Carpe Diem

You know that quotation by Mark Twain that people quote all the time: "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do"? Sometimes, I disagree with this quote. There are actions that people "seize the day" on that have a challenging, life-altering impact on their lives. And there are some stupid things I've done that I'll wish I hadn't done for the rest of my life. But there are times when Mr. Twain is right. There are certainly moments you come to where you must say to yourself, "I will! I will 'throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in my sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.'"

The biggest things I can think of that go with this are to get married and have children. What an adventure-- what a scary, new thing. On a smaller scale, this applies to our Disneyland trip, which we gave to ourselves after we graduated with our bachelors degrees. Was it super responsible when we were about to go into a bunch of debt for graduate school? Nope. But it was refreshing and exciting and fun and harmless. When I said, "We never do anything spontaneous anymore," Patrick said, "Let's go to Disneyland." We roped our friends into going with us, and the memory is lasting. It was perfect.

But the latest in the list of our brave, new adventures is . . . Patrick is getting Lasik eye surgery . . . today! He's been wanting to do it for a very long time. His desire to lose the glasses was reinforced when our friend Blake accidentally broke Patrick's glasses while whopping him with a pillow. Blake felt terrible, but Patrick was more annoyed at the glasses than at Blake. Who wants to limit their rough housing for a stupid little accessory! It was also reinforced during football season when it rained and rained and rained, and Patrick couldn't see a thing through that stupid windshield on his face. And the sooner the better we realized when my dad got Lasik eye surgery, and then discovered that he still needed reading glasses. Doh. How disappointing. So, we decided that with our tax return this year, he could use it to get his eyes corrected.

Now it's been a crazy semester, as I've already mentioned. But football season with intramural football is on its way. So the other day, he mentioned it. And I said, "If you want to do it, do it." And (as long as he doesn't go blind) I think this will be one of those things that we're delighted that we did. So farewell, harbor! Today dreams will be fulfilled.