Well, dear readers, we have reached a new year. 2025 is a year I never dreamed in my youth that I would ever see. I also never dreamed I would be 80 years old! That seems so impossible at 18 or 20, when your whole life is in front of you. I could write a book about all my mistakes, all my successes, all my regrets and all the things I celebrate, all my bad decisions and all the good ones I made, all my sorrows and all my joy, all the places I’ve been to, and all the places I would still like to go.
I could preach to young people about what you learn over the years that is truly important in life, and what has no value at all; the importance of using money wisely and not trying to impress others with it; the true value and true meaning of love, and how to let love get you through the rough times; and oh my, you see plenty of those rough times over 80 years of living. I would tell them good health is more important than anything else in life, and that everything they put in their mouths or breathe in or do to their bodies can affect that health, not always right away but years and years later.
Most young people think they will live forever. They think it doesn’t matter if they eat or drink or smoke something wrong because they believe they will always recover and/or heal … that months or years later it will all go away. I would tell them that it doesn’t, and that the worst thing in the world that can happen to them is to live with regrets in old age and have to think about the “what if’s” … “What if I had never used drugs?” “What if I never drank or smoked?” “What if I hadn’t thought it was so important to get a tan?” “What if I had paid attention to eating better?” “What if I had saved all the money I spent on frivolous things that have no importance?”
I’m not saying I have done any of those things. I feel pretty good about my own life, but I see so many mistakes young people make today. Yes, or course I have a few regrets and “what if’s,” but I guess it takes getting older to become wiser, and the old adage is that we have to let young people make their own mistakes. That’s how they learn what is important. But when it is young people you love whom you see making those mistakes, it’s so hurtful and worrisome.
I suppose thinking this way is common when we get older. I remember when I was in my teens that older people thought rock ‘n roll was going to destroy our youth and they would all end up slovenly criminals. I remember when girls had to always wear dresses and nylons to school. Pants and jeans were considered sloppy and embarrassing clothing never to be worn in public. (Gosh, now I practically live in jeans!) Makeup was frowned upon, and shaking the wrong body parts when dancing would destroy a girl’s reputation. I guess Elvis Presley changed all that, didn’t he?
I
see and hear myself thinking and saying things my grandmother and
mother used to say to me. What goes around, comes around. It’s just
that we learn so much over the years that we know what can truly hurt
and what we can be happy about. And we love our children and
grandchildren so much that we do everything we can to protect, defend
and teach them, hoping they won’t live to regret anything they have
done, hoping they won’t get hurt and won’t know sorrow or bad
health or poverty or heartbreak. But try as we might, that’s
impossible. They are going to do what they are going to do, and we
can’t stop it. We can only sit and watch, and pray they make good
decisions based on actually listening to grandma and grandpa’s
advice.I am so grateful to still be healthy, and overall, I am happy with how life has turned out for me. I am especially grateful to God for my gift of writing and for all the 75(+) books I have had published over these many years. I have been published for 42 years and actually writing books for about 46 years, not counting the poems and articles I wrote over many years before I tried books. I am grateful for all my readers who have kept me going, grateful my brain and fingers still work just fine so I can write a few more books, and I am so grateful that so many of my stories have been reissued and are still selling after all these years. I am grateful that, through my books, my name will go on for quite a while after I leave this earth, and yes, crazy me still believes I will meet some of my characters in the hereafter because they are so real to me that I feel as though their spirits are what inspire me to write their stories, as though they whisper them to me.
And so comes a new year, and another God-given chance to change what we feel needs to be changed, to spend time with our loved ones, to go forward, leaving regrets behind and using lessons learned to enjoy whatever years still lie ahead. I wish there was a way to meet every single one of my readers. I am so grateful for all of you, and so I say with true sincerity …
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025 TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU!!!!!
AND HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025 TO YOUR SPOUSES, YOUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, THE REST OF YOUR FAMILY AND ALL YOUR FRIENDS!!!!! TREASURE THEM ALL, AND TREASURE THE YEARS GOD HAS BLESSED YOU WITH.
