No regrets!!!

It's been quite awhile since I sat at my computer, candle lit, glass of pink wine poured and wrote.  Finally, I am here to say a few things...

The last four months have been a whirlwind.  Health issues, visits to Peru, Holidays, a visit to Phoenix for spring training and trying live my purpose has kept me overly busy.

My house is quiet tonight and I want to  share a few thoughts about what has been rattling around in my brain.

Time is flying don't you think?  My kids are young adults, my husband is going to be 56 years old...looking hard at 60, and my brother in law is going to be 70.  Where did the time go?  It went every day in the minutes and hours that I tried to get caught up.  Caught up for what?  To relax and sit around and admire my stuff?

To compare what I have to the next person?  I say no but what the heck is going on?

If I am brutally honest...probably.  I have come to learn that I am only good at living in the moment when I am sitting by a bedside with a person who's time is limited.  Then, I can sit and look at them and talk about whatever they want to and time goes by and I am in the moment.  Otherwise, I am driving in my car thinking about all the laundry that is sitting on the laundry room floor that needs to be put in the washer, or the cat litter box that needs to be scooped, the charting that is not completed or getting to the gym because I am too fat!

I am humbled because, so many times, I am introduced to family members that have come from points unknown because a person is dying.  The person is not responding to voice or touch, but lying there breathing and very comfortable.  I tell the family that they can still hear what they are saying and that they need to say everything they ever wanted to because this is it.  Then, in a quiet voice, they tell me they were going to come last year but things got really busy and the time got away from them and they really wished they came when the patient was going through treatment to let them know what they meant to them.  I always tear up and tell them it's okay and that at least they are here now and to tell them everything.

You see, we all get busy.  We need the next thing or our kids need the next thing.  Oh, and then there are college funds for the best college there is.  I learned my lesson, I thought,  with my mother as she went through chemo and then died.  I showed up long enough to take her home and let her die in the living room.  Regrets and wishes I could have gotten a do over...

Then, after my father had a massive heart attack and had no heart function, you would have thought it was pulling teeth to visit him.  Yeah, he was hard to get along with because he felt lousy and knew he was dying but you know, I had little kids and they were so smart in elementary school that they could't miss.  Regrets...you  betcha!

Now after those two episodes when I shoulda, coulda, woulda...I try to live my life without regrets when  it comes to those I love.  But, we are human and we are not perfect so we make mistakes.  It is also so much easier to think people are going to live longer than they do.  It helps us live with the fact that we love someone so much and it will hurt when they are gone.

But, we don't know what is going to happen tomorrow even though we plan it out.  Tomorrow is not guarenteed, never has been really. The one who leaves this earth or has the funny pain that takes us after awhile may be us.  Or it may be someone that you meant to call or meant to stop by but never got around to it. 

I have decided that I want to live with no regrets.  I want to make sure that the people that mean something to me know it.  I want to spend time with my husband, my kids and the family that want to spend time with me.  I don't want to show up to sit at a bedside and watch someone breathe for the last time....I want sit with them  with a glass of pink wine and laugh about all the good memories that were made in the time that I was living in the moment with them.

Because, as my sister says "there aren't too many shopping days until Christmas" and what she means is...life is too damn hard and short, so we need to forgive and forget, visit often, and remember the good times.  There will be bad times and suffering and before you know it, you will be old and have regrets.

So, live each day as if you don't have another one and love the people you love and maybe some you don't!

We'll tawk tomorrow,

I love you all,

Terry