I've been catching up on some of your blogs. Please forgive me if I haven't visited in a while. For whatever reason, time has taken on a peculiar, undesirable dimension in my life and I seem unable to do those things I truly enjoy, like reading your blogs and writing my own.
But life has a way of giving us messages, if we listen. Several blogs I read mentioned a recent article about regrets during end of life. No I'm not dying. But I remembered some people I knew when I worked with terminally ill patients.
"My deepest regret is that I won't get to see my brother. Now we're both bed ridden, just waiting for death," he told me, as he struggled with his breath. "My brother has lived in Florida all his adult life. I stayed here in New York. We always meant to visit each other, but somehow we didn't make the time. Now it's too late."
This man's wife was terminally ill also. She lay motionless in another room. They were childless, and had accumulated a good amount of money.
I remembered another woman I knew. She died of cancer after marrying a sick, much older man. The plan was that she'd take care of him. In return he'd leave her all his money. But he survived her. I never witnessed a more bitter, reluctant death.
I don't mean to sound morbid. What I'm really intending to do is confess that I've been wasting time and making poor choices. Though I have no regrets for my life until now, lately I feel like I'm a grain of sand in the top side of an egg timer. Time is rushing fast, and I have lost control.
It occurred to me that if I were to invent a time machine, I would not make one that goes back in time, but rather I would make one that created or expanded time. It would be for people like me, for whom time shrinks, and becomes not enough.
Luckily, I know I can regain a positive perspective. I can reevaluate what I want to accomplish, even if it's only some quiet moments of reflection, writing, doing something I enjoy.
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"A day is a span of time no one is wealthy enough to waste."
Author Unknown
