So, another year has passed us by. A year, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds. Gone forever. Nope, can't call a do-over, can't change your actions, your emotions, or your behaviors. Can't take back something said in a moment of frustration and anger, can't change a decision you made on the 4321st hour of last year, and you certainly can't relive the glorious 995,000th second of 2011. All of that doesn't exist anymore. It's in the past now, as it should be, as it's supposed to be. For better or for worse. And I like it that way.
My Nana taught me to never live with regrets. She told me that she regretted the majority of her life. She questioned why she didn't do the things she really wanted to do. She stated that if she had the chance to do a do-over that she would make all different decisions. Right before she died she told me to LIVE and live deeply because you don't get a second chance. "Dance, Mich, and don't stop dancing, even if you fall down," she claimed. (She was a dancer, always wanted to be on Broadway and she should have been)
I greatly loved my Nana. She was a foul mouthed, outspoken, brash, sexy, strong, opinionated woman (wore 4 inch heels well into her eighties - street credit in my eyes). She once said to me, while I attempted, without success, to breast feed my son, that I should give up trying because "only peasants breast feed their babies." In my younger years she advised me that I should always have lunch in a hospital cafeteria in hopes of meeting a nice, Jewish doctor. That same opinionated, outspoken woman, who (even though she was nuts) I thought LIVED her life HER way, did not. She died with regrets and a broken heart. That knowledge broke my own heart, and I vowed to stay true to my soul and my reason, and live my life without asking for moments back.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no angel. I have done things in my life that would not be described as wholesome (as a special person in my life often likes to remind me). I still do from time to time. But I do so with my Nana's blessing, the fact that we go around only once, and the knowledge that out of the 31,536,000 seconds in a year, I'm dancing through all of them, good and bad, without regrets, and not asking for do-overs.
Bring on 2012!
Make it a great year!
All my love,
Michey
