All my life I’ve heard people say live a life so you don’t have regrets when you get old. So now I’m old. What does this even mean? How can you not have regrets? I always wondered how that happens. It always comes up in movies when the guy takes off on the Harley without a helmet and a bottle of Jack in his backpack driving off into the sunset. Or when the cool girl dumps the jock and takes off in a convertible with the nerd because she figured who treated her like gold and who just wanted arm candy. I can honestly say I never ran into those situations myself. I do have this or that we won’t talk about in my past that ended up making memorable times. But no regrets?? Hell yeah, I have lots. And anybody that reads this is a liar if they say they don’t. Just laying the truth out there.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not bitter but there were choices that weren’t made that should have been. Realizations that were never understood until years later. And now I sit thinking. I need a do-over. Be honest, you want one too. Life is so damn backwards. We should be born with old-age knowledge and a full retirement. How can we know what we don’t know? How can we know the decisions we make can affect your life and the life of others years down the road. How can we know when it will be the last Sunday with the entire family fishing at the pond followed by a cookout at Grandma’s on a summer Sunday? I don’t regret one of those hot sunny days, but I do regret not doing it more. How could I know that freckle faced boy with the crooked smile, summer tan and ice blue eyes, rock hard abs and not a care in the world would be the one that got away. Pretty poison I called him. Damn choices, wrong decisions. Yes, if things had changed I might not be the person I am today, where I am today or have the same family. But how do I know it wouldn’t turn out the same just by another route to get here. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thankful. So thankful for my boys and grandkids. Have a roof over my head, food, etc. I’ve had my hard times and learned lessons along the way. But still. I need a do-over. Will full faith and knowledge that I have now.

Maybe it’ll come in the next life. Maybe all the lessons we learned here will be what we need to make the right choices the next time around. I don’t know but I am excited and looking forward to finding out. All my life, my vision of getting old was this life in my head. You work hard all your life, you retire, you have time to spend with family and do things you never got to do. Take fun vacations, trash the alarm clock. But everybody glosses over the cold hard truth. Even if you’ve worked hard keeping your body in good shape, it still has issues. Heaven help you if you develop a chronic illness and your body fights you every single day. Ain’t nobody got time for that. All you want to do is go back to summer nights in a field with a certain person, talking, listening to the frogs and crickets. Take long drives down dirt roads in a big 4-wheel drive with slow bluesy country rock blasting. Take a detour or two until the moon rises. Spend a few more nights at your kids ball games. And now when you get those memories flooding in, you realize all that’s gone. Things you will never do again. And you have regrets and you get mad. Be honest. You get mad. I want to do all that again, I don’t want to get old and give it up. Maybe, just maybe I’ll just go buy a big truck and pick out the long, slow songs and do it again. Who’s stopping me? Mr. Grim reaper, honey, maybe you just have to wait a little longer……