Avoiding Regret
Avoiding Regret- a chapter from ‘Looking at Forty’
I visited Dealey Plaza today. If you do not know what that is, please put the book down (just for a minute) and read up about it. Trust me, it is an important place not only in the American psyche but on the world stage. I have been to Dallas a few times in my life but, for whatever reason, I have never visited this historic location. It surprised me how small it was, but the smallness added to the character of the scene. I hate to admit it, but one of the themes of this book is honesty. My admission is that I almost did not go. I was in Dallas because my wife had a work trip and I decided to accompany her. For whatever reason, likely guilt, we decided to bring our two dogs along on the trip. We went in August, which is not the most pleasant time in Texas to be walking around outside. To top it all off, I had to go “out of my way” to get to Dealey.
Dealey felt somber and dark. I expected this, but it was still surprising. I knew it would have a bit of that feeling, but I did not expect the amount of strangeness it actually carried. It was as if I was in a scene that has not happened yet, but I knew what was to come. I was in a location where something horrific happened in the past, yet there was some sort of looming fear that it was going to happen now, at any moment. In case you didn’t look it up earlier, Dealey Plaza is where JFK was assassinated.
The aforementioned compactness of the plaza played into the feeling of dread. The distance between perpetrator and victim was much smaller than I pictured in my mind from all the documentaries (for simplicity’s sake, I will use perpetrator in the singular and leave it at that). In addition to the melancholy feel in the air, other things made me sad. There were people taking selfies with the ‘X’. This is the symbol on the street at the exact location where the dreadful event transpired. Taking a selfie there is reprehensible. There were also vendors selling all sorts of things. I did not feel this was respectful or even necessary to the location and situation.
When I was 25, I wanted to visit this place. I had seen many movies and heard many stories about the event. Even in my youth I felt drawn to it. But if I had been there on a hot August day and had to brave a cross-town trek, I would have skipped it and missed the opportunity. I would have thought the whole thing was a huge hassle. I would have passed on visiting one of the more historically significant places in our country, if not the world. In all honesty, I would have preferred to go somewhere for a cold beer instead. Thinking about that now, I find it crazy yet true. To make it worse, I would not have had any regrets the following day. It would have disappeared from my consciousness.
Now that I am 39, I do not want regrets. I understand it is impossible to live with absolutely zero regrets, but it is an admirable goal to get as close to that number as possible. Who knows if I will ever return to Dallas? This may have been my last realistic opportunity to visit this historic location. I am glad I jumped at the opportunity. Being that close and not seeing it, not paying respects, would have been something I thought about for the rest of my life. When I look back on all the opportunities to do something similar to this that I have passed up, it makes me cringe. I lived in Germany and never visited many WWII sights. I have visited France and did not see the beaches of D-Day infamy. This list could go on for quite some time, but I will fight the urge to display it. This is not to say that we should visit places just to say we did, or out of some strange form of guilt. We should want to. We should feel some type of responsibility, deep down within ourselves, to do these things. That feeling comes with age for most of us. I wish I knew this when I was younger.
I would say that when you are in doubt, do it. Doubt versus regret, a brutal and never-ending battle. I know now that regrets are far worse than any doubt or perceived hassle. The decision to visit the location of JFK’s assassination is not one of the more difficult decisions I will make in life, but it stands as a perfect representation of how such a simple choice can help avoid a lifetime of regret. I will always regret missing out on those WWII sights and the D-Day beaches. I never made the decision to go visit these places while I had the chance. I will never regret not visiting Dealey Plaza, because I made the right decision and did what I should have done. I know this is not the “moral” you were expecting for this chapter, but it is an important one to me. I would have regretted not writing this paragraph. And we all know my thoughts on regrets.
-Houston Bailey (@BumpBailey)