The Past Becomes The Path Elita Sohmer Clayman

It is said that the past cannot be forgotten, but you can make a new path. Also, a saying says you are far too smart to have anything stand in your way if you want to accomplish a feat. Speaking of feet, I go to a podiatry office to take care of my feet because dancing can be deterred by aching feet. The podiatrist who owns the practice has an interesting name for a foot doctor. His name is Dr. Maurice Aiken and on his website he mentions “your Aiken feet.” That is very clever and sometimes names can define what a person does for a living. There was a florist named Don Flowers here in Baltimore and that is quite an appropriate name for a florist. There was a dentist named Dr.Brave and you surely have to be brave to go to a dentist. People use to ask me if the Sohmer piano company was our family business because my brother Herbert and I did play the piano as kids.

Mark Twain said “explore, dream and discover.” Older people now called seniors often think they are too old to start a new job or new hobby. When I was a kid, people did not live very long as they are now doing. I have heard it said that twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you did not do, than by ones you did do. I guess that means that something you did not let happen and you could have accomplished will make you sorry you did not try it twenty years ago. It is a complex thought because now at this age whatever age you are, you may be thinking I wish I had gone to Europe, I wish I had bought that other house, I wish I had married Joe when he proposed and I put him off.

My father had an older sister and I have written about this before. She had a daughter Rose who was a very good and kind school teacher. Rose had lost her brother and a sister when they were about in their forties and she was the remaining “child” of her aged parents. She met a fine man from Canada and he wanted to marry her and she would have had to move to Canada. She really loved him and wanted to and they both were probably in their fifties. He had a business there and she could not bring herself to leave her two aged parents, without children here to help care for them or to be there for them. She thought and thought and turned him down which was sad. She really yearned to be finally married at the age of 50 something. He told her he would help to provide for her parents when they would need financial help. She just could not do it and a few years rolled by and both Anna and Jacob passed on and Rose herself was now the aged person with no one to be there for her except for some old friends.

She made the wrong decision and was quite regretful she had done that. She really died alone and had a few cousins and one uncle and some friends to mourn for her. She chose to be the good daughter and to help them and they did encourage her to marry him and go to Canada and to finally have a good life as a wife to this very nice man. She would be the person to be sorry she had not tried or let this event happen to her twenty years ago and her life would have been fulfilled. I think she may have thought at that time when both her parents died within a few years of each other; to call him and I kind of recall my Dad saying she did and he had married and so that was the end of that.

We should not have to look back with too many regrets and we should try to look forward at whatever age we are now to do things we did want to do many years ago and we did not. That is why when I was forty-three years of age, I made up our minds, my husband and my mind to take up ballroom dancing because I had tried when I was single and did not keep at it because the teachers/coaches I had then were not of the caliber that would make me want to continue. Also, having a dance partner, my husband made it easier to attain my goals which were to be a good ballroom dancer socially and to attempt to compete as an amateur with my professional teacher in pro-am competitions. When I won my first six trophies in a competition in Miami Beach, Florida; I felt as if I were six feet tall and felt the glories of attainment because as Mark Twain said I had explored, I had dreamed and I had finally discovered the joys of something I wanted to do for almost twenty years.

I am advocating to you if you wish for something that you have not yet achieved and still yearn for it, perhaps at whatever age you are now, it can become a reality. It could be to learn to play the piano, to learn to play golf or tennis, it could be going back to take some college courses, it could be to finish the courses you missed and this might lead to a degree you have always wanted by your name. I had a cousin who received her PhD in history and when she was about forty-five and unmarried and had no children, she decided she wanted to be a mother. She adopted a little boy of about seven and she achieved her dream of becoming a mom and had a wonderful life with her son. She loved talking about her son and kvelled (had great pride) about this late accomplishment. She was now happy and complete and she did not let her age stop her from this joy. She knew when she looked back to twenty years from now, she would have no disappointment because she had received her gift of becoming a mommy and she had him by her side. She had given an orphaned boy a home, security and love and she in turn, was loved, secure and had a home with a child in it. Now she became a grandparent and that to her was the ultimate gift of love and life and she had traveled the path wisely to receive these opportunities.

So even though the past cannot be forgotten, the now which is that future from the past can lead you down a bright, new, shiny time in your life and become a path of happiness and delight.