rɪˈgrɛt

Many years ago, a co-worker of mine completed one of those emails where you answer 25 questions about yourself. One of the questions was "What do you fear?" and she answered "Regret." Most people had answered "spiders" or "clowns" and like them, an answer of some depth hadn't occurred to me. I was so struck by her answer that it has remained with me since then.

A few years later, while working for a hospice program, I heard the stories of patients who, facing death, reflected on their lives, including their regrets. Time and again, these lists were nearly the same. I should have worked less and spent more time with my family. Traveled more. Spent less time in my counting house. Loved more, laughed more, worried less. Taken a risk. Thrown caution to the wind. Lived in the moment. Danced as if no one was watching.

Around this same time, someone gave me a card with a quotation from Mark Twain: Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

And so nine years ago, as Gus and I devised a ten-year plan for ourselves, these words rang in my ears. As we worked out a detailed timeline, sketched in a notebook, of what we wanted to accomplish in the coming decade, we talked about regret and what it meant to live life to its fullest. Our main goal was that Gus would become a CRNA, but we also made a pact to really live along the way and to regret little amidst what we knew would be a crazy, intense and drawn out dream.

Signing on this dotted line, in some ways, freed us from expectations that might have hindered us. We knew mortgages and babies and pets would have to wait, but we also knew our freedom was finite. We had ten years to just be a twosome, exploring, dreaming and discovering while we checked off countless semesters and jumped through endless hoops. And, assuming we made it to the end in one piece, no regrets. So we folded up that precious piece of paper for safekeeping, grabbed each other's hand and set out to make the best of it.

Looking back with almost a year to go, I think we stayed pretty true to our promise. We traveled abroad a whopping 313 days, 150 of those spent in our favorite lodgings, a tent. We visited all but 3 of the 22 regions of our beloved France. We ate and drank our way through countless babysitterless dinners, did stuff on the spur of the moment, went away for the weekend, slept in, stayed up late, splurged, purged, and called someone else to deal with the broken water heater. We took up new hobbies, read tons of books, started (and sometimes finished) countless projects, and bought beautiful things. Best of all, uninterrupted and unencumbered, we have grown to know and love one other in such a way I didn't know was possible.

Regret? How can I? Yes, absolutely, at times it has been unbearable and more than once we have wanted to throw in the towel and be done with it. But now that the end in sight, I can honestly see and say that it was all worth it. Every stinking, beautiful minute of it.