If you're expecting me to say that I regret not moving the Hawaii sooner you'd be wrong. Truthfully, I have no regrets about that. If I had done things sooner, then I would not have had the experiences to appreciate my current life. I like living in Hawaii because I know what's its like to swelter in the humid heat, to battle black flies, greenhead flies, mosquito hoards, and ticks. To live through hurricanes and monster thunderstorms. To have my boots sucked off my feet by spring mud. To slip on ice, to have to feed my horse and dogs in a howling blizzard, to have toes and fingers so cold that they're almost frost bitten. Trying to drive 30 miles to work in 10 inches of unplowed snow is no fun. Or the worry of having big electric bills to pay for heat and air conditioning, huge real estate taxes, car payments and a mortgage, bills coming in from all angles. Of being pressured to wear the right clothes, present the right image, to excell at everything, to compete with everyone.
Do I regret not becoming a farmer from the get-go? No. It would have been a different life, but I would not have the perspective and knowledge that I now have. What I am, I am comfortable with. I have no regrets spending the bulk of my life in veterinary medicine.
Do I regret not going to agricultural high school? Perhaps, but again, I would have taken a different path through life. Who knows which path would have been better. If I had gone to ag high school, I would not have met my future husband nor lived my future life.
Miss Farmgal wanted to know if I regretted getting married. Um, how should a woman married 40+ years answer that one? What regrets might visit me surely were never strong enough to cause divorce, obviously. What sort of life would I have had if I never got married? Who knows. It would have been very different. But I have no more regrets about living a married life than the woman who never married does living her life. I've befriended many an unmarried older woman who wondered if they missed out on life by never marrying. Who can say? Is it just dreaming about what's on the other side of the fence? Is the grass really greener?
Do I have regrets going through life? Of course. I'm not one of those people who claim that they wouldn't change a thing. But none of my regrets are any that are important enough to put on my tombstone or that would be worth whispering to my hospice nurse. Yes, hospice nurses say that they hear plenty of regrets being voiced.
Most of my regrets are silly things, cases of hindsight. Things like...I wish I hadn't wasted so much money. I wish I had saved more for retirement (hey, how was I to know I'd live this long? ) Or... I wish I had brought my winter clothing with me to Hawaii. The sort of stuff.
My lack of regrets most likely means that I'm pretty satisfied with my current life. I can recall having regrets 15-20 years ago during the time I was stressed, unhappy, drowning in worry, bills, and the rat race. I felt that I was running as hard as possible but getting nowhere, or maybe worse - sinking downhill. Looking back, making our escape from that life was one of our best moves. But how we mustered up the guts to do it amazes me today. It was pretty nervy on our part to ditch it all and start out new. But once we both adapted to this new life, we're both happy that we did. No (significant) regrets.
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