Encapsulating a Life

Why does it always seem that clarity comes in the middle of the night, when one should be sleeping? I had one of those sleepless nights on Friday. The dog awakened me needing to go outside. When she finally came back in the house, she also needed a drink of water....now you must understand that when a Newfie is thirsty, it needs a LOT of water to quench that thirst. Five minutes and a second bowlful of water later, Maddie was ready to sleep again, and I was WIDE AWAKE!!! So, off to the computer to do a little writing. I needed to write a little paragraph about myself for a journal page for a farmgirl group that I participate in. I set about the task of encapsulating my life into one paragraph. Now, the story of my life has taken 50 years with lots of chapters and twists and turns for sure. But I started to wonder about how much of that we re-visit as we exit this world. So in preparation for my eventual departure, I wrote this paragraph as an exercise in taking stock of my life with the hope that when I do depart this world I will be satisfied with my time spent here.

So here it is....the summary of my life:

"At some point in my life I realized that when all was said and done, I would not regret the things that I had done but rather the things that I had not done. And so it has been my policy to do as much each day as I can possibly do. I consider myself one of the most blessed women that I know. I have known deep sorrow, pure joy and everything in between. I am truly happy. I have known amazing love and am married to my best friend. I have had the joy of raising two unique and wonderful children who are grown and independant. I am blessed with good friends, loving family, and a lifetime of wonderful memories. I have had the luck of good health, the privilege of a good education and the satisfaction of a meaningful job as a nurse. I have had the good fortune to be able to climb a volcano, swim with dolphins, snorkel with fur seals, and crawl a mile down under the ground on my knees and elbows to see a cave of glo-worms. I have been skydiving, scuba diving, white water rafting and hot-air ballooning. There is nothing that I long to do that I have not done."