All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us

The feeling of being back in Canada and no longer in Paris is surreal. At first, it was almost unbelievable to think that I was actually in Canada. Now the unbelievable part is that several weeks ago I was, in fact, in Paris. The near-two years that I spent there feel like they almost didn't happen. If I really wanted to I think that I could almost convince myself that my time in Paris didn't happen at all.
It was a dream.
     At times, it was a very bad dream.
          A nightmare.
But the key is that I could only convince myself of this if I really wanted to. Obviously, that is not what I really want. If I can compare some parts of my time in France to a nightmare, I cannot deny that there are other parts that I can compare to a lovely dream that I did not want to wake up from. Granted, a good portion of these indescribable moments happened when we traveled away from Paris either to other parts of France or to different countries but I must remind myself that I never would have experienced those moments had I not been living in Paris at the time.
I do not regret.
But I ask myself how I can be so sure about that at the same time. How can I look back at the feelings I had, the things I went through, underwent, experienced, and still say that I am glad to have gone through all of it? It was only yesterday that I reread a Note that I made on Facebook, a true rant or a rage, if you please, depicting my most inner emotions and thoughts. Title: "I'm dead inside and in need."
I was desperate.
Even then I must have known that Facebook was maybe not the best place to be posting my deepest, darkest reflections. I'm sure there were better ways that I could have dealt with my pain, but it was a way for me to communicate my agony to the people I had left behind. It was a way that I could use freely to let them know how I was feeling while I hoped that at least one of them would answer and help me, somehow, out of the pit of Depression that I had dug myself into.
The Me from the Past made the Present me tear up when I reread my past emotions. The things I felt back then were so real that I could feel the remnants of them, the scars, the ghost that they left lingering behind me. I may not always know that the ghost is there, but there are the occasional reminders that cause my eyes to burn and my tears to well up, my throat to tighten. I am still affected.
I still remember.
     So why do I not regret?
There are a good number of things that pulled me through back then. I don't know if I remember what all of them even were, whether they were verses from the Bible that I held onto or quotes from real-life or even fictional characters that I begged to be real. There were songs that got me through as well, and there were the people that were watching over me from wherever they were, reminding me constantly that they were there.
That they were listening.
     That they were praying.
          That they were with me.
But one of the most notable things that I held onto, one of the things that I remember extremely clearly, was none other than a quote from a movie.

"I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened."

"So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." 

--Frodo and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

It was Gandalf's line that I held onto so strongly, that I always remembered when things were particularly hard. I would replace Frodo's line "I wish I had never moved. I wish none of this had happened" and Gandalf's reply would be exactly what I needed to hear. It may not have lifted my spirits at the time, but I clung to that thought like a lifeline. If I was drowning, that was my life preserver or my lifeguard. If I wasn't breathing, it was my CPR. If I was choking, my heimlich. Falling from a cliff, it was my rope that rubbed my hands raw as I clung to it, waiting to be pulled up and trying to climb.
I held on to the concept that God would never put me through something that I could not handle with him. There would never be anything too big, anything that was too much and that would end up destroying me. That meant that I had to make it through and that was something that I forced myself to hold on to.
I've made myself now come to the conclusion that I do not regret because I have grown and changed. My pain was as much agony as it was strength. And yet even after reaching such a conclusion, I still wonder how I've come to terms with it.
Have I come to terms with it, or are there still darker emotions pent up inside of me? Because if I did have regrets then I would have to consider nearly two years of my life wasted. And I don't believe that I can afford that.
Everything has a reason.
     There is always a reason.
          And that is why I always ask "why?".