Runner by genetics?

While I was growing up my beloved father ran away 'on business' every few months, and while I have no doubt that he did go in search of fortune, he might have been able to find the end of the rainbow a little closer to home. I suspect I have inherited this legacy - my birthright - to be commitment phobic.My marriage lasted 10 years, but only because every so often I would find an away-from-home commitment - the local amateur theatre group thought they had discovered a 'theatre-holic' - I worked  shows, back to back, for years on end. When I wasn't hiding at the theatre, Norma and I were hiding out in a coffee bar, the location of which would be changed regularly so that we could not be discovered by my husband.  When I was going through the divorce, a friend of mine said to me 'You can say what you are like, but you are a runner'. I remember thinking 'WHAT?!!Me??!! NEVER.'  Never a truer word has been said. As soon as I fall into the semblance of a happy, settled, comfort zone , the tentacles of suffocation wrap themselves around my throat and I summon the devil on my shoulder to commence the destruction.  Here we go again.......

Regrets....

After every loss, I swear that I will never look back and say 'If only...' and yet, I carry more regret on my heart than Atlas hefting the universe on his shoulder. 

Dad....no real regrets, except for the once (or was it twice) that I snuck into Durban and didn't tell him cause I wanted to hang out with my colleagues...and that I cannot remember all the wonderful stories he used to tell of his life in Italy. 

Mom...  when I think back to the unhappy walks through Canal Walk, her trailing behind me, on the one occassion urine trickling down her legs, losing my temper when she would repeatedly ask the same thing and slamming on my brakes and screaming , and she'd get back to the safety of her frail care and tell the nurses I was angry and scared her.If I could rewind and just smile and ignore the repetition , and be kinder ....there is just so much that I regret. I regret her mind went, that they stole and spoiled her beautiful clothes, that her essence left her body and left ,me with that dead, confused energy.That was not my Mom.

Norma.......no regrets while she was well, but when she got ill, I was there at the beginning, then allowed her old behaviours of wanting to be alone,  to sway my natural instinct to be there. That I was selfish and didn't spend the time with her, that she took those work friends away to the game parks, cause she felt I was involved . When I tracked her down in the hospital, she blossomed and was happy, and then I got back from overseas, and although I sent many messages,  I didn't  find her and be there while she was dying. 

Regrets....let these be the last