What Would I Burn?
I’ve never
thought of myself as a big Everything Happens For A Reason kind of a person,
but when I started contemplating the “What would I burn?” question, I realized
that I might have to stand in line with all the other cliché-ridden Southern
Californians, spouting all those gag-worthy, life-embracing platitudes.
Because I
wouldn’t burn anything.
All right,
presented with the great sweep of human history, I would burn Pol Pot, Hitler,
Joseph Stalin, and that evil woman who egged on neighbor to kill neighbor via
the radio in Rwanda.
In the more
personally political realm, I would burn corsets, girdles, and weird,
conical-cupped bras that left marks under your arms; voter registration lists
that contained only male names; and “whites only” everything.
And
finally, mostly in the Dear Former Self realm, I would burn all the fears that
kept me from saying “yes” to a great number of experiences that might have
turned out bad and scary, but also could have turned out freeing and exciting
and great. And also the fears that kept
me from saying “no.”
But in
terms of burning actual things out of the course of my life: no. Certainly, there are things I could have done
without. My application to law school,
for example. But even that, even any
tiny thing that would have resulted in me having different children and a
different husband: no way. Anything that
would have left me writing different books or not writing books or writing
books on a different sofa or in a different chair with a different dog. Anything that would have left me a different
me than who I am: no.
I like
where my life has brought me. While I do
have some regrets, for God’s sake, life is short, and carting those regrets
around with you makes it, if not shorter, not as sweet. Never burn sweetness.
Ann's second novel AFTERPARTY is forthcoming. You can vist Ann here.
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