quotes

This morning's paper carried an article about Richard Bradshaw, the former General Director of the Canadian Opera Company who passed on last week. I've had a mini-crush on him since 1995 when I discovered him at the outdoor opera series held at the Harbourfront each August.

I'd just returned from my first overseas trip and was experiencing the kind of world weary despair best experienced by 20-somethings freshly returned from their first European adventure. I was stuck in the backwaters of North America, alienated from my friends who'd managed just fine in my six month absence, and depressed by the fact that nothing had changed. Well, nothing except for my knowledge that EVERYTHING was SO much better in Europe. Grasping for something 'cultural' to do, I read about the outdoor opera series, got dressed in my favourite, purchased-in-Barcelona dress and headed downtown.

It was lovely. Richard Bradshaw was charming and witty and made me enjoy opera. He also, with each wave of his conductor's baton, helped me fall back in love with Toronto. I've had a soft spot for him ever since. I'm sorry to hear that he's passed on. The article quoted him as saying: "The only irresponsible option in art is to avoid taking risks". Love that. And don't think the sentiment is limited to art, I think it transfers every bit as well to life.

In the same newspaper I read another quote which I've heard in varying terms for years without ever knowing that the original source was 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 bow lines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

This quote is one of the truths I return to when I'm trying to make a decision - will I regret NOT having done this in 20 years? If the answer is 'Yes', I do it. If the answer is 'I don't know' I give it time. 'I don't know' usually has fear beneath it - fear of the outcomes, the fall out, making a mistake - and fear has a short life span. If I give it time, the answer comes.

Which leads me to the last 2 years. I took the biggest risk I'd ever taken. I fell in love. Maybe not a big deal to some but for me it would have been far less terrifying to do just about anything else. Falling in love was hard. And it didn't have the fairytale ending I was so sure it should have had. And I'm so, horribly, all-encompassing sad about that. Not depressed, not unhappy, just sad. The kind of sadness I didn't realize it was possible to contain in one body. The kind of sadness that I didn't know could co-exist with happiness, excitement, laughter, release and a sense of freedom - because I'm those things too, there's just a sense of sadness lurking beneath it all. I don't want this. I'm not quite sure how I am containing it. But I am.

I am and I have no regrets. In 20 years I'm not going to have to wonder what would have happened if I'd tried harder. I'm not going to have to wonder what would have happened if I'd gotten on that plane to Finland. I'm not going to have to wonder why I let my fears get in the way of what could have been a beautiful partnership. So yeah, I'm sad and I don't wish for this ending - but I don't have to wonder and I'll never have to regret what I didn't do.

I'm also clearer. Clearer that there is no "but" to real love and understanding that soon I'll stop hoping this isn't really happening and just accept that it happened. I'll be sad until sadness runs it's course and I embrace what life has in store for me next. Through it all, I'll never have to wonder "What if...". There is no what if. I didn't let fear rule my choices.

Which leads me to my last quote of the day, this one from Eleanor Roosevelt:
"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this. I can take the next thing that comes along'. You must do the thing you think you cannot do".