WASTED MOMENTS
I HAVE WASTED A LOT OF
MOMENTS IN MY LIFE, TOO MANY PRECIOUS MOMENTS AND I WISH I COULD GET THEM BACK
SO THAT I COULD DO MORE CONSTRUCTIVE THINGS IN MY LIFE.
FOR INSTANCE:
- · I have played too, too much Spider Solitaire on my laptop.
- · I have slept in too late on sunny weekend days. Some days, I didn’t get up until 5:00 PM. Now, I’ve done this on rainy days and that is time well spent but I should have gotten on earlier on the sunny days.
- · Getting so drink that I threw up. There is just no excuse for that. The day needed to recuperate was just wasted.
- · Taking golf lessons when I was 12. My dad made all of us take lessons and I didn’t really care if that stupid ball went in that little hole or not. What’s the big, damn deal? Once day, he picked us up and noticed that my sister was pitching her ball in the hole when the Pro had his back to us. My dad got so damn made and told us that we couldn’t take lessons anymore if we weren’t even going to try. The end of that crazy time swiftly came to an end.
- · Trying to match my black trouser socks after I took them out of the laundry. What difference does it make if your black socks don’t match perfectly. Who really cares?
- · Making my bed every morning. OK, I have never made my bed in the morning so that was never wasted.
- · Over eating. What a waste of food, money, effort to lose weight and struggles with my physical mobility.
- · Five years of French class in high school. I have traveled the world and never used my French, not even in France.
- · All the stuff I purchased in my years of having expendable cash. Now I spend all of my time, boxing up my stuff and donating it to Goodwill or Salvation Army or Purple Heart. I spend too much of my day pushing my stuff off on other people and other organizations.
- · I bought a loom 30 years ago and took weaving lessons but I never used the loom but I’ve moved it from Williamsport to Abington to State College to Stroudsburg to Springfield and now to Maryland. I need to get rid of that thing.
- · Going to church to appease my parents. It just made me angry and voiceless.
- · Buying a Macintosh computer. I never learned to use it and by the time I learned to use a computer, this one was outdated and worthless.
- · Buying a sailboat. I bought a 14-foot, Oday sailboat. Through connections, I got a brand new trailer for it. I took a sailing course and a boat safety course. I bought life jackets and hauled the damn boat from NJ to PA where it sat for a year. Then I hauled it to MD and it sat in my driveway for two years and then I donated it to some Veteran’s organization. I never sailed it but I put a lot of time in to moving it around like a criminal on the run.
- · Watching the movie The Bridges of Madison County. When Clint Eastwood took his shirt off, I thought I was going to throw up. I felt like shouting into the screen, “Please. I am begging you. Put your shirt back on.” But I didn’t and I left shortly thereafter. I couldn’t even stay to watch the whole movie.
- · In 1977, I was a senior at Penn State and I won a spot in the sailing class, one option offered in PE. Everyone wanted to take this course. So the university had a lottery for this class. I won. We were bussed out to a nearby lake and 20 of us were taught to sail. The class scared the hell out of me. And maybe I should have been more forthright in letting my instructor know that I didn’t know how to swim. But if I had told the truth, I wouldn’t have been eligible to join the lottery. And I really didn’t plan to do any swimming in this class. I had no intention of getting out of the boat at any time. Anyway, the first class went ok. I was scared but not enough that I didn’t come to the second class. We had to take the boat out to the middle of the water and purposely overturn the boat, right it and get back in the damn boat. I was petrified and I wouldn’t do it. The instructor called to us via megaphone, several times and told us to capsize. My partner begged me to help her turn the boat over. And I begged her to paddle back to shore. “But I have a 4.0 GPA”, she cried, “I have to get an A in this course.” I felt sorry for her but not enough surrender. “Get me back to the dock and I will tell the instructor that I am dropping this course right now. I’m too afraid.” She cried a little bit but we paddled in and she was assigned a new partner and I walled back to the bus, relieved that I was now out of danger.
- · Spending too many summer afternoons at the beach, watching All My Children and General Hospital. I should have spent that time reading a good book.
- · Daydreaming in my high school classes. I think I was in a haze all through high school as I either slept or day dreamed my time away. I should have paid more attention, particular in the geography classes. Back then, I didn’t care about the world. Now, I can’t get enough information about peoples’ cultures and beliefs, foods and beliefs. And unfortunately, the only time I paid attention in Geography class was when we studied about Yugoslavia. As I kid, I thought I’d like to visit there one day. Lost opportunity, oh well.
- · Trying to be cool in high school. I wasn’t cool, am not cool now and will never be cool. So I am sorry I spent so much time trying to be cool to gain other people’s acceptance and admiration.
- · Being unkind to people. James Taylor wrote in one of his songs: “If I had cooled my head and warmed my heart, Id not be on this lonely road tonight”. There have been some verbal battles that attacked my pride more than anything else and I had to win at a cost that, in hindsight, was too much for my antagonist and for me.
- · Hating winter and the cold. I am not at the point of loving it. But I don’t fight it as much and that seems to help me get through those cold, dark months.
- · Overusing the snooze alarm. Those extra 9 minutes never helped me feel any more refreshed. It just caused another round of trauma as that annoying alarm rang throughout the room and buzzed through my head, awakening me with a startled beginning each and every day of my life.
- · Holding grudges over stupid pride.
- · Trying to get a suntan so that I looked healthy. Now at age sixty, my skin is spotted with sun damaged marks that tell of too much time in the sun.
- · Biting my nails.
- · Wearing makeup. I only wore makeup when I was in high school but I never got the hang of it and I tended to apply too much so I looked ghoulish at times.
- · Voting Republican. My dad was an adamant republican and he dragged us to one republican event after another as kids. When it came time to vote, I didn’t really have any choice in the matter. I had to vote Republican. But deep down, they were never my views so for a few elections, I didn’t vote because I didn’t have the courage to vote my own convictions.
- · Drink hard liquor. I can’t drink hard liquor. I am a beer drinker, not a wine drinker or a whiskey drinker, just beer. So when people push these other drinks on me, I drink them as if I am drinking beer. I gulp them and then consume too, too much. I hate to drink hard liquor.
- · My first job out of college was time poorly spent. I was desperate to get working so I took the first job offered to me. In this job, I was underemployed, made poor money, did not acquire any transferable skills and was not in my field of study. It did nothing to enhance my chances of a better job in my field. To add to the zero value of this jib, the three administrators of this company were all embezzling money and ended up in jail. So I couldn’t even use them as professional reference.
- · Every moment I spent eating liver and onions was a big, fat waste of my time. I hated the taste of liver and the evening usually results in a battle of wills with my mother who insisted I eat this vile piece of meat.
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