I should have stayed single...

It's three o' clock in the morning and my mind is still active.

This is another subject I have been thinking about for a while but haven't quote figured out how to put it into words. 

Before you get any untoward notions that the regret that I'm about to express here is an indication of impending self harm or anything of that nature.  

Quite the contrary...I am happy with the way my life has turned out to this point.  What you're about to read is my hindsight positing the question of what I could have possibly done to make life simpler, especially in the area of relationships.

I do not regret any relationship I've been in.  Not one.

After all, a relationship resulted in the creation of the life I value much more than my own, my son Sean.  

I couldn't imagine life without him. 

There are times where I wish things could have worked out with his mother and I. 

Not to the point where I long for what we had though because it's end was way too painful and I feel it nearly 20 years later.

I have forgiven her enough to make sure that no ill will from anything would reflect poorly on him.  But there is a limit to that forgiveness.  It will never ever be total and complete because of the pain she inflicted on me and by default, my family.

That's all I'll allow on that subject.

To connect this with the title I'd have saved myself all that if I hadn't decided to take the chance and get over my shyness that had prevented me from starting a relationship when I was younger.

It raises the question of if I had started at an earlier age...say my teenage years which are supposedly traditional, would I have had better success later on?  

That's a rhetorical question but with the benefit of hindsight maybe it might have.

It was a calculated risk I don't regret and I can only hope I've learned from it.