What Are You Waiting For?

Listening to French music and sipping on a Refosco, and I’ve got lots of things running though my mind - too many thoughts for an evening spent alone.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I like buying bottles that need to age a while and then holding them for ages in my wine racks.  This is a very good thing to do when bottles need aging.  And I suspect far too many people lack the patience required for aging bottles and appreciating the wines at their optimal time, rather than simply seeking immediate gratification and opening the bottle before it’s quite ready for consumption.

But sometimes I place too much emphasis on waiting.  Yes, I prefer drinking my best bottles when they’re at their peak, but not everything has to wait.  Not everything should wait.

A “wise” person has asked me (a number of times) when he wants to know how I liked a particular bottle and invariably I have to tell him that I haven’t opened it yet, he asks me, “what are you waiting for, are you waiting to die first?”  And oftentimes, he’s right.  I don’t always need to wait.

Some things have come up in the past few months.  Some good, some bad, and some that I don’t know yet which way it’ll go.  But some of these things have started teaching me that waiting isn’t always the answer.  Sometimes, it’s now or never, literally.  And I’ve always considered myself a good learner but rather a slow learner in some ways.  But this time I’m prepared to learn that waiting isn’t always the answer.

One of my favorite lines from It’s a Wonderful Life is, “Wait?  Wait for what?  Until their children grow up and leave them?  Until they’re so old and broken-down that they...”  George Bailey was right - wait for what?  Until it’s too late?

A few times, unfortunately, I’ve let a bottle sit too long in the wine racks, and opened it up, and it was too late for that bottle.  It’s happened a few times, and it’s happened because I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And then it was too late.

Please don’t let that happen to your wines.  Better just a bit too early than too late.

And while we’re at it, let’s not let that happen to other areas of our lives.  No, we shouldn’t just do everything that comes to us on a whim.  But don’t just wait, either.  If it’s something or someone that matters to you, don’t wait.  If there’s something you want to try, then try it.  If there’s somewhere you want to go, then go there.  If there’s something that you will regret not buying for the rest of your life, then buy it.  Whether it’s something you need or want so badly you can hardly go on without it, just buy it.

Have fun.  Live.  Love.  And if you do love, tell them so.  Yes, tell that person you love them.  You only live once.  What are you waiting for?