No regrets, just life

The other day I was asked "If you could go back and redo one day, 24 hours, what would it be?"
So I asked a few people. Some of the answers were as to be expected - "the day I left home" "the day I got in trouble" "the day I met so and so" "the day I didn't turn around and say what I felt." All the answers seem like movie answers. Looking for ways to romanticize our lives with the "what ifs" and could have beens.

I have a couple different days I can't decide between. Three actually. All 3 of them would have led to such incredibly lives for me. The first would probably be the day I came home and decided I would move across the country with my parents. They bought a house while we were on a vacation to Nashville. We came to the Memphis area for TWO DAYS in which they ended up buying a house. and being approved for the loan and everything went through in like 6 hours. It was wild. But I was a Junior in HS at the time, and in the end they gave me the option to stay at a family members house and finish out highschool, or move with them. I decided on a Wednesday, and my last day of school was a week and half later, Friday. I moved the next day. I absolutely love the life I lived years 16-19 down here, but what if I had stayed? I honestly have no clue who I would be. Would I have actually stayed in and finished (I left school at the end of junior year (i did end up with a diploma though) and traveled--my next what if)? Would I have ended up married to my high school boyfriend? Would I have been involved in my church? Or would I have fallen into the party scene as so many tended to do at that time? I can honestly say I have no clue what my life would have been if I stayed in Ohio.

When I was done with HS, a year early, at 17, I had a wonderful group of friends down here that to this day I attribute who I am to them. All the late nights, heartache, long drives, river runs, fireworks, favorite favorites days and friends-- I have never had a time I enjoyed so much in my life. But that same year, Hurricane Katrina hit. I live in Mississippi. Northern MS definitely didn't get it like southern did, but it hit home. I had to help. So I signed up to go for two weeks. But right before that time hit, I decided I would go join a missions school in Nashville (we still went down and helped) and that was 6 months. It was a great turning point in my life. My 2nd what if is what if I would have said yes to staying another 6 months and doing the second year there? I had always wanted to, but being home with my friends again was just filling that hole in my heart that missed them all so much. So at 18 I said no and kept living my life. Had I stayed? I probably would still be in YWAM doing missions work all over the world. An entirely different life. Probably not sitting here listening to Britney Spears' new song. lol

My last one would be this: I won't ever say I regret my marriage, it was a choice I made that at one time was good. But I didn't really learn much from it. Maybe just that when your intuition is right, follow it. But I think it would be the day we decided to go on our first date. It was such a perfect and fun night. But had I just been paying attention to my crazy Microbiology teacher going on about the Queen Bey's clothing options, instead of texting well, I might have got a better grade in there. But had I not been angry at my best friend and trying to be busy without her, I wouldn't have asked him to hang out, and had we never hung out I don't think we ever would have. I wouldn't have changed my mind about going to Univ of Southern MS for Marine Biology. I had been accepted into their very highly esteemed Marine Bio program and was set to leave in 3 months. When you start dating someone you've been talking to as friends for a while, you do it sort of knowing that it's like an "all in" type thing. Like "if we're gonna mess up this friendship we better go big or go home" sort of thing. So we went big. We took the dive. We started hanging out every single day even just for 5 minutes to say hi. After a month and half, me (I guess) foolishly thinking that we could make a 5 hour difference work, I ultimately made the decision to rescind my application and not move. I know the choice was mine in the end, but he asked me to stay, so I stayed. Now, 7 years removed from this decision, we should have seen the red flags in our lives. We were so young. We were so naive. I don't like to think about this decision, because the past is the past. And when you get to thinking about the what ifs, it just makes you crazy.

There are so so many things in my life I might take back if I had the chance to do them over. But I don't have the chance. So when my best friend says "you should have never moved, got married, lived with them, done that degree, bought that dog, car, whatever" (I promise she's a lot more supportive than that makes her sound)-- I can't help but get mad and say "DROP IT." The past is the past and we can't change anything that has happened. But we CAN learn from it. We can change our lives now, we can work harder, do better, make better decisions, stop to think something through. We have 1,440 minutes a day to change our lives. We can get up from our jobs we hate and literally walk out right now if we want to (I don't advise this, money is needed for life). We can pick up the phone and call or email or text the person we haven't talked to in years over some old grudge. We can do the same just to remind an old friend we love them. We can literally make our lives anything we want. So instead of thinking "if only I could do this again" what if we start to live our lives in the positive-- make the new days what you wish the old days were like.

However, I want to hear your thoughts! If you could redo any day, a full 24 hours, what would it be?