Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too many to mention. Not the lyrics to My Way. In fact, the opposite. Regrets so often rule my past, my present, my future. A summation of my life, an excuse to glue my ass to the recliner in front of the television, a roadblock to progress.

I let the love of my life go years ago. He’d been gentle, loving, so opposite of the abusive spouse I’d had to leave. I like to think that I had no control over it. He fell in love with someone else. If I can’t have him, I remember bargaining with God, bring me someone just as great, but with a bonus. Make him a writer or an artist.

And there came my artist, the potter, the activist, the vegan. It had seemed so “meant to be.” He’d walked across Russia to promote peace, lived and worked at a homeless shelter in Atlanta, had found something worth noting in this small town girl whose past held nothing more interesting than a tumultuous divorce and a history of breast cancer. It would be easy enough to blame this new person for my giving up on the one I really wanted.

Except I have evidence of who is really to blame. Drafts of a letter I wrote to my love, telling him how happy I was to no longer feel so love sick over him. Would I have fewer regrets if I didn’t have these old letters and journal entries to remind me of what I’ve done and how I felt in the past? Old letters written when I was young and reckless. Journaling my thoughts and feelings and actions.

How do I not regret things done or undone? It’s too late to change anything. And really there are no guarantees that anything would turn out any differently if I could. I had my love, I had my artist. And now I have me.

King 5 News in Seattle did a news piece on Pongo Poetry.  My blog doesn’t have the capability to embed the video of the show, but I encourage you to click this link and listen to the 7:58 minute video.

The video talks about how the volunteers work with the kids to produce cathartic poetry about the pain they’ve gone through.  You hear glimpses of them talk about what has happened to them and hear recitations of pieces they’ve written that help to excise the past so they can move on to a better future.

http://www.king5.com/video/featured-videos/Poetry-flows-from-teens-behind-bars-141111313.html

“Pongo runs writing projects for youth who’ve suffered childhood traumas, such as abuse and neglect,” says Gold who was named a Microsoft Integral Fellow by the Microsoft Alumni Foundation in 2010 with $25,000 for Pongo.

“We work inside juvenile detention centers, homeless shelters, psychiatric hospitals, and other sites. And we particularly focus our work on young people who have a hard time expressing themselves. Our primary purpose is to help our authors understand their feelings, build self-esteem, and take better control of their lives,” says Gold.

Poetry flows from teens behind bars | KING5.com Seattle.