Naomi’s atlas wasn’t bound in leather or stored on a shelf. It lived on her kitchen table, pages spread, coffee-stained, annotated with pencil and tears. Each map charted a regret: cities she never moved to, careers she declined, people she let go. She drew them like transit maps, lines of possibility crisscrossing. The blue line marked “Stay in Boston,” the green “Move to Oaxaca,” the red “Take the fellowship.” Each line branched into neighborhoods labeled “What if,” “Maybe,” and “Too late.”
It started as therapy homework: visualize a regret and give it a place. Naomi took it literally. She found that drawing streets calmed the loop in her head. The atlas grew. Friends saw it and asked for their own pages. She offered a marker. They drew. Soon, her table held a collaborative cartography of yearning. People came over for map nights, bringing wine and colored pencils. They spoke their regrets aloud as they mapped, laughter and sorrow mixing. “I should have learned piano,” someone said, sketching a cul-de-sac shaped like a treble clef. Another drew an airport for flights never taken.
Word spread. Naomi started a workshop at the community center: “Mapping Regrets: Geography of Choice.” Participants ranged from teenagers to retirees. She provided blank grids and listened. The act of mapping turned abstract regret into something with borders. People realized some streets led nowhere, others connected unexpectedly. A man who regretted not reconciling with his brother drew a bridge labeled “Phone call.” It connected to “Forgive Dad,” a neighborhood he thought unrelated. The visual helped him see how one action could reroute multiple roads.
Not everyone liked the exercise. Some felt it cemented regret. Naomi emphasized that maps could change. She encouraged participants to draw new roads: “Try Late” avenues, “Start Now” highways. She added a legend: dashed lines for possibilities, dotted for dreams. Over time, maps filled with construction zones. The atlas evolved from static to dynamic.
One evening, a city planner attended. She was fascinated. “You’re doing emotional urban planning,” she said. She invited Naomi to speak at a conference about design and mental health. Naomi hesitated; public speaking was a regret waiting to happen. She mapped it, drew a stage with exits. She took the dashed line path: she said yes. At the conference, she unrolled copies of the atlas. Academics leaned in, intrigued by the idea of regret as infrastructure. Naomi talked about how we build around potholes of past choices, sometimes avoiding whole neighborhoods.
A reporter wrote an article. Suddenly, Naomi’s atlas went viral. Requests poured in to digitize it. A tech company offered to turn it into an app. Naomi balked. Regret was tactile. Still, she saw the potential for accessibility. She partnered with a nonprofit instead. The app they built was simple: draw a regret, label it, add roads to possible futures. It was private by default, shareable by choice. It included prompts: “What is one small street you can build today?” Users could overlay maps, seeing community regrets forming a meta-city.
Critics called it wallowing. Naomi countered: “Naming isn’t wallowing. It’s wayfinding.” Therapists began recommending it as a tool. Teachers used it for students to map “I wish I had studied” into “Here’s a study plan cul-de-sac.” The atlas, physical and digital, kept growing. Naomi kept her kitchen table version sacred, refusing to let it be scanned. It held her original streets, shaky and honest.
Years later, Naomi revisited her own maps. Some roads she’d drawn as dead ends now had detours scribbled in later: “Learned guitar at 40,” “Called him, he answered.” Some regrets remained stubborn cul-de-sacs. She learned to plant metaphorical trees there, making them parks of acceptance. The atlas no longer felt heavy; it felt like a guidebook authored by every version of herself she had been brave enough to map. When she died, her family found a note tucked in the atlas: “Keep building. Maps are never finished.”