Literature

We mostly regret what we didn’t do.........or do we?

When I worked at AEDC as a student, I had a mentor and boss by the name of Harvey Cook. His daughter, Susan, who worked in a nearby office, was the most exciting woman I had met since high school. I would have killed to go out with her. But I very timidly avoided anything more than a casual good morning. She seemed so out of my league, I could scarcely bring myself to engage in a conversation with her.

Fast forward 15 years later: I had graduated from school, was married, had two children, and a lot more confident in myself, was sitting in the bar at the AEDC officers club, and a gorgeous blond approaches me. "Jim, remember me? I am Susan Cook. I just had to tell you. When we worked in the same office together 15 years ago, I had such a crush on you, but I could never get up the nerve then to tell you."

When I then told her my side of the story, we both slapped our foreheads and laughed at each other, hugged, and then cried just a little, finally realizing what our shyness may have cost us (or protected us from?).

Susan, by the way, was also married and had children.