In Vino Veritas

One of my favorite blogs, Lilly's Life, really got me thinking the other day. She wrote about Erma Bombeck's If I Had My Life to Live Over after finding out a friend of hers had Ovarian Cancer. "What Are We Waiting For?" was the question she asked.

I don't think of myself as overly morbid, although I do think about death a lot more since becoming a mother. I have a living will, but I did that after the Terry Schiavo debacle- as I knew/know my mom would NEVER pull the plug on me and frankly, I don't want to be a vegetable or live in a vegetative state. But I don't have a Bucket List, or anything like that.

As I read some of things Erma Bombeck would have done over, it got me thinking about what I would regret if I died today. Since I know I wouldn't change any of the choices that led me to being Spencer's mom, most of the things were fairly trivial. But I knew right away what I would really regret- and that was saving my all my Italian wine I brought back with me from Italy.

I wrote about it here, but briefly- I brought back seven bottles of wine and gave away five of them. The other two I was saving for the right moment. Well, that was in 2002 and there have been plenty of great moments when I could have poured myself a glass of my GREATLY anticipated vino. But each time, I would say to myself, "No, wait for something even better, you'll be glad you waited!"

One of the bottles is a reserve wine, in a special box with a silk label- it's beautiful. The other is just a regular bottle of red, nothing fancy- I think it cost me 3 Euro. So last night, after seven years of waiting, and for no particular reason, I poured myself a small glass of my Italian wine. And I have to say it was worth the wait. I savored each sip. I swirled and sniffed and did all those things that fancy wine people do. Since I'm no fancy wine person, I felt a tad ridiculous, but who cares?


I'm still waiting on the other one, I'll probably be 60 before I can bring myself to open it, haha. But I'm proud of myself for finally being able to enjoy and savor the moment, for no other reason than living for today and not for an unpromised future. Gilbert Parker once said Tomorrow is no man's gift. And that is so true.

I have a really hard time living in the moment- I'm always waiting for the future or looking at the past. So that's one of things I'm going to work on, enjoying today instead of dreaming about tomorrow.


I'm still not going to make a Bucket List, yet, but I will try to stop waiting and start doing. If you get a chance, read Erma Bombeck's article (I linked to it up top). It's short and really gets you thinking about using the nice hand towels for yourself rather than your guests!