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Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Yiayia's Advice


Yiayia's advice: The right time is now . . .  for whatever it is you've been promising yourself.

Yiayia didn't know how to drive a car. Every January she promised herself—with a list of other promises—that she'd finally learn to drive. But it seemed too complicated, all those gadgets and buttons and . . .  well, Papou had always done that sort of thing. But when at the age of 75, she watched poor old Papou reach for his jacket in the back seat of their beat-up old sedan and slump lifelessly to the floor, she realized her time to learn to drive had arrived. First she dialed for the police and received a recorded message, then she screamed for her neighbor who appeared to not be home. Then she pushed poor old Papou further into the back seat, closed the door, got into the driver's side and backed the car out of the driveway with all the speed and prowess of Mario Andretti.


The hospital was only 3 blocks away so she didn't have much time to think about the fact that she was, for the first time in her life, in the driver's seat.

But when she did have time to reflect on it (and after she found out that poor old Papou was okay), she felt very proud and happy. And then she felt very sad.

"But why are you sad, Yiayia?" her awestruck granddaughter asked.

"My dear," said Yiayia, "it's an awful feeling, at my age, to realize you can do something you thought you couldn't." She shook her head slowly. "And worse than that," Yiayia continued, "is wondering about all those other things in years past, that you hadn't tried simply because you thought you couldn't."


Yiayia's advice: The right time is now . . .  for whatever it is you've been promising yourself.




* Photo: https://pixabay.com/en/users/PaelmerPhotoArts-126905/
* Reposted and revised from December 2015



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1 comment:

  1. Good advice. Not just for the New Year. Starting today!

    ReplyDelete