Do Overs….Ahh…Regrets-I have a few

I made a flippant remark the other day, after I was asked what I would change if I could have a do-over in my life.  So I immediately had an ah ha moment and thought yep, a good blog topic as I wondered what “do” older people regret when they look back on their lives?  So off I went on my latest quest for enlightenment.

A regret is defined as when we feel sad, repentant, or disappointed over something that we have done, or something we haven’t done or a loss or missed opportunity. We can feel remorseful and sorrowful over an event, behavior or decision.

It would seem the experts did research calling it the legacy project, where they interviewed many seniors who had answers such as: “I would have spent less time worrying” and “I regret that I worried so much about everything.” Indeed, from the vantage point of late life, many people felt that if given a single “do-over” in life, they would like to have all the time back they spent fretting anxiously about the future. It seems the general consensus was simple and direct.

I particularly liked this one: Turn yourself from frittering away the day worrying about what comes next and let everything else that you love and enjoy move in.

Well, I found as is typical for me, this was all much too serious for my taste, after all if I had a do-over I would make darn sure it was like Aladdin and the 3 wishes, it would count. I must admit that sometimes I do get serious, particularly as I leave a place and get that strange feeling like I’ll not only miss the people I love, but I’ll miss the person I am now at this very time and place because I’ll never be this way ever again (that’s deep isn’t it, Grin).

As I recall I’ve always been a disappointment to myself. When I was five, I looked down at the crayons I was coloring with and sighed - when I was two this is not what I saw myself doing at five. (Grin)

When I asked one of my close friends what she wished for her birthday, she replied she wanted to be ten again. Hmm. so I thought I was being ever so clever as I envisioned how I could pull this off. Off I went buying donuts and the accoutrements to make her chocolate chip pancakes, a few of her favorite childhood breakfast foods. Then we hit the playground and the swings, and finished the day off with a Baskin Robbins ice cream.  As we were eating our ice cream I turned and asked, “Did you enjoy being a kid for a day again?” Guess what she said? “When I said I wanted to be ten again, I meant my dress size, this didn’t help that goal at all.” Well, a swing and a miss on my part. (Grin).

This may sound a little melodramatic, but then that is sometimes who I am and I find no matter how happy I am and no matter what age I am remembering, my regrets are countless (Sigh). I have made decades worth of little miscalculations which I find I can’t seem to completely erase from my memory, and let’s not forget the number of really big mistakes that made my life permanently harder. Well those wonderful experts tell me I need to divide my regrets into groups such as:

The things you did that you wish you hadn’t (well that could be a very big list, I was a hippie after all, Grin). When you're ancient like me, you torture yourself over the risks you didn't take, and the opportunities you missed by failing to act. There is always that poignant question of whether, even if I in actuality have made the best decision for me at that time and place, by not doing what I might have, those actions could, in retrospect, have been good mistakes to make at that point in my life. (Well that’s how my mind compartmentalizes things, Grin).  Perhaps it would have been a good time to learn a painful lesson. On the other hand, maybe I really did miss my main chance in life (Sigh).  After all there is that chance I could be living in a nicer house with a bigger car and more money, I could have written that novel, been a better daughter and sister, done things differently with my children, actually achieving whatever I thought I wanted. In my mind I understand that I can never know what would have really happened, good or bad, no matter how many times I relive it in my mind, trying to reconstruct the parallel universe where I made my move. So I give myself a mental shake and say let it go, just breathe and move on.

The heavy cost of the time I’ve wasted - by far, for me, the most significant regrets I have now are about lost time. I have the real sense that it is getting increasingly likely that I will die without ever having ever seen Ireland (which is now very important to me as I find that my ancestors hail from there), learning to speak Spanish fluently, making that prize-winning quilt, growing that perfect specimen in my garden, or having written that book.

From time to time I let this overwhelm and trouble me. I find that as I continue to grow older (funny how that happens, Grin), the cost of truly pointless hours piles up. What could I have accomplished instead of playing X-box video games for hours on end, reading book after book, or binge watching that TV series? Maybe there isn't time for me to become a billionaire (unless I win the lottery - hey it could happen) or traverse the world.

The fact is, I may never be a millionaire, or even travel.  But I do realize that even at my age I can still accomplish some partial subset of my original dreams that may be still within my grasp. Conceivably I need to make a bucket list (Grin) or start setting priorities.  Of course, regrettably, that assumes that I won’t take sanctuary in the perfectly rational, natural, and comforting desire to repeat the things I’ve done before and enjoyed, maybe just once, long ago. Or maybe one place becomes my regular hangout, you know….where everybody knows your name (Grin).  Hmm… I find this one very alluring as after all I do love the community where I live.

Then I give myself a symbolic clout and grab a glass of wine, as I look up the lyrics to Pink Floyd’s “Time” and reflect - and have another glass of wine (Grin). I think to myself isn’t it amazing  a twenty something Roger Waters could write something so perfectly attuned to a person my age…just sayin’:

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away, across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell

 

I must confirm, after my seemingly being so morose, I really am a very happy, optimistic person. And after all this soul searching I remind myself that I am more fortunate, blessed and have done far better than most people have in life. I admit I find it hard to take seriously those people who say they wouldn’t change anything, yeah right. (Grin) Maybe what they are really trying to say is they are quite content with how things are going in their lives, yeah, yeah.  Ok, so am I for that matter, but I still say I could have done things better. If others can’t think of something they would change, well… I think they must have a very limited imagination. (Grin) Don’t they wish they would have spent more time listening, and talking to their parents and grandparents? Perhaps have avoided alienating a good friend? Or possibly wished they hadn’t passed up that Microsoft or Apple stock? As I head into a significant milestone birthday next year (Ugh), I tell myself that I really wouldn’t mind being 18 again; to relive that defining moment which directed the course for the rest of my life… sigh….if only.

These are some of the regrets I have actually heard others say: “I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” “I wish I hadn't worked so hard.” “I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.” “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.” “I wish that I had let myself be happier.”  This last one hits close to home with me, as I find that my life has a tendency to become a continuous focus on activities, goals, lifestyle and material possessions, and there are stretches when I don’t take the time to truly examine what actually contributes to my long-term happiness and meaning in life. We are all so busy that well, life happens. There always seems to be something to distract us from getting around to certain things we know we should or want to do. And with the explosion of always being on smartphones and tablets that continuously deliver a barrage of urgent emails and information, not to mention Twitter and Facebook, well, things have merely gotten busier.

Then, something happens.  A good friend or loved one, maybe close to us in age, drops dead unexpectedly (this was my trigger for delving into my regrets).  We begin to think about what our biggest regrets would be if we were suddenly sitting on our death bed.

My take away on this topic: I see it all as being quite simple; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that.  Isn’t that philosophical? (Grin) Seriously, my honest opinion and my free two-cent advice is this: do it or do not do it, you will regret both.  As for me, the biggest regret in my life is that I did not say I love you often enough.

And so I leave you with these words of wisdom:

 

Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Henry David Thoreau

Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future. Swami Sivananda

 

I thank you again for taking this retirement journey with me, or as I refer to it, “my longest coffee break."  I'm just sayin’….