Making up for lost time?

Making up for lost time can be bittersweet. I have a daughter who has not talked to me for many years now. I think of the time that has gone by and how we could have spent it together doing things we could never afford to do when she was younger. I think of how as adults we could and should have become good friends with talks by the fireplace and walking in the woods. She is over forty now and I am past 60 and the clock keeps ticking and ticking. I think of the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years that keep moving on by, each moment lost forever to us as this blanket of silence shrouds our lives. Time lost forever, or can it be made up? What if she suddenly decided that she wanted to have a relationship with me? Could we make up the lost time? If we started today to try to get to know each other; imagine the events that have changed our lives, the places we have been to, the books we have read, the movies we have seen, the funerals and weddings we have been to, the jobs and careers we have changed, the children grandchildren we have helped raise. So much that has changed each of us.

Difficult to imagine making up lost time, nevertheless, few of us would not try if given the opportunity. It is a bittersweet opportunity because we may feel joy at the opportunity but also anger at the waste of time that could and should have been prevented. It might be water under the dam, but it will always seem like a waste. I have known brothers and sisters, parents and siblings and former friends who did not talk to each other for over fifty years. Unfortunately, some of them died and so did any possibility to make up for lost time. There are no guarantees in life and if you choose to waste time or lose time, perhaps you will never be able to make it up. It might be too late when you finally realize your mistake and ask yourself WHY? You will be left with regrets about what might or could or should have been.

Perhaps you have no control over your lost time. Time spent in jail, time spent recovering from an accident, and time spent in a relationship that was wrong may all constitute lost time. Lost time is time away from life that could have been lived much differently. It is time that could have been spent more productively and happily. Can this time be made up? Better to not lose it in the first place. But if you have lost it, then do your best to get on with you life. Live each day the best you can. As they say with money, don’t throw good money after bad. Do not throw good time after bad. The lost time is over and you have the rest of your life to live. If you can live each day the best you can, you will be able to put the lost time behind you and perhaps even forget it someday. Then again, maybe the time that was lost was a lesson and you needed to hear the message it was sending. A good friend of mine was fond of saying: “There are no mistakes in life only lessons to be learned.” I think of this comment often. It is a good lesson to remember.

Do you have any lost time to make up? Are you currently losing time that you should not be losing? Have you thought about how you can stop losing this time? What can you do today to make it