Regrets. We all have them.

These days of quarantine, I find myself being drawn more and more to British shows that star older people for some reason.

This one is called 'Edie.' Edie is an 80-something woman whose husband had dies and who rediscovers a long-forgotten goal she had as a much-younger woman - climbing a Scottish peak. Her adult daughter is frustrated by much of what happens in her life, so she sells the family flat and stashes her mom in a 'retirement home,' where she spends her time making flower arrangements and listening to a bad singer sing songs she hates, badly at that.

She lasts less than one week.

Then she finds that postcard with the peak. She calls her daughter, leaves a message, and takes the train to Scotland.

Of course, this is a movie about aging, a film about last chances and opportunities pondered and taken. The last chance to do something longed for, to visit a place dreamt of, to make that one final climb up a peak from long ago. For some reason, that is what attracts me. Well, that and British police dramas.

But as I sit here in my empty house with a full fridge, fancy knives, and high-quality pans, I do not think about food or eating. I tend to think of those things I never did.

Or at least things I imagine I never did.

There is probably some word for that, one kind of like reminiscing about things not done. [Can one truly 'reminisce,' which is defined as "to think about past experiences or events," about things not done, yet dreamt about?]

So. what "things" do I imagine I wanted to do and never did? As a Traveler, with a capital "T" and defined as one who has traveling blood in his veins, as opposed to one who travels (small "t") for work or a living -- like a truck driver -- I can look at a photo of someplace and want to see it in person. A lake in Scotland, a river in Thailand, a mountain in Nepal, a valley in Alaska. Bahá'í Houses of Worship on all continents and local Houses in various countries.

Much of it, of course, is romanticized, like the desire to fly an airplane without a radio across the country I had 40 or more years ago.

Long ago, I read a book by Richard Bach, the author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, called Biplane, written in 1966 that described his mostly-accurate flight much earlier in his life in a time when he could make such a flight in mostly uncontrolled airspace from North Carolina to California after he bought an old World War I trainer biplane. He bypassed airports with operating air traffic control towers, landed in farmers' fields to spend the night, dealt with storms and cold and rain and birds ... and unhappy farmers. He ran out of fuel just short of the runway at his destination, crashed, survived, and wrote a book about it. I do not know how much of it is true and how much is fiction and I do not care. I still have that well-worn book and read it from time to time.

The 80-something protagonist in this movie, Edie makes that one trip that she has wanted to make for her entire life. She braves the loss of an oar in a rowboat, a steep climb that her knees really do not want to make, loss of her protective tent...and she makes the last few steps to the top alone and unaided, to cast her glance over the far distance she has longed to see. And she plants her 'flag' at the top, a pebble she picked up along her journey.

As a 70-something, I ponder all those things. The trips not taken, sights not seen, flights not made. Pilgrimage not made. And I reminisce. Or whatever the word is for thinking about a dream not realized.

Longing, perhaps. Not regret.

You have 30 days left to live. What would you do?

I read an article on Medium this morning. The author wrote about choices made and regrets held. Making choices at an early age can seem easier and less results-oriented and some of those choices can lead to regrets later in life.

Reading the article led me to ask "What would you do if you only had 30 days left to live?"

It is not as macabre as it sounds and does not mean one should plan every minute of every day for the rest of ones life. Perhaps many people would answer the question with things like these, which we have all heard almost ad nauseam - thank you, Hollywood script writers:

• I would quit my job.
• I would travel as much as I could. 
• I would visit my children, grandchildren, parents, college or high school buddies. 
• I would stop paying my debts and spend the money working on my hobby.
• I would...

While those are all well and good, to me they have a desperate sound of a person who has not lived a life so far and now wants to make up for it by cramming "activities" into a 30-day period. I wonder why.

For me the answer to the question is pretty simple: I would not do much different than I do now.

I have done pretty much everything I ever wanted to do in life...except fly helicopters for the tuna fleet. I have owned and raised an Old English Sheepdog, been married, been a firefighter and a paramedic. I have driven an 18-wheeler and a taxi. I owned a boat, and flew aircraft of all kinds for a living.

I have traveled to every state in the United States and several of the non-state territories like Puerto Rico. I lived in a bunch of those states and several foreign countries. I went to elementary and high schools in four countries, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and the USA.

I fought a war in the rice paddies and rivers of a faraway country and returned home in one piece but not so much in peace.

I bought fish off a commercial fishing boat in Homer, Alaska. I swam with sharks in San Diego Harbor, and I saw Janis Joplin and the Moody Blues in concert. I attended one of Buddy Rich's concerts on stage not long before his death.

In short, I have done almost everything I ever wanted to do and then some. My childhood dreams have all been met.

Have yours?

If one tries to jam a bunch of activities into the last 30 days of life, I am sure the end result will not be one of happiness, but one of deep regret for not having done some of the activities earlier in life.

So, if you do learn you have only 30 days left to live, well, simply live each day as if you have 30 days to live and you will have a happy life. Do otherwise and you will be a sad being, regretting the things you did not do and blaming someone or something for not having done them. Those last 30 days will be filled with angst, remorse, anger, frustration...and probably a lot of other negative feelings.

Start now.

Live.