average IQ of both countries, sent me this revealing newspaper cutting from 1945.
These days I know more dead people than live ones, and so the 54th anniversary of my 21st birthday passed without anyone forcing jollification upon me and making facetious remarks involving the word septuagenarian.
I spent the day with outdoor activities - if sitting on the verandah and drinking wine is an outdoor activity - while summing up the year, indeed the whole seventy-five years, just past. Somehow I've got this far!
My father just got to 75-and-a-bit! My best friend for almost thirty years fell short by three months; Mozart fell short by a whole forty years! So how did I get this far?
Sometimes it seemed like driving a car at night. I could see only as far as the headlights, I couldn't see where I was going and very little of what I passed along the way, but somehow I managed to make the whole trip all the same.
Not that all those years merely passed me by and can be ignored nor the mistakes undone or the stupidities uncommitted again. And neither can I forget the shames and humiliations, the treacheries and betrayals as well as the prides and accomplishments and brief moments of happiness which I now call experience and which are supposed to be my recompense for the youth and the health and the energy left behind as I bounced through life, spending more time on planning my next weekend than on how I might spend the rest of my life.
Perhaps I have lived two lives, the one I actually live, and a parallel life that walks around with me like a cast shadow and lies down with me as I go to sleep. It is the life I might have lived had I made different choices in that time when time and choices were still plentiful. I hope I can all sum it up as Edith Piaf did with her song, 'Non, je ne regrette rien' .
I hope you find those subtitles helpful, Des!
No, I regret nothing! / Nein, ich bereue nichts / Oxi, de metaninw tipota / Tidak, saya tidak menyesali apa pun / لا، لا اندم على شئ / ဟင့်အင်း၊ နောင်တမရပါဘူး / I still think it sounds the most convincing in French: Non, je ne regrette rien!
