My oldest sister, Margaret, died yesterday. Two sisters in one month. I'm so sick of loss, wasted chances, wasted life. It's been a rough six months altogether.
I don't have anything erudite to say this time. No guidance or recommendations, no pithy words of advice. All I know is that if I can't learn a lesson from my two sisters' shortened lives, I don't deserve to walk the earth.
I've never been a risk taker. I've led a pretty narrow and prescribed life, have always been a rule-follower, adhering to convention, protocol, and others' expectations of me. I plan to change that, to start poking at the edges of external expectations, to move more and more outside of my comfort zone, and to really not give a damn what people think .
This is something I wrote when I was trying to decide what to do and where to go when my marriage was imploding, and had thought of moving to New York. I regretted not having taken any risks and another thing I'm sick of is regret:
He says, "You always wanted to live there." Well,
no. Not always, but since the day we sat in a cafe
and my eyes opened to the life of the city. I am envious
of the young ones
who haven't let life fly by them,
who haven't been afraid to risk safety
to live a life self-defined. I, on the other hand,
have taken safety.
A steady paycheck in exchange for a life other-defined.
What would my life have been if once, just one time, I'd said
No.
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Thought of the day:
Fear is stupid. So are regrets. (Marilyn Monroe)
*with thanks to Bruce Hornsby
