Do you ever wish life had a rewind button? You know…so you can go back and reclaim missed opportunities. I was using the rewind button on my DVR quite a bit today as I listened to President Obama’s speech on his plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan for an article I am writing. I would have missed a lot of important facts had I not been able to do that.
But life doesn’t have a rewind button, so what we often get stuck with are regrets. Which reminds me of one of those moments that not only do I have regrets about but I will also admit was an extremely embarrassing one for me.
Several months ago I was grocery shopping with my daughter. We were by the meats section and she was patiently waiting by the cart while I looked through the selection of ground beef. I was pretty wrapped up in what I was doing so when I heard someone talk next to me, I didn’t quite catch what they said. But then I heard a male voice say my name and I looked up to see a guy that took me a few moments to recognize.
He was someone I had hung out with in the past. I wouldn’t even say I dated him…more or less went out a few times. Well I was not happy at all to run into a guy from my past with my teen daughter standing nearby. I wanted to end the conversation as quickly as possible but he seemed intent on talking.
To be honest, I don’t remember much of the conversation because I could feel my daughter’s eyes on me and I just wanted it all to go away. The only thing that stuck out was when he asked me, “So are you still kicking it?” He honestly sounded like one of those California surfer dudes, you know, like totally dude…sorry but I’m just trying to give you a picture here.
My response was a sarcastic, “No, I’m not still kicking it,” thinking that I’m a 40-something old married woman with three kids…I am most certainly not still “kicking it.” I think he eventually caught on that I wasn’t interested in talking and when we walked away, I could feel my face turn red. I didn’t want my daughter to see that. I didn’t want to explain to her who this guy was.
Of course she thought the whole thing was hilarious and couldn’t wait to tell my husband about it when we got home (don’t you just love kids?). She couldn’t believe I had ever hung out with the guy…frankly, I couldn’t either. But yet…it is still one of those moments that I wish I could rewind back to.
Do you know why? Because when he asked if I was still kicking it, I would have replied, “Well actually now I’m kicking it with Jesus” and I could have gone on to tell him all about the change in my life. But I was so focused on ending that moment, on how I looked to my daughter and wondering what I had been thinking back then…well it was a lost opportunity that can’t be redone.
What opportunities in life have you missed out on? What times in life do you wish you could press the rewind button and go back? While we may not be able to do that, we can do something now. We can determine that we won’t live a life of regrets and instead, we will make the most of every opportunity we have.
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