Last week I got the Blue Light Special!
No, not the super sale at K Mart but a skin treatment on my face. My dermatologist decided that because of the sins of my youth…i.e. staying out in the Miami sun, barefoot, shirtless, without an ounce of sun tan lotion…I should get this treatment. So I dutifully went to his office and sat under a bright neon light, wearing classy yellow sun glasses, for exactly sixteen minutes and forty seconds.
To follow up on this procedure, I now wash my face three times a day, wait ten minutes, wipe my face with a special cream, and finish it off with a coat of cold aloe laced with lanicane (supposedly this helps the pain). It’s been a week now and the aloe has been replaced with a coating of Vaseline. (I have a very shiny face.) Next, my treated face is supposed to peel and in about three weeks from now I will have a whole new face. Well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you probably won’t recognize me because my facial renovation will have washed away all those nasty sun spots and I’ll look like I’m 60 again!
Ah, the sins of my youth. My dermatologist told me that if I had been more careful with sun exposure when I was a kid growing up in Miami I wouldn’t have all of these issues today. Of course, I probably wouldn’t have had any friends either! All this sort of begs the pondering question: “If I knew then what I know now, what would I do differently?” I could make a long list of “what if’s” :
I would listen more carefully to what my heart says.
I would enjoy more and worry less.
I wouldn’t worry so much about what other people were thinking.
I would play more, fret less.
I would know how much my parents loved me and I would believe that they were doing the best they could.
I would be braver.
I would look for the good qualities in everyone and enjoy them for those.
I would not hang out with people just because they were “popular”.
I would practice my piano lessons.
But I would still have stayed out in the sun, barefoot, shirtless, without an ounce of sun tan lotion.
All those “what if’s” are interesting to ponder, but really quite fruitless, don’t you think? It’s not reality. What is reality is the day-to-day life we live. The older I get the more I realize I can’t change the past. It is what it is, and all of those mistakes I have made have been a lesson. I have to take all of the good things with the bad…it is what defines me and my life thus far. Yes, perhaps if I knew then what I know now, I may have taken a different path…but then I wouldn’t be who I am today. I would be changed by that very path and the experiences that led me along it. Our past, even our mistakes, shape who we are, make up our personality and character. I like who I am now…so…as for myself, there’s not much I would change.
Of course I have learned a few things along the way. For example, I now am careful about staying out in the hot sun, I usually wear some sun tan lotion, I still go barefoot when I can, but I rarely go shirtless. Besides, the last time I took my shirt off out in public my daughter looked at me and said, “Oh, Daddy, gross!” That pretty much took care of that.
More and more along my life’s journey I have come to appreciate the moments that God gives me for this day and try to live this day to the fullest relying on the things I know. I invite you to do the same. Frederick Buechner says it like this:
Today. It is a moment of light surrounded on all sides by darkness and oblivion. In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another just like it and there will never be another like it again. It is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death. If you were aware of how precious it is, you could hardly live through it. Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.
“This is the day which the Lord has made,” says the 118th Psalm. “let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Or weep and be sad in it for that matter. The point is to see it for what it is because it will be gone before you know it. If you waste it, it is your life that you’re wasting. If you look the other way, it may be the moment you’ve been waiting for always that you’re missing.
All other days have either disappeared into darkness and oblivion or not yet emerged from them. Today is the only day there is.
Have a wonderful day, today!
(Now excuse me while I go wash my face, wait ten minutes and then coat it with cream and Vaseline.)
