Hindsight

Hindsight is perfect. When you are very old, not just older but someone with a short time left, and with a perfect thinking brain, you have hindsight. Very old means you have hours of time at your disposal. You don't have to run around trying to live a long life because as you munch your chocolate, you are already there. You did it kiddo. And now you are free of that mass of "must dos". How you got to the hindsight part of your waning life, makes you the master now of your fate. If you're smart, you don't let your kids or other loved ones rule your life. You rule your life because, hey, this is your last chance. You try to tolerate the bullies, cooers and doers who tell you they know better with their "trust me" injected into the convincer chats. At this stage you have developed your own secret strategies so that you don't always have to use the energy to play old and stupid. You go along with the flow. It's easier you have learned. Hindsight, is as lovely as a documentary tuned to you, but it can be rather cruel. It's where you see the realities you thought you didn't own. You see your  mistakes but you also see that you have blamed yourself for those that really weren't your fault,  but were the faults of the ones, the ones who made you feel guilty. Younger readers of this, those in their sixties and seventies will cluck, but it all happens if you live long enough. I love being ninety because now in solitude, I may face all the truths including the tougher ones that I tried to forget. Here they are: my mistakes, my accomplishments, but in the light of truth: the pile of prides and guilts and hurts and loves and bad and good times and all the things I should have done and didn't or wouldn't or shouldn't. It is like a sort of heaven and hell all rolled into one. I find it glorious to see, in hindsight, that whole open road, and it's clearly visible and very, very beautiful. A life is a miracle, and I am so grateful that mine was long and without sickness, grief or pain that couldn't be conquored with a medicine called Time. I still have some left over, and it's an endless dessert to savour.