no regrets

'no regrets'...that's the title of the entry i opened to yesterday morning in my daily groove by scott noelle. it goes like this:

"as you progress and become a wiser parent, you may at times feel regret that you didn't 'know better' when your children were younger. you may even feel guilty for 'damaging' them. if so, let mother nature inspire you to a more hopeful perspective.

have you ever explored a wild forest and appreciated the awesome way in which life springs forth from the chaos? then you know mother nature never regrets. she learns as she goes and always makes the best of things as they are. she never looks back.

when a tree takes root in the shadows, mother nature doesn't regret giving it a 'sub-optimum' start in life. she trusts it will bend toward the light and find a way to thrive. and in doing so, the tree creates its own unique beauty.

she knows that no storm, flood, or fire can stop the endless flow of life through her children."

i thought about how often i regret something that i've done in the past. and how just knowing and believing in the words of maya angelou, "you did then what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better" wasn't always enough to allow me to let go of regret. it helped some to think about the now but there was always still regret from the past.

yesterday, we went for a small hike on buffalo mountain. as we walked up toward the knob we were headed for i started noticing that we were in the area of the fire from this past spring. it was hard to see at first because there is so much new, green growth. i was reminded of the passage from scott's book that i had read that morning. mother nature cannot be stopped. the fire was big and devastating and plant and animal life were lost. yet, here we were just 4 months later and, although you could still see the burnt trees, there was so much life again.

we sat on the knob and looked out at the amazing view. we picked out buildings we knew and figured out where our house was and other places we liked to go to. we talked a lot about the fire and how a fire is like a clean slate for mother nature. how it is often quite necessary for new and stronger growth. sadie asked why a fallen tree had a red string around it. i told her that it had been marked to be cut down because it was so near the trail that if it had not been cut it could've fallen on it's own and hurt someone. there were lots of little things like that for good conversation.

as i was looking at one particular area of new growth i was overcome by a sense of peace. i looked at my kids gazing out at the far mountains and witnessed their excitement over the beauty of it all. i knew in that moment that they were okay. despite my early mistakes (and inevitable future ones) that they are fine. the good had outweighed the bad and they are just fine.Share