First I appreciate this post. The spirit behind it, and the desire to live life in such a way that you can look back on it with contentment is good and noble.

I'm 33.

I don't know about 'conjuring' but:

When I remember the day I went down to UMich to interview for the job that wound up providing the path to the semi-stability I enjoy now. I remember a lot. Not details of any conversation, but the sensation. I remember driving home after the interview, the late afternoon sun on my face, the intense beauty of the shafts of light that came down from the clouds with such strength they look like they held up the sky. The feeling of 'I did it. My late nights were worth it. My tears were worth it. My exhaustion was worth it. My arguments with my parents about going to an actual reputable school not Hillsdale University or Liberty were worth it.' The feeling that my college years were indeed spent well. Not over fixated on partying, not over fixated on academic success at the expense of everything else. The feeling of satisfaction that I lived my life in balance as best I knew how and that produced tangible good fruit.

When I remember my history with music, I remember all the beautiful things it lets me think and feel and experience that I would never know existed otherwise. The absolute shock of a group of middle school children producing something that sounds like actual enjoyable music, not honking. The sensation of shame of being told 'You would be better if you practiced more' while being unable to say 'I live in a house of less than 1100 square feet with six other people. I can't. There is no time or place for me to do so' I remember the smell of the small office on the college campus where I had my first violin lessons. I remember standing in that same office, those same rooms again as an undergrad, my friends not understanding why I was teary for no reason in the middle of the day.

I remember learning, after 15 years of lessons in instrumental music, I might be a better singer than violinist, or trombone player, or french horn player. How naturally and easily musical rehearsal came. I remember that feeling.

I remember the first time I stepped off stage from a choir concert, just family and friends in the audience, so flushed with joy and light I could laugh, weep and sing the whole show again. I remember that feeling.

I remember sitting in an emergency room on my twenty-third birthday, foaming pink blood in my mouth and lungs, being told if I got on the plane to New York City for my first performance at Carnegie Hall, I could die on the plane, or be totally fine, but that my condition wasn't well understood, and I would be gambling with my life in the air and in a city where no one knew me. I made my choice, and do not regret it. I remember the mix of fear and determination in that young man. I weep for the position I was put in, and I cheer myself for the courage to say 'I know my body, even when the MD PHDs don't. I will live. I will sing. I will have a life outside of my illness.'

I remember meeting you for wings in New York. My first experience with Korean fried chicken. I treasure the memory.

I remember the sensation of finishing my first concert on stage at Carnegie. The stillness in between the last note and before the applause. That magical moment of shared human experience of the numinous. Standing on stage before a roaring crowd. Sweat, tears, smiles. I remember the sensation of watching the senior members of my choir trying to downplay their own joy, trying to act 'like they had been here before' for us new guys, like its not also intensely moving for them too.

If I died today, I would have regrets. But by and large I am content with my choices. Maybe this is less common, but I find myself regretting giving people second and third chances when I knew they weren't capable of better. At the time, I know I was trying to be magnanimous and forgiving. With what I know now, I wasted a lot of healthy years of my life on people who were always going to be hateful republican stooges no matter what I said or did. I regret not using those years developing more relationships with people who do share my values. I regret not telling my father in law, mother in law, and their entire congregation to get bent earlier. I regret giving them a chance when I knew already what they would do, and have done in any given circumstance. I regret attempting to have a polite relationship with people who would see me dead from hospital defunding.

When I have spent time reading the deathbed conversations of people who have lived long lives, I don't see much that can be taken as general principle. I think that if we are fortunate, we can find people who have lived lives that we want to emulate, and could ask them if they felt it was 'worth it' in the end.

Not being able to continue to work in my chosen field to reduce human suffering from illness/disease bothers me, because I know that many people who spent their lives in the service of the reduction of human suffering through medicine have died more content than the average bear. Is this a universal? Nah. But it doesn't need to be. I suppose its a variation on 'Do whatever it is you can't bear to see left undone.'