While sitting at the salon getting my natural color reinstated around the scalp area, I couldn't help but overhear some of the older clientele discussing the regrets of their lives and the drawbacks of living on a fixed income. Pension plans and social security just don't cut it with today's rising prices. Margaret complained that the company her deceased husband had worked for filed bankruptcy, and she no longer received her rightful monthly checks. Jean spouted off about how her investment banker chose several bad investments, and now she had to move in with her daughter and felt she had become a burden.
These tales of woe saddened me. "It must really suck to get old," I thought to myself, glad it was never going to happen to me. These ladies should have known you cannot count on the government or bankers or companies to run your life -- you must live it yourself -- at least that's what the romantics tell us. Surely Jean and Margaret were once young, and surely they lived a life they thought was fulfilling yet responsible. Now they sit, and once a week try to outdo each other's tales of woe. "If only I hadn't. . . " they say. But they did -- as we all have -- as we all will. They say hindsight is 20/20, and we always know what we should have done, but if we could go back and change our past imperfects, would it guarantee a perfect future?
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