Would We? Could We? by Debra H. Goldstein

Would We? Could We? by Debra H. Goldstein

Picture a group of women sitting around a fireplace celebrating a special event in their lives.  Good food, friends, sips of wine, and conversation that slips from the present into the past.  While most share memories of happy times, children’s antics, and first romances, at some point in the evening the stories begin to be tinged with sadness and frustration.

Patches of the group become silent – lost in individual thoughts of what might have been.  It doesn’t seem to matter if the thoughts center on marriage, children, friendship, or career.  The questions are the same.  “Would we?” “Could we?” “And why didn’t we?”

The answers are consistent, too.  Time pressures, immaturity, being pulled in too many directions, trying to please everyone, and ignorance that anything was amiss or could be better are all excuses offered.

Awareness comes slowly.  We realize we tried.  The thought that none of us may have done it perfectly but we acted in the only way we knew at those times warms us almost as much as the new bottle of wine we open and drink.  We raise our glasses in a toast:  “We would.  We could.  We did.”