Kimberlee K.

Have you ever got to work, started your day, and suddenly had a pit in your stomach?

A pit of regret.

A pit that will remind you for the rest of the day of the mistake that you’ve made.

I think you know where I’m going with this.

It’s that feeling when you know you should have brought a tuna sandwich for lunch but you didn’t, you brought turkey, and now you feel like an idiot.

I think we’ve all had one of these mornings/evenings/days/decades. Unfortunately for me, this was one of those mornings. I knew it right when I walked in the door.

As I was placing my lunch in the refrigerator, I could practically smell the turkey through the insulated, floral (and undeniably cute) lunch bag and I was dejected. I slammed the door shut and swung my fist in the air. What was going through my mind this morning?! Bologna?! (No turkey, obviously, are you even listening to me?)

We all have regrets. Choices that we can’t take back. Sandwiches we can’t unmake. But there comes a point when we have to move on.

We can’t ham around anymore. We just have to let go of the beef and stop acting like a turkey.

(I had a few more meat puns, but then I remembered not everyone eats meat, so I figured it was best to move forward. Shall we? Lettuce do it.)

Today is just one of those days when I’m overthinking life a little bit. We’re so often told to live with “no regrets” or “like today is our last day”, and those are very valuable mantras, it’s always good to stay motivated.

Take off your shoe and put your foot in a jar of dirt.

Tie your hair back and count to 1 million in Yiddish.

Cover yourself in honey mustard and kiss a gopher.

Why?

Because you can, you winner. You non regretter. You liver of your (maybe) last dayer.

Unfortunately, we can’t always live like that. Sometimes it’s hard to keep our head up and stay motivated. Sometimes we just have to go through the motions, pay our bills, and eat our sandwiches. And there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not as fun.

Today I was just feeling a little blah. I started to wonder if I was doing anything right, or if I was doing anything, period. I like to think of myself as a very positive person, so days like this are hard on me, and I’m constantly looking for ways to snap out of it.

On days like this, the type of days when I begin to get down on myself for not going out and kissing that gopher, I like to think about all the jars of dirt I’ve stepped in. Sometimes I even write them out, neatly numbered list style:

1) Ate my weight in cookies shaped like Christmas trees, then threw them all up (and cried).

2) Drove over the speed limit, MORE THAN ONCE.

3) Paid to let a group of strangers throw rotten tomatoes at me.

4) Thoroughly convinced someone I spoke Chinese by using quotes I’d heard from Rush Hour.

5) Became too attached to an onion to eat it, and instead named it Bobby.

6) Ran through the Denver airport carrying nothing but a backpack full of coffee mugs.

7) Walked home from an Australian grocery store with a full size pumpkin in my purse.

8) Caught a fish by the tail.

9) Spent Christmas morning shooting BBs at ornaments.

10) Snuck out of my house with my best friend (but told my mom beforehand so she wouldn’t worry) to buy ice cream, then came back home and ate the entire pint while watching Hey Arnold.

We’ve all done something. No matter how small you think it is, it’s something! And it’s those somethings that make us who we are today, so we should look back on them and smile.

Look back on the time you swam in the cottage cheese of Puerto Rico, on the time you stepped on the wooden leg of an elephant, on the time you felt the feeling you feel when you are not dead and realize how lucky you are, how you unique you are, how freaking marvelous you are.

Once you do that, the tuna sandwich won’t matter anymore.