Don’t you ever wish…
…that you could just start over ? I was talking to my mother yesterday; it was her birthday. I asked her if she remembered how she felt when she was young and if she ever imagined that she would be where she was now.
She told me that she remembers everything from the past, and I believe her, because she never forgets. She said she remembers going to school and being shy. She recalled meeting my father and knowing that she loved him, even when they were just kids living across the street from each other in the big city in Vietnam. I especially enjoyed how she laughed and confided in me that she knew that he was the only man she would love and made me swear not to tell him, so that she may still continue to make fun of how dorky he was as a kid.
My mother told me that she never imagined that she would be where she was now, living in the midwest of the great United States of America. She never thought she would struggle the way she does now. And she never imagined that what is considered half her life would pass her by so quickly.
I feel like I’m already losing track of my days. I’ve been told that with adulthood comes routine, and with routine comes loss. Sure, a routine may allow you to keep track of all the things you need to do and all the things you ought to be doing, but it strips you of that sense of adventure. What you lose when you fall into routine is waking up and feeling like it’s a new day.
I don’t want to forget that it’s a new day. Every day is a new day.
I’m still so painfully young. And if all goes as planned, I’ll still have many more years ahead of me. Still, the years go by so fast, and I seem to learn so slow.
“I regret that it takes a lifetime to learn how to live.”
All the time, I wish I could start over. I don’t want to do anything differently. Everything that happened in the past has made me who I am today. The reason I wish I could do it all again is because I just want to experience it. I want to play that scene again. There’s no pause button on life, but there should be.
I want to experience all the tragedies so I can smile even wider during the great times. I want to feel the hot pavement on the soles of my bare feet when I’m running up the driveway during the summer. And I want to fall in love over and over again with life.
I don’t think there’s anything more beautiful than being able to live and breath and think and love. And love. And love. And love.
When I’m 51, my mother’s age, I want to look back on my life and feel the same surprise that she did. I want to remember everything vividly and smile about it. And I want to not understand how life passed me by so quickly because I was enjoying it too much to notice my days slipping away. And I want to look ahead and continue to grow.
All the time I wish I could start over. All the time.
