would willingly and gladly give him all my meats and food if that was the price I had to pay. I was so pained that I didn't get the chance to apologize for that night and had I known, I would have even let him eat the whole food if only I knew it was his last.

For those two years, I felt the pain in my heart that he left at a time when we weren't on the best of terms. I regretted that he didn't get to enjoy his last evening peacefully because I was being selfish when it wouldn't have cost me a dime to forfeit my meat and even the entire food.

I lived with all those guilt and maneuvered life through it, the heaviness of it all bottled up in my heart. I don't really recall the exact moment I decided to let go of it all. Or probably it was a decision that came with a particular self evaluation or mental decluttering. With time, I began accepting life as it was. Accepting fate as it came. Accepting that that night could have passed like every other night and we both would be fine now. Accepting that that situation wasn't determined by us humans and it wasn't my fault not doing what I believe would have been the best way for things to have ended that night.

It took me quite a while to accept it that there's no way I could have changed what happened that night and there was nothing I could have done after it happened. Holding on to that guilt didn't in anyway help me move on. It instead, hindered growth in many aspects of my life. A sad reality I had to accept. And with accepting that reality, came a better version of me.

Letting go of these regrets brought a happier and less weighed down version of me.

The Travel Light Tuesday prompt posed by The Minimalist community asked for what way we are traveling light right now, and this is my response. Currently, I'm traveling with less guilt, less regrets and a broader perspective on life and fate.

Thanks for reading.

Images were taken by me.