There is a moment in every person’s life when they look back and think, “Ah, if only…”

Mine was a moment in my early 20s, when a friend of my parents invited me to an all-expenses paid art retreat in Italy.

One month. In Italy. Did I mention it was all expenses paid?

The woman who ran the retreat had known my mom from school days and they had stayed friendly.

Over a call one day, my mom had mentioned that I was at a loose end career-wise. She was worried I was losing focus when I should have been knuckling down to build something for myself.

Her friend offered me a room in her house in Sienna, and a spot on her month-long art retreat.

I would get to live my own Under the Tuscan Sun. All I had to do in return was help her in the studio.

I had shown some interest in art at school, I wasn’t a terrible painter, and I could hold my own in drawing.

Sounds like the perfect opportunity for a young woman, doesn’t it?

Her first adventure into the world, supported by friends and family, in one of the most beautiful places in the world, doing something wonderful, for no other purpose than to enjoy beauty and experience the best life has to offer.

So, did I go? Did I grab the opportunity with both hands and shout “thank you, thank you, thank you”?

Did I promise to do whatever my mum and her friend needed me to do to show my gratitude? No, no, and no. What my mother hadn’t mentioned to her friend was the reason I wasn’t really knuckling down.

It wasn’t because I was struggling with self-belief and career direction.

It was because I had met a boy. And I didn’t want to leave him.

He was struggling with his feelings about getting a proper job, and deciding whether he was more interested in me or Wendy at the Pub ‘n’ Grill.

Naturally, my mother wanted my head examined. She fought with my father about the fact that she couldn’t force me to do anything, even if I still lived under her roof.

The art retreat came and went, and her friend didn’t offer again. She was too embarrassed to ask.

It would be two years and one messy, unnecessary heartbreak later before I would understand what I had said no to.

Youth is wasted on the young, but so are opportunities.

You waste because you can, because life is long and there is always more.

It’s never any use dwelling on coulda, woulda, shouldas.

But I often think about what might have happened on that art retreat in Sienna. Who might I have met?

What other doors would have opened? How much bigger, wider, and brighter would my life have been?

There’s no way of knowing. And there’s no need to.

I eventually found my groove career-wise, and it wasn’t art.

I travelled, settled down, attended some art classes, and built my own family. Nothing was really lost. In retrospect, a lot was gained.

That missed opportunity taught me to say yes to life’s opportunities. It taught me not to put other people’s needs (men especially!) before my own.

It taught me to open my eyes to what’s on offer, and to create my own opportunities.

Which is why, almost 30 years later, I’m booking an art retreat in Italy.

On my own terms, with a clear head and a firm intention, I’m finally ready to live out that dream under the Tuscan sun.