I remember my best friend telling me that just because I was pregnant with my first child, I didn’t have to marry the father. I didn’t heed that advice and married anyhow. The marriage was not a good one and lasted only six years. However, out of it I got my second daughter and eventually two grandsons. No regrets there whatsoever.
I turned down many opportunities that might have taken me to great heights in both career and life experience. Instead, I’m a minimalist in life and work, but am exceedingly rich in how much time I can devote to my family, something my own mother was robbed of.
As I look back on my life, fifty-four years of it, and the opportunities I have been presented with and the choices I’ve made, I’m pretty satisfied.
Do I wish there were things I could say I’ve done so far? Sure. I have only traveled overseas twice, not nearly enough for the places I have yet to see. Do I wish I had started my writing career twenty or thirty years earlier? Most definitely. Would I be prouder if I’d stood up for myself in the countless situations where someone had hurt me? You bet.
But I am happy with the risks I have taken, the time I did speak out, the decisions I’ve made to bring me to this juncture in my life. I have always said that I wish reincarnation were a true thing – then I could look forward to living all those lives I simply cannot be fit into just one lifetime. I would be a geologist, actress, world traveler; I would be rich beyond imagination. I would be a most humble being devoting my life to the betterment of others. I would be a wanderer, with no fixed home, but making the world and those I encounter my family life and experience. Yes, I would love to have five or more lifetimes to live.
But, since I have only this one I will accept it for what it is, allow myself to cherish each and every moment from the choices I’ve made, the people I’ve happened to meet, the places I have found myself living.
There are no regrets, just reflections, on a life well lived and of a future yet to unfold. I hope that you, too, can say the same.
If you had more than one lifetime, what would YOU do, be, become?
3 comments:
What an inspiring piece of writing Lisa!
I love your words "there are no regrets, just reflections, on a life well lived and of a future yet to unfold."
A wonderful philosophy and I feel very fortunate to live my life that way also.
Keep shining my friend.
Warmest hugs
Peggy xxxxxxx
Beautiful post, Lisa. If I had another lifetime, I'd want to be a ballerina. I didn't start ballet until I was 12, which is a little too late. And back then parents really didn't encourage their kids to take lessons and pursue different things. I think even the parents were just getting by.
So yeah, ballerina. Or stripper.
I think hindsight breeds regrets. It's far too easy to look back with all of our years of wisdom that we acquired only because we made the decisions we made, to see we could/should have done things differently. Like you, if I had done the big things differntly, the big things that matter the most, would have changed. I wouldn't want that either.
But there are a few little things I would like a "do over" on. It's proably just as well I can't do that either.
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