I find myself spending much time in retrospection these days. I wonder if that is just a normal habit for us as we age or if I'm just wired differently from others. It's so easy to think, "If I had known then what I know now, I would have done so much differently." What a gigantic waste of valuable time! I know we all made mistakes as we grew up. First, when we were young; later as adults, raising families, spending all our time providing the necessary things we needed for our children's health and welfare, providing for our own eventual aging process, and we spent so much time doing all the many things we had to do and not enough time doing what we see now would have just been so much fun and would have taught our children not to fret quite so much and to truly enjoy each and every day. As a parent, I regret a lot of times I spent angry over what I now know to be trivial things. I truly believe, though, that if you asked them, they would probably not even remember those times and yet I have been beating myself up over them. Like I said before, "What a GIGANTIC waste of time!" As a grandparent, I can spend time now sitting in the mud with my granddaughter, discovering what it feels like to squish slime between our fingers. I wish I had taken the time to teach her mommy what it felt like! Maybe that is just a job for grandmas. I have started reminding myself lately that I don't live in the past. Now is now and it doesn't do me or anyone who has to be around me any good for me to live full of regrets. I don't live in the future either so I am not going to worry about what hasn't happened yet. I choose to live now, in the present. Maybe we should all look at our life in the present as a present; a wonderful present, given to us by God and meant for us to enjoy, like opening a gift on our birthday. I am going to try and then hope the attitude rubs off on all around me.