30 Days – Day 22 – “Shouldn’t have”

Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.

I’ll not go into any great detail as I’ve went over it before, but I suppose my biggest regret would be not going to the doctors straight away when I first noticed the problem with my back. I’ve done some stupid shit, stuff that would make you angry or plain cringe in embarrassment, but going untreated for so long has probably been the most foolish thing I’ve ever done. I’m not going into a depressing coulda been a contender rant, but things would’ve (hopefully) been vastly different. No, it’s going to be a thoughtful, alternate history discussion instead.

For starters I would have got the operation anywhere up to two years earlier, so I would have been fifteen instead of seventeen. The surgery itself would have been far less severe (Time Team on my arse remember) and the recovery period ranging from a few weeks to a couple of months, rather than the year and a half it did take. I would have taken time off of school, rather than basically leaving early. So I would have been able to go back and not spend the entire year after school ended trying to lie on my front to recuperate. The injury wouldn’t have been so damaging to my chances of playing rugby again, and I most likely would have went back. Friendships would’ve been in far better repair and all the weight I piled on and then continued to pile on would’ve been burned off on the rugby pitch. I like to think that my exam results would have been better, my last chance of sitting them spoiled by me not thinking ahead far enough and my universe mainly being lying on my bed. So I might have been in uni or working already, I might not have ended up going out with Ex, all sorts of things could have happened.

But I didn’t make the best of a bad situation, I know that, and I’m struggling to make up for it. But I am, slowly but surely. Eye of the Tiger, all that pish.