living in a sea of regret

Today, while I was talking to one of my roommates, I realized that I have a lot of unresolved "junk" in my life. Some of my relationships with people are not so good, and I think it is one thing holding me back from being really happy. I've realized that my relationships with most of my family members are practically non-existant, while others are distant and downright bad. I have a good relationship with a few close friends, but there are other people who I really care about and just completely neglect (unintentionally!) I haven't talked to my old work since I last worked there in the summer when I swore to keep in touch and I have been feeling guilty about not writing at least once a week. My grandmother is in poor health and getting worse and I only talk to her a couple times a year, and don't really interact with her very much when I do see her.

I am afraid that when I do get around to trying to repair these relationships, or get in touch with these people, that it will be too late to actually do anything. That my brothers and I will just be distant from each other forever, that I will never really know my parents, and that my grandparents will die and I will live in a sea of regret for not listening to all their stories and telling them about myself when I had the chance. That the friends that I wanted to care about and never had the time to will not remember me or will move away and I won't be able to find them. That thought is sad to me.

My mantra has always been that if there is something wrong or out of place in your life, you should change what you are doing.

My excuse is that I never have time. I don't have the time to talk to everyone and write to everyone while I am so busy with my schoolwork. While I guess that is a valid excuse, I know I can do better. If I set a few goals about keeping in touch with the people I want to, I can at least resolve a few of these issues. My goal: to try and connect with 3 people each week that I want to keep in touch with. This week I want to write to my grandmother, contact the office where I worked last summer and write a letter to one of my cousins.

There are some other issues, like my relationship with my parents, which cannot simply be resolved by writing letters or talking-- rather, the fact that we simply cannot communicate on the same level is more of the issue. I never really realized quite how bad it was until A. said "So...your parents really do not know who you are at all, do they? Your relationship can't be very good with them if you can't talk to them about any of the things going on in your life." It never really occured to me that was a problem, but I am starting to realize how unfortunate it is that they cannot see me as a person with real thoughts and feelings instead of just a child who doesn't know anything about how the world works and who can be shielded from things and cannot make choices on her own.