no regrets

I was standing in the checkout line at WalMart yesterday (one of my personal fictions is that I am not the kind of person who shops at Wal-Mart, but there I was), and I caught a glimpse of the head and shoulders of a woman perhaps ten years younger than me who had an enormous tattooed dragon snaking across her shoulders and back. I was just thinking, "She will regret that in a few years," when the line shifted so I could see her midriff. Her back appeared to be covered with sayings and slogans, most of which I was too far away to decipher. But clearly inscribed in Gothic script were the words, "No Regrets," almost as if she had answered my unspoken comment.

At first I thought it meant that she did not regret the tattoos, but then, of course, I realized it was a statement about her life - and I caught my breath. Could she really mean it? Could there be person alive who truly had no regrets?

As a woman of many regrets myself, I naturally assumed she must just have never stopped long enough to really think about her life - that she was too busy drinking, cursing, smoking, carousing, riding Harleys and all those other things I naturally assumed about her. Or perhaps she was just whistling in the dark.

I, however, have never been accused of living the unexamined life - au contraire. And I imagined what I might have tattooed on my back - all the regrets of my life. But I would never do that, because most of my regrets will never see the light of day. I look at them as infrequently as possible and never lay them out for anyone else to see. They are, however, tattooed on my soul with equally indelible ink, visible to no one but me.

I imagine that our resurrected bodies will not be tattooed - that if I were to meet that woman in heaven some day her skin would be clean as a baby's, though I guess I really don't know much about glorified flesh. I wonder if my soul will be likewise clean and clear - free of the regrets of this life. I hope so.