FROM MY LIFE

Life Happens, Don’t Regret!

Sometimes dreams should just remain dreams

From somewhere in my twenties, I have always said when I’m old and probably — who knows?! — in a care home, sitting in my chair and looking out the window, deep in thought, I don’t want to look back on my life and think of the things I wanted to do, but didn’t.

I don’t want to have any regrets.

Our biggest regrets are not for the things we have done, but for the things we haven’t done. ~ Chad Michael Murray

No life is without regrets

In the past years, as I grow older, and learn more about myself and life, I understand no life is without regrets.

Or maybe we shouldn’t call it regrets.

Life takes us on many twists and turns. Sometimes the things we dream of, those things we would love to do, just don’t fit in with where life is taking us.

Should you then regret you have never done it, or should you be grateful for the things you have learned on that unexpected path of life, despite not being able to follow your dreams?

Maybe sometimes dreams are meant to be just that: dreams.

My mom had dreams, but no regrets

One thing my mom had always dreamed about was to make a train trip on the Trans-Siberian Express. She never got to do it. In those last six months of her life, she mentioned it once, not saying she was sorry she couldn’t take the trip, but that she was grateful for all the trips she had made.

She won three trips at the casino — a weekend trip to England, a 10-day trip to Thailand and a 5-day Christmas shopping trip to New York. She took her grandchildren to England, my oldest to Thailand, and me to New York.

Other trips she had gone on was driving to England to visit family, going to Paris with her oldest sister, taking her other sister to England to see the Night of the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall and also on a bus trip to Italy, and she flew to South Africa many times to visit family.

There might have been only one regret she had: never marrying the love of her life. And you know, maybe she never regretted that either, because of all the wonderful things she had experienced, and the other loves she had.

Things in my life that could be regrets

I can regret the fact I had a child when I was sixteen, but that would be like wishing my daughter away. It wasn’t easy seeing my peers having fun while I had a child to raise, but there was no way I would’ve wanted to trade with them.

There are two divorces I can regret, but those marriages had taught me valuable lessons about myself, and made me a stronger person.

Despite what I had learned about myself during those two marriages, it was only in my forties I really got to know myself and my preferences better. I can regret it only happening in that stage of my life, but I believe it was only then I was ready for the knowledge; ready to understand myself better.

One thing I will never regret is leaving my country of birth to immigrate to The Netherlands. That was one of the best decisions of my life and gave my children the safety and stability any child should have.

Turn negatives to positives

Of course, there are things I regret. No big things, but incidents I wish hadn’t happened. Decisions I wish I hadn’t made.

I look upon those with the eyes of now; the knowledge I have now. Sometimes looking back makes me feel down, and then I remind myself of the circumstances I lived in at the time those things happened, or I made those decisions. Then, analyzing it, I know I did the best I could’ve done with the knowledge I had then.

Hence, I try not to dwell on those, but prefer to see the positive in them, to understand why then-me did what she did, and I take with me the lessons I have learned.

The quote

I look back on the quote above, and hope that when I sit there in that care home, I will be like my mom: grateful for the things I have done, and not regret the things I haven’t.

I’m the forever-optimist…

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