I have held onto Édith Piaf’s “No Regrets” as a kind of mantra since my late teens, even so, turning 50 last Thursday led me to reflect on the past, present and future. Would things have been different if I had done this or that?

The above picture taken from the back of the sunset cruise sailboat as we returned to Port Douglas marina last Saturday reinforced to me that the past is just that, the future hasn’t happened yet and the present is all we truly have.

“Non, je ne regrette rien” (meaning “No, I regret nothing”) is a French song composed by Charles Dumont, with lyrics by Michel Vaucaire. It was written in 1956, and is best known through Piaf’s 1960 recording, which spent seven weeks atop the French Singles & Airplay Reviews chart

No! No regrets
No! I will have no regrets
All the things
That went wrong
For at last I have learned to be strong

No! No regrets
No! I will have no regrets
For the grief doesn’t last
It is gone
I’ve forgotten the past

And the memories I had
I no longer desire
Both the good and the bad
I have flung in a fire
And I feel in my heart
That the seed has been sown
It is something quite new
It’s like nothing I’ve known

No! No regrets
No! I will have no regrets
All the things that went wrong
For at last I have learned to be strong

No! No regrets
No! I will have no regrets
For the seed that is new
It’s the love that is growing for you

References
Non, je ne regrette rien – Wikipedia
No regrets lyrics – Azlyrics