Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose garden.

(T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets)

In Melbourne last week I ran into a friend from our school days. Memories of those halcyon days shimmered between us as we spoke, time when the years ahead appeared to stretch endlessly and forever. We spoke of friends, teachers we remembered, acquaintances who had dropped off the radar.

We returned momentarily to those hot, dusty summer days in Gippsland, when some of us left that country town and made our way tentatively, nervously towards the city and a very different life, full of new adventures, a tertiary education (first in the immediate family) and an exciting future.

Now as I reach the quieter years of my life, I reflect back at different paths I may have chosen, different passages I may well have found myself, and whether decisions made and consequences which inevitably followed would have changed me into a very different person to the one I am today.

It is all about chance. Of all the chances we have in this life, and there are many, I believe three are critical.

The first is the family you are born into.. sheer chance.

The second is whether or not we choose a tertiary education beyond secondary school, because once that decision is made it offers new opportunities, a host of new people who become part of our future; life opens many fantastic new doors.

The third major chance, perhaps the most critical, is the partner you choose to spend your life with, and with whom you share family and hopefully the rest of your life’s journey, although I appreciate that quite often life intrudes into that dream.

Down that passage I didn’t take lie other hopes, other dreams. In fact that passage is littered with hopes and dreams, chances that never evolved. What of those first exciting days of a student romance (that ended in tears and heartbreak); the great job offer I passed over; the chance of promotion I refused because of family commitments; the opportunity to work in serious theatre which I never pursued because I simply didn’t have the courage to take on insecurity and the unknown; promising investment opportunities that never eventuated?

Those doors and many more never opened for me. Do I have regrets now, as I share time with my husband, my children, my grandchildren? No, I have found my rose garden.

No, no regrets. Better to relish the moment, enjoy the day, look back gracefully at the challenges life has thrown us and which we have survived, and treasure each “bran’ new day” with family and friends.