The words I didn’t say

Okay, so it’s really late right now, and I should most definitely be asleep, but I seem to have insomnia tonight so I’m trying to find something that will put my mind at ease a little so I can sleep. Plus, I was told not so long ago that if you’ve tried and can’t sleep for 15 minutes, you need to do something else. I’ve officially been trying for an hour and a half now, so this is me finding a different activity.

I’m pretty sure most of us have moments of shame and regret in our lives we feel sorry for something we’ve said that was uncalled for or hurt someone’s feelings. We’re all human and we all make mistakes so it’s only to be expected.

But, have you ever felt regret for the other direction, as in, you regret the words you didn’t say?

I’ve always struggled with speaking my mind and expressing what it is I really think or feel. It’s just not something that comes naturally to me, but I have been working on it pretty hard in the last few months and feel I’ve made progress in becoming a more effective communicator.

However, in the past few days my mind has been straying to some times in the last year when painful and difficult things happened to me. These are things I’d rather not think about and have tried hard to put behind me, but my mind has just been drawn back to them.

These are times when I wish I’d said something but for various reasons wasn’t able to at the time. In the instance that’s troubling me most tonight, I couldn’t say something because I just wasn’t in a position emotionally to do so. I don’t know that it would’ve helped the situation if I had said something or not, but I think it might’ve made me feel better now if I had. I’m regretting very much the words I didn’t say, even if they might not have made any difference.

Truthfully this is something that I’m planning to just put behind me, but for now I suppose I’m just going to have to work my way through it, learn what I can and make my peace with it, whatever that looks like.