Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

[len51]

My wife and I are in our mid sixties and are looking back on our life. It is funny that what was our normal, seems so different now. Early in my life, an old man told me how he and his wife put off everything they wanted to do until they retired. The problem was that his wife died 6 months after his retirement. To add to that, my dad had a debilitating heart attack 6 months after he retied which cancelled most of his retirement plans.

 

I swore to do everything I wanted to do in life, at the first opportunity I got. I wanted to bend live to fit me and not fit into life. The story is long and interesting but the result is that my wife and I shared a girlfriend that we both loved since we were teens. She was the third in our marriage until 5 years ago over our 40+ year marriage.

 

My wife and I look back and realize how lucky we were to find a woman to share our love with who we never once argued with or was the cause of jealousy. We lived like this since we were 23 and so it was the life we knew best. It was really a major adjustment when we were just a couple again and did not have another women in bed with us. It took us 2 years of depression and not knowing how to live as two, before we adjusted.

 

Now we look back and realize that you never know what you have until you lose it. We miss our old life very much. My wife can no longer use me for bait to get women to join us in bed. My IQ, which is in the 99.7 percentile is hampered by memory problems and mental confusion. I still have my sense of humor but I am not longer the stud that girls talked to other girls about due to medical issues and ED. It is true that youth is wasted on the young.

 

On the other hand I had a great career, even making it into the top two in the world ,and co-authoring a book that is still THE reference for the industry. I appeared on TV and was quoted in newspapers. I had money, fast cars, big houses, custom made clothes and power. Then I threw it all away when i was 50 in return for a 3 day work week and working from anywhere in the world where there is an internet connection. So far I have worked in 21 countries and perhaps there is one more on the horizon. I have not seen snow in a very long time and do not miss it. In the end, my wife and I are from very poor families and are most comfortable living a middle class life. We tried the high life and did not like what we became. Now I wear shorts, tee shirt and sandals every day and make my own work hours. Life is good and with a heck of a lot less stress so I also wonder if the good old days were really that good.

[truthtripper]

.......if you are looking backwards you can't see forwards..

I spent most of my life running forwards ie-away from my past pain. This caused my nervous breakdown, which forced me to look back and face my past for what it really was. I believe denial is what causes unhappiness, an unwillingness to face and really acknowledge the resulting grief from one's past traumas. When I began to make connections between my present and my past, my present started making sense. After decades of therapy I still suffer from PTSD, but it makes me happy that I now embrace and honour my feelings rather than reject and push them away as I used to. Accepting ourselves along with all our accompanying emotions and feelings I think is vital in achieving self-compassion and thus self-contentment.

Edited March 30, 2016 by truthtripper