“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There’s a crack – a crack – in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen
Travels With Maggie
I don't want to stay forever young, like Peter Pan, who is shown here through Epcot's imaginative gardeners, I just want to live life to its fullest. -- Photo by Pat Bean
I have a purple, business-card sized, magnet placed where I can see it daily. It reads: “Destined to be an old woman with no regrets.”
Some people get it, some people don’t.
I suspect the foggy ones never woke up at 40 to realize the only regrets they had in life were the things they hadn’t done, which is exactly what happened to me.
Perhaps I went a little too far the next few years trying to catch up, but I didn’t do anything to cause me regrets, like hurting someone or stop being a person who truly cares about others, including wild animals. .
I simply stopped being perfect and afraid of living my life instead of the one society said a southern woman should live. After all, I had already done the barefoot and pregnant thing.
A motto to live by. -- Photo by Pat Bean
So what does living with no regrets mean to me?
Mostly it just means being myself and not letting fear of doing something I truly want to do keep me from doing it, regardless of who might disapprove. It means not lying, because lies eat away at one’s soul. It means laughing at myself often. It means loving people even if they don’t love me back.
And it means, to paraphrase a toast my youngest son gave at his sister’s wedding: Living so that when I die, I’ll know the difference.
Bean’s Pat: Fabulous 50s: Five Regrets From the Dying http://tinyurl.com/8xtgjhj Great blog, and the one that got me rethinking the foolishness of living with regrets.
Pat Bean's blog 
Good one Pat. At 40 I realized the world was a big place, I did belong, I did make a difference. There is a comforting feeling to realize when you finally reach this point.
I wonder why it takes us so long to finally wake up to life. It seems my real life didn’t begin until I hit 40, and then it started getting better every year. Thanks for dropping by Pat
I like how you “stopped being perfect”! Thanks for the link and hope your weekend is wonderful! ~Sherry~
You’re welcome Sherry, and a great weekend to you, too.
Pat, Both you and Sherry gave me something to think about today. I found you via your comments on her “Fabulous 50s” blog. I did the whole waking up thing when I turned 50 and had probably the best three years of my life 50, 51, 52. Then things just turned and I got lost again. Just the past couple of weeks I have been getting that wakeup call again in my head and have once again (as I am fast approaching 55) decided it is time to wake up again! You and Sherry have both inspired me and re-enforced my efforts.
I’m working on it.
M
Good luck on continuing your wake-up call Michelle. Thanks for dropping by.
Hi,
Isn’t it strange how 40 seems to be a turning point for a lot of people, the old saying “Live begins at 40” is sometimes so true.
I saw you mention your post on Travel Spirit blog, so I thought I’d pop over and have a read. Loved the post. 😀
Being a Cranky Old Lady, the quote is Leonard Cohen’s. Great one and practicing forgiving my obsessiveness in having to point this out. So hard to practice good enough, believe me I know. Hope you too can practice forgivenss.
Thanks Katherine. Nothing to forgive. I appreciate your setting me right. I’ll change it right away. And laugh as I do because it’s a perfect example of how I’m not perfect and that’s OK.
So very very true. Why is it that youth is wasted in the young. Can you imagine the insight we have now with a younger body? No limits !!
It seems like when we finally start getting it right we have fewer days ahead than behind. I guess we just have to make good use of those days. Tjanks for commenting Bella
Keep writing … Pat Bean https://patbean.wordpress.com
Pat, in your travels, have you ventured as far north as Alaska? If not, you are now officially invited…summertime, of course. When the red salmon are running! I enjoy your blog.
I drove the Alaskan highway in 2001, before I got my RV. I took a month off from work and took the Highway at the Top of the World through Chicken, visited Fairbanks, Anchorage, Denali and caught the ferry in Haynes for the return trip. I want to redo the trip in my RV, hopefully when the salmon are running. Thanks for the invite.
Life is an adventure. Go for it.