Do You Feel Like Time Is Slipping Away?
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Do you feel like time is slipping away? It seems like the bucket list gets shorter as the years go by. There’s a particular kind of quiet that settles over a person somewhere in their fifties or sixties. The kids are grown. The mortgage is nearly paid off. And somewhere in a drawer, or maybe just in the back of the mind, there is a list. A bucket list. A collection of dreams that were written down in a moment of inspiration and then gently, almost imperceptibly, set aside.
For many of us, that list has gotten shorter over the years. Not because we checked things off. But because time passed anyway. This isn’t a post meant to make you feel guilty. It’s meant to make you feel awake.
We Told Ourselves There Was Always More Time
The most common regret people carry into their later years isn’t something dramatic. It’s not a betrayal or a catastrophe. It’s simply the belief that there would always be more time. More time after the project at work, more time after the kids finished school. Maybe once the debt was paid down. More time when things slowed down a little.
But time doesn’t slow down. It does what it’s always done. And somewhere between the years of working hard and meaning well, a lot of living got quietly postponed.
My Oxygen Story
One day, I was rushed by ambulance to a hospital on 4-12-2024 and have been on oxygen 24/7 from then on and always will be. You may think I can still travel, but it’s not that easy. I tried it for a “Family Reunion.” I dragged my portable oxygen concentrator and another oxygen concentrator in a suitcase. Yes, Mark helped, but it’s not fun. Plus, we had two suitcases. I realized if I lived in California (sea level), I wouldn’t need oxygen. Well, house prices wouldn’t fit our budget there, so after the vacation, we came back to Utah, oxygen in tow. My dream of seeing Niagara Falls is no longer an option. Please, my friends, do what you can now while you have the strength, health, and finances to do so. Just do it.
My Bestie’s Story
She and I have been great friends for well over 15 years. Well, within a month of my oxygen fiasco, my friend ended up on Kidney Dialysis. Not fun. She’s on the kidney transplant list at two hospitals; she kept telling me, “Linda, I don’t know if I can do this.” I learned so much about kidney disease and what she went through to be prepped for Dialysis. I had no idea what it was like to go through the chills, the coldness, and the pain. Now we talk about how we used to go out to lunch and laugh so hard in Southern Utah, and now we both rarely leave our homes in different states. This is the reason I wrote this post today, my sweet friends. Do what you want to do now. Don’t wait.
Did We Work Too Much?
Work is honorable. Providing for a family is one of the most loving things a person can do. But there is a version of hard work that tips into something else, a kind of sacrifice so total that the person doing the sacrificing disappears into it.
Many people look back and realize they were physically present in their homes but mentally somewhere else, thinking about deadlines, budgets, and performance reviews. The family dinner was eaten, but the conversation was distracted. The vacation was taken, but the phone was always nearby.
It’s worth asking honestly: Did work fill the space where life was supposed to go? And if so, was that truly the trade we wanted to make?
Did We Give Too Much to Our Kids?
Parents who sacrifice for their children are doing something beautiful. But sometimes that sacrifice goes so far that the parents forget to live their own lives, and ironically, they may not be doing their children any favors either.
Children who watch their parents deny themselves joy, travel, and adventure to leave a larger inheritance often grow up with a complicated relationship with money and guilt. They may feel burdened by the sacrifice without having asked for it.
What if, instead of leaving behind more money, we left behind more stories? More proof that life, fully and joyfully lived, is available to ordinary people who simply choose to reach for it?
A child who watches a parent book that trip to Portugal, take that painting class, or finally learn to sail learns something no inheritance can teach. They learn that their own dreams are worth chasing, too.
Did We Take Our Health for Granted?
This one is tender to talk about, but it matters. Many of us moved through our younger years with a quiet assumption that our bodies would simply continue to cooperate. We skipped the checkups, and we let the weight creep up. Maybe we said we would start exercising next month, next year, or after the holidays.
Health is not guaranteed. And one of the most painful discoveries a person can make is that the window for certain adventures closed not because of money or time, but because the body is no longer able to do what the heart still wants to do.
This is not meant as a warning dipped in fear. It’s an invitation. Whatever your age and whatever your current health, the best time to begin caring for yourself is right now. Every good choice made today is a gift to your future self.
Do We Live Around Happy People?
Research on human longevity and happiness consistently points to one of the most underappreciated factors in a good life: the people around us.
We are deeply, biologically social creatures. The moods, habits, attitudes, and outlooks of the people we spend time with seep into us whether we notice it or not. Spending years surrounded by chronic complainers, pessimists, or people who are stuck does something to a person. And spending time with curious, joyful, generous people does something very different.
It’s worth looking around at the social landscape of your daily life. Are the people in your inner circle lifting you up or quietly pulling you down? Are your conversations mostly about problems, grievances, and the past? Or do they sometimes venture into wonder, possibility, and what is still ahead?
Community matters enormously. If yours needs refreshing, that isn’t a failure. It’s simply an opportunity.
Did We Skip Travel to Leave More Behind?
For many families, especially those shaped by the experience of scarcity, there is a powerful pull toward saving, accumulating, and leaving something behind for the next generation. That instinct comes from love.
But travel isn’t an indulgence. It’s an education. It stretches the mind in ways that no book, documentary, or conversation can fully replicate. Maybe it teaches humility, curiosity, adaptability, and gratitude. It shows us that there are a thousand different ways to be human, and most of them are fascinating.
The parents who travel, who experience other cultures, who sit at tables in foreign cities and try to order food in a language they barely speak, come home changed. They have more to offer the people they love. They have more stories, more perspective, more life. And the money spent on those experiences? It wasn’t wasted. It was invested in becoming a fuller, richer, more interesting person.
What Would We Do Differently?
This is the real question, and it deserves a real answer. Most people, when asked this with enough honesty and enough quiet, say some version of the same things. They would have worried less. Not about important things, but about the small everyday anxieties that consumed so much mental energy and came to nothing in the end. They would have said yes more often. Invitations. Adventures. To experiences that felt a little outside the comfort zone.
They would have taken better care of themselves earlier, not out of vanity, but out of a recognition that the body is the vehicle for everything else. They would’ve had more honest conversations with the people they love, said the hard things sooner, and expressed appreciation more freely.
We would have spent more time outside, more time in nature, more time doing things that had no practical outcome but filled the soul. And many, though not all, would have traveled more. They would have seen more of the world and trusted that the money would work itself out, because it usually does.
It’s Not Too Late
Here’s the thing about time slipping away: it only slips away in one direction. What’s behind us is behind us. But what is ahead is still unwritten, and it belongs entirely to the choices being made right now.
The bucket list doesn’t have to keep getting shorter. It can grow again. It can be rewritten with the wisdom that only comes from having lived long enough to know what actually matters.
Whatever age you are reading this, whether you’re forty-five or sixty-five or seventy-five, there are still mornings ahead that belong to you. Still places you haven’t been. Still, conversations you haven’t had. Do you have versions of yourself you haven’t yet become? The question isn’t whether time is slipping away. Of course it is. Time always slips away. The question is what you’re going to do with what remains.
Start Small, Start Today
You don’t have to book a flight anywhere or make any dramatic announcements. You just have to begin. Call the friend you’ve been meaning to call. Look up and register for the class you keep thinking about. Say yes to the thing you’ve been quietly wanting to do. The bucket list isn’t a document of regret. At its best, it’s a compass. It points toward the life that is still possible, the one that’s waiting patiently for you to remember it’s there. Time is slipping away, but some of it is still yours. Use it.
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Final Word
If I could do anything differently, I would have spent less time preparing for life and more time actually living it. We are remarkable creatures when it comes to planning. We plan for retirement, plan for emergencies, plan for the kids, plan for the house, plan for next year, and the year after that. And somewhere in all that careful, responsible planning, the present moment often slips by largely unnoticed.
I would’ve sat longer at the dinner table. Not to finish the meal but to finish the conversation. I would have said I love you more, and I would have meant it in the small everyday ways, not just the grand gestures. A cup of coffee was brought without being asked. A hand held during a forgettable Tuesday. I would have worried less about what other people thought of my choices, because the honest truth is that most people are far too occupied with their own lives to spend much time judging yours.
Almost every time, I would have taken the trip. I would have quit the things that were draining me sooner and invested that energy in the things that were filling me up. I would’ve called my parents more before the calls became impossible to make.
And perhaps most of all, I would have understood earlier that a life well lived isn’t measured in what you accumulate or what you leave behind. It’s measured in the depth of the moments you were actually present for. The good news is that most of us still have some runway left. The question isn’t what we would have done differently. The question is: what are we willing to do differently starting right now? That’s the only answer that still matters. May God bless this world, Linda
Copyright Images: Clocks on Wall AdobeStock_497397083 By New Africa, Pink Clock Sleep Hygiene AdobeStock_327813929 By Victor Moussa
Love this post! Well said, Linda. And so so true! I think we all have regrets. That being said, most of us do what we do for the right reasons. They just aren’t the right ones at the time. Larry and I both aren’t able to do what we want anymore. Getting older isn’t for the weak hearted for sure. We do what we can. If we could, we’d travel more. Just going to the doctors office is so exhausting these days.
Hi Deborah, thank you for your kind words, my sweet friend. So many of us are getting older and yesterday I was sitting here thinking about life in general. I have no complaints other than I wish I had enjoyed life more compared to working 60-70 hour weeks my entire life. I grew up poor and wanted more for my four daughters. I’m not sure it was worth it, looking back. My health has suffered from it. I started cleaning houses when I was 9 years old just to buy material to sew clothes for myself. I thought that was normal. I didn’t know anything else. I’m grateful my daughters know how to work, that’s a blessing. It just kind of stops you in your tracks when one day you are immediately put on oxygen 24/7 no instructions, the hospital sent me home with a tank and a concentrator was being delivered to the house I was living in. I thought I was overweight and had trouble breathing. Geez, Louise, was I wrong. Happy Sunday, Linda
Dear Linda, I am sorry to hear about your struggles and I will keep you in my prayers. Life is short, but as C.S. Lewis said “Real Life hasn’t yet begun.” Now there will be the real adventure.
Hi Janet, that’s a great quote, by the way, my sweet friend. I don’t want to come across as poor me, I say every day, things could be so much worse. I never would have guessed my lungs would be so scarred. I never smoked or vaped, it’s crazy. I’ glad I have a great husband and a blog to write. I rarely leave the house, and I cannot drive because of an incident in 2017, that caused my eyes not to talk to each other. I want people to live their best life while they can, in a split second things can change. Literally. I’m still very blessed, Linda
We received a lot of odd looks about the way we lead our lives. It breaks my heart to read and hear the stories about how most people don’t DO things and let life slide by.
As you know, we did not. Even our working lives were an adventure. I chose not to have children because when all of you were running away from the hazard, I was running into it. Not fair to kids. The result will be that a couple of good charities will benefit because I saved, invested well, stayed out of debt, and didn’t have the expense of kids. Our definition of “adventure” is doing something, that if not done correctly WILL result in injury or death. We have hundreds of them. THIS is not how most people would want to live, but they do envy our stories.
I’m glad for all of you who lead normal lives. You make and made a difference. Though there are people alive now because of my better half and myself. Fact.
There is nothing to do about the past. It is cast.
Linda, you don’t know how many lives you have changed for the better because of this blog/website. If that isn’t a wonderful legacy I don’t know what is. AND you are still doing it.
The world has changed. We would not want to do what we did for those 22 years of 6-9 months/year off the grid sailing and camping (yes, in winter, too). People have changed.
One chapter closes and another opens. Said to me by a friend who couldn’t/wouldn’t quit smoking and died too young.
But, now our new chapter is our bagpipe band Guns N Hoses of SW Florida. We now provide a service. Every one of our performances is not for us- it is for our audiences and is so meaningful. We are just the providers.
Try to always remember “Don’t be sad because it is over. Be glad that it happened.”
Look at the faces of your children and their children.
My better half had a heart valve replacement 2 weeks ago. He had less than a year to live without it. I’m cured of the cancer I had 22 years ago, but we are both certainly on the downside of life’s slide.
I’m grateful every day for the great life I had and that we had.
But, what is the JOY? It is everywhere. You don’t have to look very far or hard.
Glass is more than half full. Think of the medical care we all have. If you didn’t have that 02, you would be dead. Simple as that.
I pipe at a lot of funerals. Most of them have thousands of people attending, even President Trump and other biggies.
Why are we piping at those huge funerals? Because someone got gypped from having the complaints WE have now. They were murdered or died in the line of duty so that we can live.
Think of all the younger folks whose lives were snuffed.
Perspective, my dear. We can do nothing about the past and not much about the future. We have NOW.
Plan for the worst and hope for the best – but enjoy the NOW.
HI CAddison, I LOVE how you and your better half lived. You protected all of us in the world, what a great legacy. Oh, and the bagpipes, oh my gosh, that gives me goosebumps thinking about the sound. What a blessing to everyone you play for. I have always pictured the glass half full, it’s my nature. Great thoughts, my sweet friend. Linda
Our son is a LEO and first responder. He answered the call when a passenger plane crashed into a home. I hate the visions and memories that day left him with, but I am proud of the man we raised.
HI Chris, you are blessed to have raised him to such a great human being. Linda
I spent 2+ months in the swamps of the Florida Everglades in summer picking up body parts and airplane parts after the ValuJet crash. 109 souls died there. 125 of us worked that + NTSB and fire/police divers. It is a national memorial cemetary to this day. Many are still out there. It was just our job. A few years before my husband spent a tough evening as a paramedic after a crash of a big plane going into MIA that hit the swamps and people were still alive. Civilians have a hard time understanding that. BUT and this is a big one, few police officers “get” to do what we did on the streets of Miami during the 70s,80s, and 90s. I’m a small female, but that doesn’t matter.
One night I asked my hot spot squad what it would take to get them excited? They didn’t know. I asked if a double homicide in progress would do it? The answer “It depends.” Someone once said that I don’t get excited, scared, or anxious. He said he has seen me angry.
We thought what we were doing was normal. Turns out pulling your gun out (which means you might need to kill someone) a few times a shift was not normal policing.
I never told my parents what I was doing. Even though mother had been a US Marine and Dad an Army officer with a silver star from Battle of the Bulge.
Some things are best not shared outside the Brotherhood.
Your son will be fine. We just have a different viewpoint than civilians.
My squads heard this EVERY night at roll call. Please pass it on to him
RESIFOYCE Resolve every situation in favor or YOUR continued existence.
Tell him it comes from an old Sarge. I’ll bet he smiles.
Hi CAddison, thank you for shring that, Chris will appreciate it, I know for sure. Linda
My son-in-law is retired from the same police department. When my daughter worked as a 911 dispatcher she told me her main job was to get her officers home safe at the end of the day. When one is her husband and another her brother that’s a lot for one person. I was glad when she retired.
It’s a different world. That’s for sure. Hard on the families. Like being in the military. It’s really a closed society. Even our bagpipe band is a service band for police, fire, ems, military and veterans. It’s just easier to be among our own kind. We don’t think about things like you do. It’s just our job. I know more families who lost kids to drunk driving than from police work.
A beautiful post, perfect timing & reminding to be present and engaged in ‘today’–knowing we can’t get it back and don’t know what tomorrow holds. For years I had a sign that said “If not now, when?” to make the most of what we have: today. Thank you!
Hi Marcy, oh I love that sign, “If not now, when?”!!!!!! Thank you for sharing it! Thank you for your kind words. Linda
Linda, this has to be one of your best, I am 90 years old, and reading this is like reading my mind, every sentence of this is from the heart. I hope every person that reads this understands that this is really what happens in life, and will learn.
God Bless you, stay well, and keep up the great work, you are a blessing to all of us.
Hearl
Hi Hearl, thank you for your kind words, my sweet friend. It truly was from the heart. You are 90 years old, that is a blessing! Stay well, Linda
https://youtube.com/shorts/eInmuVVrsQo?si=FHR0cvD7AIxV4znL
Hi Matt, oh my gosh, I have the giggles, of course YOU are in your PRIME! I can’t stop laughing, great video, that is so you, I LOVE it! Linda
What a great post today, Linda! I would love to travel more, but the husband is a home body and has his huge garden to care for, and then there’s wheat to grow and harvest, so we are tied down to this place for many months of the year. But, I have taken up oil painting again at 70! I started painting when I was 9 and over the years won many ribbons and awards for my paintings. The paints were put away when the kids came along because littles and oil paints don’t mix in a small home. I’m back at it now thanks to the encouragement of my sister and my granddaughters. No entering art shows anymore, this is just for my own enjoyment.
Hi Paula, thank you for your kind words, my sweet friend! Oh my gosh, you are back to painting, what a blessing!! Life is good! Your husband is awesome to have a garden growing besides the wheat! I love it! Linda
Linda, we are already eating fresh lettuce, spinach, kale, radishes, and green onions out of the garden. New potatoes aren’t quite ready yet, but we love to make creamed new potatoes and peas. Of course, I will be busy canning when it all gets going this summer! Wears me out, but I love doing it.
Hi Paula, I am just about to fill some garden pots, not exactly what I wanted but the price was right! Oh, to have a garden like yours would be so awesome. I have to settle with 6 planter pots, possibly 8, not sure yet. It’s all about the soil I have. Nothings is better than fresh produce you harvest! Linda
Since 1996 I been disabled and in a wheelchair. We can’t travel very much, like once every 5 years to see family. It’s just to hard on me. But ten years ago I sat down and wrote all I have done in my life: all the states I have lived in (5), all my jobs since I was 12yrs old, the camps I went to in high school, the different clubs and hobby classes I’ve taken, summer school in Mexico, doing stand-up comedy, studying long and short form Improvisation, and having 2 sons and now a grandmother, and anything else I could think of.
Looking it over I’m very happy with my life. Still do what I can. Have a very understanding husband – who has been my caregiver since 1998.
Hang in there Linda you have given us so much information, THANK YOU!!!
Hi Barb, thank you for your kind words, you are bless to have an understanding husband for so many years. What a blessing he is to you! I love you idea about writing down all the things you accomplished in your life, I love this!! You have 2 sons and now you are a grandmother, life doesn’t get any better! Linda
I’m very blessed
Barb, you made me smile, Linda
Linda, this is one of your best posts ever! I would love to do more world and US travel than I’ve done, but Jane’s health prevents that. Also, now that I have chickens and dogs and a decent garden…well, my own choices prevent travel.
So, I may never sail the world on my own boat, or see Kilamanjaro with my own eyes. But life is about choices and the ones I made I am content to live with. Jane is the light and love of my life and no sacrifice is too great to keep her with me. Sign me–happy in Kingman.
Hi Ray, well this comment melts my heart, you are such a good guy, no doubt about it. Jane is so lucky to have you, you are happy in your garden, with dogs and chickens. Life is good my sweet friend, You are living the life! Love this, Linda
I’ve spent the last 24 hours thinking about this. I did the best I could with what I knew at the time. For 32 years we fed, clothed, housed and college educated 4 kids. We took them on vacations while always hoping they learned something new. Then it was our turn. Against everyones judgment we retired 20 years ago. For the first 15 years we went south for the winters. We took kids and grandkids to Disney World. We provided help and inspiration where we could. I didn’t pay enough attention to my health because my husbands’ first major heart attack at 32 made him my priority. Now travel is difficult but we have a wonderful safe home and family close by. Life started out tough but I made it and I have come to realize how blessed I have been. Please everyone stay safe and healthy and warm.
Hi Chris, you have had a great life since you met your husband, what a blessing. How fun to travel with your kids and grandkids. His heart at such a young age, I can’t even imagine, we do sometimes forget to take care of us, I get it. We are blessed with who we married, love your comment! Linda