This morning I have been battling sadness and regret. I don't know what brought this on, but it is inexorably linked to my graduation at age 48. In 18 days I will get a degree that I wanted to get 28 years ago. A degree I should have gotten 28 years ago.
Things happen, life throws you curve balls when you are sitting on a fastball. Your dreams aren't always as important to others as they are to you. Time rushes on. As my friend Rick Elias penned; "In the blink of an eye it all changes"
For the past few days I have been lamenting...maybe grieving...the years that have gone by. Especially the last 3 1/2 when I was living in my car. I didn't have my usual alternating weekends with my daughter during that time. From age 10 until age 13 I couldn't spend overnights with her. Couldn't tuck her in at night. Couldn't make breakfast for her. No long talks after dinner, no watching our favorite TV shows or a funny movie. I lost a lot of time that I can't recover. ...and I regret it
I regret that this immeasurable feeling of success and confidence and achievement was so long delayed. I wonder what I might have become had I followed a traditional track and received my degree on time.
I wonder how my life might have been different if my father had a desire to be a part of it. Or what might have happened had I never moved to Nashville.
I can't get those years back. All I can do is take ahold of the reins and make sure the next 48 years are full and exciting and something I can be proud of. I can look at the time I have remaining with Morgan before she goes off to college as a chance. An unpainted canvas that God has spared from the moth and the pestilence. 4 years of her daddy being happy for the first time in his life. Happy, fulfilled, successful.
...but with a twinge of regret.
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