How Do I Unfriend Regret?

How do you live a life without regret? Is there a secret to avoiding him? A route to take to miss making his acquaintance? A way to hide? A charm to ward against? A potion to take? Can you be inoculated against Regret? Or is he quintessential to learning? Regret? Is he programed into the system? Coded into the very fabric of everyone's life. A certain mile marker you pass on the winding rode of life. A key item you need to complete the level.

Regret. I think I hate him.

I can contain Anger so his flame doesn’t burn everything in his path. Joy is a flighty, elusive thing that comes and goes as she pleases. I can negotiate with Sadness to come again another day. Shame and I are study buddies. Love and I don't live in the same town but we chat online and I see her around from time to time. Boredom likes to Netflix and chill. Fear never stays to chat. Relief and Relaxation are hard to pin down but its always nice when our schedules align.

But Regret…

Regret comes unbidden, uninvited. He intrudes shoving himself into the middle of things. He overstays his welcome obnoxiously making himself at home. He doesn’t listen when I say I am over his shit. When I ask him to stop dredging things up. He ignores my pleas for him to leave. My threats to evict him. He smugly continues to flip through the catalogs that Shame and I have put away. Pointing out typos and grammatical errors, correcting problems long since solved. He rearranges my pictures with Joy leaving smudge fingerprints on the glass and frame. Takes the books Love got me off the shelf dog earing the pages and bending the spines. He fondles the plants that Relaxation recommended damaging the petals.

Regret dredges up a better forgotten past and rubs it in my face. He gloats about his memory of all my embarrassing moments, failures, and non-starters. Visits memory lane like he is running a marathon of humiliation. He brings his friends to crash on my couch leaving a pungent smell and acrid aftertaste. Anxiety and Depression always his little tag a long's. The three of them creating a perfect storm. They leave a disaster in their wake. Throw a rager till the wee hours. Clearing out the party with their antics. And then all I'm left with in the morning is Exhaustion curled up in a chair and Regret's second wind. It's never long before Hate rears his ugly head whenever Regret is around.

I can't out run him. He keeps stride with me without even breaking a sweat. And then he lords over me while I am bent in half heaving breath in and out. I try to ditch him with Distraction but Regret is a stalker following my every move. For a small amount of time I can hide behind Determination as we work our day away but its never long before Regret checks in. And he is always there when I come home waiting with a saccharine smile.

I have learned over the years how to maneuver, live with, adapt to the ever spinning Lazy Susan of emotions. All, save, Regret, who remains the sticky spot I can't ever quite clean off the base. He sits like spilled molasses sticking to and tainting the other emotions. Making some stick to the base and others come off messy. And Regret tags along everywhere we go.

Does anyone know of a way to shake him? A cleaner to rid me of his residue?

Of all the emotions I feel, I think I dislike Regret most of all.

How do I unfriend Regret?