metamelomai

Last summer over a Prestige at the beach, my pal Alex who works for the United Nations spoke of his family back home in Ethiopia. We got to talking about the most famous singer from Ethiopia,Gigi Shibabaw. He rambled on about how many concerts Gigi had coming up because of “the millennium.” After all, in Ethiopia it was only 1999. Now, my friend Angela lives in Ethiopia, where the millennium was just recently celebrated.

It is eight years ago in Ethiopia.

By the authority vested in me thanks to my participation in divinity school, I will now make the bold assertion (like the kind the Dean graciously warned about, and charged us with, at graduation): the eight year gap comes from use of the Julian calendar versus the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Angela occasionally excuses the technological difficulties in our communications by saying things like, “Sorry, it is only the year 2000 here.”

It got me thinking. What if we could travel back to eight years ago, like Angela? All of us. Even George Bush. And Britney Spears.

Ahhh, an age-old question: “What would I do differently?” You know- I am naturally wary of people who say things like, “no regrets.” I kinda feel like things work out the way they should; but on the other hand, having regrets means learning, gaining information, and a willingness to take responsibility. In my life, in the situations in which profound beauty have come from great suffering, I still think, - - wow, I could have handled that a little bit better,- - or, - - I could have made some better choices during this or that, even though I accept that it is all over now. Over. Forever.

In the year 2000 I was nearly twenty-two years old, and it was my senior year of college. I don’t think that I would choose to go back, even to fix things with the information I have now. The thought of it exhausts me. I look forward to saying things like “back when I was in my twenties.”

So maybe this means I can say that I have “no regrets.” But I don’t think so.