Thank You, Edie Britt

I can't believe I cried over the death of Edie Britt.

In case you don't watch Desperate Housewives, Edie Britt was the neighborhood slut.  Last night, they killed her off.  

Despite the character she played, there was something likable about her.  Maybe it was when they showed, deep down inside, how vulnerable she was and how much she wanted to be loved. There were also times when they showed her strength and determination to survive no matter what the tragedy.  I guess I'm just a sucker when a "bad" person shows their softer side, which is why, in my past, I got involved with too many bad boys I wanted to save.  (Don't try it.  It doesn't work).  But it was the ending that really got to me.  

I wish I could quote the exact words, but I was too busy brushing away the tears to remember, so you will have to know that the lines I write are paraphrased.  But as the final scene was being played out and Edie is talking about the final days of her life and death, and they are showing the vanishing neighborhood of Wisteria Lane and moving up to the heavens, Edie says something like, "They say dying isn't so bad if you've really lived, and boy, did I ever." 

You can hear the smile in her voice because, even though she did not live to see 50, she lived such a wild, full, adventurous life that she could say goodbye with no regrets.

It was this that made me cry.

I thought, could I say that?  Could I die today with no regrets because I had lived a full life, with all the gusto I could have ever wished for?

Hell, no.

I know I could say that I have a lot to be grateful for, but there is sooo much of life that I have never lived because I was either too scared to take a chance or I walked away from chances that were right in front of me.  Why?  Because deep down inside, I wasn't nice enough to myself to go for them.

I'm not saying I want to do wild, questionable things.  Even when I was young I never drank, smoke, did drugs, partied, or ran around.  I certainly don't want to do that now.  But there are so many of those little, everyday things I could do that would make life so much sweeter.  So many times when I could have started up a nice conversation with the person sitting next to me while I sat in a waiting room.  Going to visit my neighbor who lives two doors down from me and yet I've never visited her and the only time I talk to her is when I see her at the store she works at, even though our kids grew up together.  

Spending one whole day painting without feeling guilty.

Dancing with my husband who, this Saturday, I will have been married to for seven years, and yet with whom I have never been out dancing, even if it means I just turn on the CD player and make him dance with me in the livingroom. 

As I write this, I realize this is just the beginning.  As I write this, I realize this is another thing I will have to sit down and write in detail before the days, months, and years continue to fly by, dull and dry because I never took the time to even know what would make me feel like I truly lived a full life, much less actually lived it.

I don't want to die knowing I never truly lived.

So I will write my list.

And you can bug me and say, "Carol, have you done something on your list?"

And I will thank you.

And if you have a list you want me to bug you with, 

I will bug you, too.

Carol B.