Recognition and Regret

Well, it’s finally happened. The young, friendly, gelato guy with glowing turquoise eyes now recognizes me. Even as he greets me, his free hand is levitating toward the “piccolo cono”, small cone, and his scoop hand is twitching toward the Nutella gelato. Sometimes I try to confuse him by ordering stracciatella, but it really doesn’t matter as it, and the Nutella, are located in adjoining bins so his scoop can twitch either way at the last moment. It was a Nutella day today. Nutella gelato is better than sex. I think.

I made a rather vain attempt to be “noticed” yesterday. I have a beautiful, white, silk blouse decorated at the V-neck with beads and pearls. I usually wear a white, lacy camisole with the shirt as it tends to slide down in the front and if I bend over to pick something up, you can see all the way to Florida. Yesterday morning I got up the nerve to wear the thing by itself, no camisole. I am not sure if my “target audience” of single men my age noticed, but when a 70 year old man crossing the street couldn’t tear his eyes away from my cleavage, I knew I needed to put more clothes on. After all, I’d feel horribly responsible if the elderly fellow was so distracted by my shocking display that he was run over by the street sweeper making its morning rounds. Not something I want to explain to the Carabinieri. I did see a rather round and buxom woman jiggling and shaking across the piazza today wearing just a swimsuit top cut down to “there”, painted-on jeans, and stilettos. She certainly put my rather modest cleavage display to shame! Maybe I just need more confidence.

The porchetta man was set up in his customary place right outside the city walls this morning and the very moment I opened my mouth to order a sandwich, he switched from Italian into English. Apparently my Italian hasn’t improved one iota! He gave me a wonderful sandwich though, lovingly wrapped in a square of white paper and carefully placed in a bag. Apparently, he puts garlic cloves into the cavity of the pig before roasting and I was the lucky recipient of 3 whole, mellow, melt-in-your-mouth cloves on my sandwich. Yum…I love garlic! And nary a chicken feather in evidence! He is definitely my new porchetta man.

I’ve been thinking a lot about regret. I have always believed that I try to live my life without regret for what could have been, without longing for that which I never did, or things that I never had. Maybe I have only been partially successful. My former husband is a wonderful person, but I look back at the reasons we married….to have a home, family, security, companionship……and what we gave up to have what we had. Eventually the life we had wasn’t enough for either of us. So, my question: what is it we give up when we accept less than we really desire? What part of us withers and dies knowing it will never achieve fulfillment? Or, can be it be fulfilled even late in the game? So, my dear friends, learn from me. Don’t be the chicken I have been, so afraid of failure and rejection that you fail to chase what it is you really wish to have. By believing you can’t have a particular thing, you push the possibility of having it far away and then feel all the more regretful of the life you have versus the one you want. I am a living, breathing example of this phenomenon. If I could share any secret, it would be; do not be afraid to ask “what if?”, and then believe in the possibility that “what if”, will be. To accept anything less is to have but half a life.