There is no denying the fact that as you get older you think more about your past. Now, as someone whose view has always been of the future, that’s a little disconcerting. You can’t, after all, change the past whereas the future is yet to happen and is something you can affect. Aficionados, please refer to a Jackson Browne song, “Fountain of Sorrow”. So, is this about mere nostalgia, regrets or unfinished business? Or am I, perhaps, a little taken aback by the death of Cilla Black who was a year younger than me?
Well, I do like a bit of nostalgia. It can be very comforting, those thoughts of the sunnier, less pressured days of your youth. As for regrets, I used to say that I didn’t do these although; the truth is that I have enormous regrets. Most of these related to times during the ten years following my divorce when I thought less about how my actions might affect my eldest children than I would now. Not that I think that they see it that way. So, perhaps, as someone once told me, I should stop beating myself up in that regard. I had, in fact, done the best I could at the time. Not quite true.
Wishes? Certainly, I wish that I’d done a lot of what I’m now doing, writing, fifty years ago. Although, to be honest, I couldn’t have envisaged the life I might go on to lead that would form the basis for my books. So, maybe, that’s the price I’ve had to pay.
Which leaves me with unfinished business and that is certainly a real consideration. Those things that I still want, indeed, need to do. So I keep going, knowing that the chances are that I will. After all, it’s what I’ve been doing my whole life. So far. The problem is the time I may have left. So I do as much as I can to make sure that it’s a long as it can be. It’s also why, to quote Loudon Wainwright, I “Need a Double Lifetime”.