- Tear out our hair at all the opportunities missed and the shortness of time left in which to pack an entire life of ‘Maybe I’ll do that next week/month/year’.
- Let a few things go, offering oneself up gracefully to the hard-won wisdom that some things probably aren’t going to happen now.
I must confess to a bit of the first option this past week or so. It is the easy option. Much easier to regret than to implement greater effort over the years. Not that I haven’t worked hard and achieved much. I left home at sixteen, financed my way around the world, married well (VERY well, my husband adds, reading over my shoulder), obtained a Bachelor’s then a Master’s degree while simultaneously raising two children, remained married for thirty-two years (though that streak may end if Hubby continues to harp on over my shoulder about how well I married) and published novels when many struggle to complete a Twitter post. All in all, I’ve done okay.
But I haven’t reached the giddy heights of some, like the Olympic gymnast, the Nobel Prize in Literature winner, the world-renowned expert in nanoplankton, the wine sommelier placing an exalted blessing on a new vineyard. The joy/curse of being born the same day as Princess Diana constantly reminds me some people influenced the world in a far shorter time than I’ve been alive and kicking. Reaching the stars may require getting up earlier, planning ahead, dressing better, putting myself out there more with the essential thick skin that requires. It all sounds so … exhausting.
The second option would seem less strenuous. A simple talking to oneself: ‘That’s never going to happen, Tracey, let it go.’ Less strenuous, yes. Easier? No. Admitting you’ve missed the boat sticks in the craw a bit.
But it’s also struck me that so many of the targets I now realise I’ve missed actually weren’t ambitions until the deadline passed. In all honesty, I feared the asymmetric bars at school (being afraid of heights didn’t help) but I see those twists and turns on television and now wonder … could I have? If I’d had access to that striking sequinned leotard instead of being forced into the awful school-sanctioned baggy gym shorts and sweaty, bottle green polo shirt ensemble, could I have ‘perfect-tenned’ it to glory? I’ve marvelled at Nobel Prize-winning books, never aspiring to write anything even close. And yet, every now and then I write a sentence that seems to me quite brilliant in its revelation of the quintessential human spirit and I wonder; only another hundred thousand of those sentences to go and I could be off to Oslo. I’m not a strong swimmer and get claustrophobic in a dive mask yet perhaps I could snorkel my way to wherever nanoplankton live and discover something that gets named after me. Surely, if wine didn’t now make me so tired I fall asleep after half a glass, I could learn to sniff loudly into a glass of something fruity and pinpoint the location and vintage? It’s not too late. Is it?
I think we all know the answer to that. So what’s still open to me as I pass into another decade on this planet? What’s NOT too late? The answer is, pretty much everything I’m doing now. Writing something funny and entertaining (IMHO), even if not earth-shattering in its brilliance. Checking off a few more bucket list destinations. Volunteering in ways that may change another person’s life – think tutoring a struggling young reader or opening a door for a refugee. Learning more about this marvellous world, even if not to a PhD level. There is ample time for all this. And I’m already doing it. Tomorrow will be no different.
So I choose to age only a day tomorrow. I determine to push forward and let go in equal measure. I decree July 1st, 2021 will be the first birthday of all the rest. Not the last birthday of all the others. I may even have a glass of wine. If I can stay awake.
Images: Pixabay