Day 360 – Sunday, May 7, 2017

I Wish I Knew

I’ve lived a life mashing betwixt
Zero and eighty, with little in between.
Either a blazing flurry of activity,
Or retrospective silence and tranquility

Although there’s little opportunity
To reflect while on the high end,
The sudden absence of everything on the low side
Is welcome –and befuddling

At zero, I’ve taken to reducing
To essential senses and contemplating.
Oftentimes, my mind wanders
To wishing I was young again;
Wishing I knew then, what I know now,
And how I would have change my actions,
Had I known

Post fifty, I walk away,
From more than I run towards.
That “does it matter?”
Is higher priority than
“Is it important?” and “Can I win?”

I wish I had known,
Failure teaches just as well as success.
That worry, fear and regret
Will be part of life regardless
Of how wild you were, or how safely you played the game

That staying in toxic situations, around toxic people,
Is a choice, –regardless of what you tell yourself.
That some promises should be broken.
But it takes the first fifty years,
To gain the wisdom of which ones and when

And I sure wish I had this brain
When I had that body!
Oh, what a pair we would have made…

But life works the way life works.
And technically, fifty-five
Is still considered “young” in some arenas.
So, I choose to still dive deep and take risks,
With all this mental capital I’ve earned.

But I will try to bite my tongue,
When tempted to say,
“When I was your age…”

© Maureen (Mo) O’Brien
C U Tomorrow,|
-Mo