Wishes

At my age (62, what of it? Okay, and a half – sheesh!) it’s sort of unavoidable to look back from time to time and think about the things you wish you’d done or wish you’d not done or wish you’d done differently. Should I have held out for college after high school or at least gone into the Coast Guard rather than the Navy? Or perhaps I should have gone ahead and done the Navy thing and then right through college. Or should I have followed the original plan and gone into the seminary – NOT!

Should I have stuck with and devoted myself to singing or more seriously pursued writing back when I wrote the first (unsold) book?

Which girlfriend should I have treated better or just differently or walked away from earlier?

Yeah, these are the sort of things I suppose we all think about from time to time. But the truth is, if I had a Wayback Machine, I wouldn’t want to make any changes that interfered with my ending up where I now find myself – Mary and Daughters One and also Two, a few cherished friends, a job that matters.

So, what if I could change not the events or people in my life but rather, what I learned and when. Now THAT is mebbe worth thinking about. Off the cuff, a terribly incomplete list might include:

1)      I wish I’d understood at sixteen or seventeen that THEY (girls) were as scared of not being asked as WE (boys) were of asking. I wonder how much that’s changed.

2)      Continuing along the same thread, I wish I’d understood mu-u-uch earlier that most of the guys who talk about their exploits haven’t had them and ALL of the guys who talk about their exploits are jerks.

3)      I wish I’d known at a younger age that my sense of what is right was usually fairly spot on…

4)      …and my sense of what joke would be appropriate for a given situation was usually not. Truth be told, this continues to be a problem from time to time.

5)      I wish I’d had the slightest inkling of a fashion sense. Not that I wanted to be Mr. GQ but when I look at old pics…damn! What was I thinking?

6)      I wish I’d put more thought into my choices of reading matter. Reading stupid books were never going to make me more educated, thoughtful or human but I read what I found easy and entertaining for so many years – well, I wouldn’t mind a do over on that one. I might be able to go back and change this and still meet Mary when we were both ready – think?

7)      I wish I had treated some people better and that I’d demanded better treatment for myself from others. I don’t suppose that makes me unique.

8)      I wish I’d understood at an earlier age that no one deserves more than they are willing to put out.

9)      I wish I had studied harder, earlier in some areas and that I’d understood the value learning, earlier.

10)   I wish I’d understood that being cool and acting cool aren’t the same thing…

11)   …and the same goes for being intelligent and being smart.

12)   I wish I’d understood the importance of just shutting up and listening.

13)   I wish I’d spent more time noticing. A body can never do too much noticing.

But if I had it to do over again, and if I had to choose between being wiser and being kinder, I hope I’d choose kinder. In the end, I think that would also be the wise choice.