"I had to eat my words."
Have you ever heard, or used, that expression?
An anonymous poem expresses it well:
"Be careful of the words you say,
Keep them short and sweet.
You never know, from day to day,
Which ones you'll have to eat."
Several years ago, when my youngest child was a young teen and I had no grandchildren in the public school system, I said something about not understanding how people could sit in line for more than an hour to be the first in the car rider pickup line at school.
Little did I know!
Now, I've had to "eat my words" and can be found in line as much as an hour ahead of time in order to pick up a kindergarten grandchild and then three others from three other buildings.
I have, in the past, chafed at what I viewed as a waste of time and usually had my computer or books or something to make good use of the time, but now, I confess that I'm usually tired and just glad for a bit of time to sit still and quiet and listen to good music or a thoughtful pod cast.
The idiom is apropos.
Aging is often accompanied with many lessons learned at our own expense. What we didn't understand when you, or even middle aged, can become real life lessons as we age.
I hope I'm learning to restrain my thoughtless comments realizing there is far more that I do not know, have not experienced, than what I do know.
Editor's note: Annette Beard is the managing editor of The Times of Northeast Benton County, chosen the best small weekly newspaper in Arkansas for five years. A native of Louisiana, she moved to northwest Arkansas in 1980 to work for the Benton County Daily Record. The opinions expressed are those of the author. She can be reached at [email protected].