The Emotional Side of Aging

Photo by Anika Huizinga on Unsplash

Today I was driving near City College and a few young girls passed me on their morning jog. Not together. They came one after the other. It was one of the rare times that reality sort of grabs my attention, reminds me of yesteryear, and I feel a deep sense of loss as it goes sashaying by. It hit me how these young people have so much opportunity ahead of them, so many choices that they can make, so many different directions they can take. And I felt excited. For them.

But it is a melancholy day when you realize that most of your major life decisions have already been made. You have already had your chance to choose a career, the size of your family, the man/woman of your dreams, the place to call home, you’ve rounded third, you know, not much to do now but slide.

Now, this is just an observation, and nothing more.

This is not a letter of regret, confessions to my past loves, or anything of the sort. I realize that life is not over and there is still plenty to do and choices to make. But they’re just not the BIG ones. And there are times I’d welcome a do-over on the BIG ones.

I know a lot of times people look back and many of them say, “I wouldn’t change a thing” — I wonder how true this statement is. I wouldn’t have it any other way either as far as the friends I’ve made, the family that I have, and the daughter that has blessed my life like no other.

And yet, there are so many things I would’ve done differently.

If I’d only thought things through a bit more. If I would’ve known that so much depended on the decisions I would make. If I’d really taken this “life” thing seriously. Especially that old saying “life is short” or “in the end, it’s the blink of an eye.” I wonder where life would have taken me if I would’ve planned more as opposed to living the more free-spirited, “there are no mistakes” mantra. Could that even possibly be true? That there are no mistakes? If you want to feel comfortable in all of your choices, you can subscribe to that school of spiritual thought, that we really don’t have a whole lot of control over our destiny and that we are all exactly where we’re supposed to be in this very moment and all the others.

So then, this is it. Everything is exactly as it should be. Well, okay, things aren’t too bad, actually, they’re pretty good. It’s just that it would’ve been nice to have been consulted about my own divine plan.