What Am I Still Angry at Myself For?

I’m still angry at myself for not being there.

Not being there when it mattered.
Not being there when the people I loved most were unraveling.
Not being there—because I had other things to do.
Because I had “plans.” Because I had a fucking schedule.

Because staying busy felt safer than standing still and looking pain in the eyes.

I’ve missed final moments, urgent calls, whispered requests.
I’ve missed them all while doing God knows what—answering emails, pretending work was urgent, staring at a screen, telling myself I’d call them back later.

I didn’t.

I let the minutes tick away.
And the people I loved died anyway.

So now I sit here—years later—with a graveyard full of what-ifs and never-agains, and all I can do is fucking stew in it.

Let’s get specific.

I’m angry at myself for not answering my phone the last time my brother called.
I was dodging bill collectors, so I didn’t recognize the number. I let it go to voicemail.
But it wasn’t a bill. It was my brother.
And now he’s dead, and that voicemail doesn’t exist anymore.
You don’t get a redo. You just get silence.

I’m angry at myself for sighing every time my dad called.
He wasn’t well.
He needed a friend.
And I was too tired.
Too busy.
Too fucking selfish.
I would look at the phone and decide not to answer.
And now I would sell organs just to hear him breathe on the other end.

I’m angry that I treated caretaking like a chore.
That when my dad visited Georgia—sick, broken, physically falling apart—I treated it like a task to manage.
I kept him fed. Bought him things. Drove him around. But I didn’t sit with him.
Not really.
Not emotionally.
I was too busy white-knuckling through my own stress to realize: this was our last real time together.

I’m angry at how I ghosted my mom in the last years of her life.
How I was too wrapped up in becoming someone to go visit her in the hospital one more time.
How I let our relationship decay under the illusion that I was building something “important.”
Guess what. None of it was important.
She died.
And my absence is part of her story now.

I’m angry that I believed the lie that said “you have time.”

That’s the biggest scam in the fucking universe.
You don’t have time.
Not like you think.

You think you’ll call them next weekend.
You think you’ll make amends next month.
You think the next time you see them, you’ll be present, open, better.

But there might not be a next time.
And you don’t know that until the phone rings and they’re gone.

And then it’s just you and the echo chamber of your own self-hatred.

You and the kitchen floor.
You and the blinking cursor.
You and the scream you don’t let out.

You want to know what real regret feels like?

It’s not cinematic. It’s not a big breakdown.
It’s slow and unrelenting.
It’s brushing your teeth and remembering that you missed the last chance to say “I love you.”
It’s sitting at a red light and hearing their favorite song and wanting to die from the weight of it.
It’s realizing that they forgave you, but you didn’t. You haven’t. You don’t know if you ever will.

Because being busy isn’t just a coping mechanism.
It’s a way to hide.
To convince yourself you’re doing something worthwhile, so you don’t have to look at what you’re not doing—being present.

I was never trying to hurt anyone.
But I did.
And the thing about unintentional hurt is—it still fucking counts.

So what am I still angry at myself for?

All of it.

For thinking survival was enough.
For letting fear and avoidance make my choices.
For convincing myself that work and art and momentum were more noble than simply showing up for the people who made me.

I’m trying to be better now.
Trying to answer the phone.
Trying to sit still.
Trying to feel it all, even when it wants to tear me in half.

But I’ll carry these failures with me forever.

Because this pain?
It’s earned.