Atonement

There was an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" from 1985 titled "Final Escape." In it, a jailed woman plans to escape by bribing the mortician who will make it possible for her to climb into the coffin with the next dead prisoner. Buried alive, she would wait for the mortician to come back later to dig her out. The plan goes well until she starts wondering why the mortician is taking so long. Lighting a match, she discovers that her coffin roommate is in fact said mortician.

That ending terrified me (and apparently thousands of others, according to google) to the very core of my being. I can think of no worse way to die. It is purely psychological. There is no physical urgency, no adrenaline rush taking over. Just you and your sheer terror, in full control of just how fast you will run out of air.

This episode briefly crossed my mind last week when I heard the faint "click" of a door latching behind me, a door without a knob that left me stranded in a windowless room. The only items in the room were: a pan full of paint, a paint roller (also full of paint) and a 1000W work light. I broke several nails and almost broke a pinky before I decided that I had two choices: wait for someone to rescue me or break down the door. I opted for the rescue. With music unnervingly blaring from the other room, I started passing my life in review, scouring dark corners in search of regrets.

I don't know how other people define it but these are the two questions I ask myself to evaluate if I regret a choice. Before making the decision, did I consider my options and their consequences carefully, with all the information available to me at the time? Did I make what I truly believed to be the right choice for me in that particular circumstance? If I answer yes to both, then it cannot be a regret. People say, "If I had known then what I know now, I would have done things differently." So would I, but that's not fair game and it cannot be called regret.

I sat there and thought of one of my ex's. Super sweet guy, bad breakup. I thought to myself, "If I make it out of here alive, I'm going to track him down, even if I should make it my life's mission, and right this wrong." My spirits bolstered by my new focus, I rose, ready to kick the door to splinters. I let my foot drop away limply mere inches away from the wood when an idea occurred to me. I unplugged the work light and bent the two rectangular prongs toward each other to create a makeshift flat screwdriver. I stuck it in the latch and turned carefully, relieved to hear the "click" that set me free.

Tracking down the ex took about 1 minute with Facebook. I typed up a heartfelt apology for the way I had treated him, my relief growing with the paragraph. The next day I had his reply, and his forgiveness.

I believe that regret makes people age faster. It creases their faces with deep lines and makes them bitter. For these reasons, I try to steer clear of impulsive decisions. I love to carefully consider the smallest of choices, and consequently I have very few regrets (and hardly any debt). After all, if in the face of certain death, all I could come up with was being a bit harsh in a breakup eight years ago, I think I'll be just fine.