Deep thoughts - watch out!

The fiancé celebrated his 30^th birthday last week and… I got to think about how short life really is.  When I was ten, I couldn’t wait to be a teenager.  When I was a teenager I couldn’t wait until I could drive and have some real freedom.  Once I got my license I couldn’t wait until I turned 18 and moved out to go to college.  I have no idea what happened to these last 10 years.  While I don’t regret a moment of any part of my life because I love my life, I would do a few things differently if offered the chance for a do-over. 

I would spend more time with my parents on Friday nights instead of with friends.  I would have looked at my brother as a built in friend instead of a sibling while we were still in the same house because my brother really is an awesome person.  I would have spent more time at my grandparents’ house because I never realized how lucky I was to have them in the same city…until they weren’t.  I would have tried to hang out with my cousins more because now that we’re all adults, I realize how awesome it would have been to get together with them more often then.  I wish I had fought less with my mom and been more appreciative of her efforts. 

In college, I would have spent more time with my best friends because I now realize that I didn’t have all the time in the world to hang out with them. 

Post-college, I wish I would have spent less time trying to find the perfect job and just enjoy things, moment to moment. 

Life is funny, how it works out.  In between 8^th grade and freshman year of high school, I was so convinced that high school would be the thing that changed my life.  Even just being a braces wearing, bangs sporting freshman.  The things I worried about then…so silly.  I wish 29 year old me could have shown 15 year old me what life is really about so I would have just enjoyed life more then – lived a little more.  Every day of my teens, I wished for time to move faster – I wanted to finish middle school, finish high school, move out of my parents’ house, etc.

Now days, I wish for time to slow down.  Whenever I am with my two closest friends, I wish that time would just slow down when we’re in the middle of that gut-wrenching laughter that only two people who know more about you than anyone in the world can induce.  I wish you all had the chance to meet my two closest friends.  Your life would change.  I can truthfully say this, because they changed mine.  

On the rare chance that my whole family gets together, I wish I could freeze little moments…high fives from my Dad when the Badgers score a touchdown at a game we’re at together, listening to advice from my sister-in-law, holding my niece in my arms.  I want to live life in those simple moments.  I can’t tell you when those things took on more meaning than anything else.  I want to take days, moments, and replay them over and over.

 I wish I had met my fiancé earlier and know what we both know now.  I wish we had more time to have kids and more time with each other.  I want to celebrate 25^th, 50^th, and 75^th anniversaries with him.  Whenever the fiancé and I are just talking after a long day of work, I want time to move even slower.  I wish I could keep all the people I have in my life now forever.  I wish I had learned 20 years ago how important racing is to me.  I wish I had more time to read all of the classics.  100 years is not enough – I simply want more time to live life.   

 Life is about moments, it’s about winning and losing and keeping the people close around you the care for you as you.  It’s about shaping who you are as it makes you happy.  Life is simply too short to sweat the small stuff.