What are you wistful you will never do, be or see?

I started re-reading Sweet Valley High, it has not aged well 😬

To the people wishing they'd been to Australia- just go!

The flights aren't so bad. Sleep one leg, watch movies on the other. You'll be there before you know it.

I worry I'll never be able to travel like i want to

The relentless gun violence in American schools ruined this fantasy for me.

I can't imagine being a parent in America. Having my six year have to do shooter drills, practising how to survive a school shooting.

I do wish I'd been less impatient and had taken a year off before uni and done the year in Israel thing a lot of Jewish young people do - it was before things got really bad (though I acknowledge they have always been bad for the Palestinian people). It's an amazing country in many ways but what the government has done is so horrible it's unforgivable and it's probably never going to be safe there in the foreseeable future.

Similarly agree about Russia - I did Russian GCSE and visited Moscow, I'd love to see St Petersburg but obviously not going anwhere near with Putin or anyone like him in charge.

I'd love to try a super deluxe long haul flight with a lie-flat bed, but can't see myself ever affording that.

I'd like to ride a horse again, but my bad hip has got worse since I was a child and I can't actually sit astride even a fairly small pony anymore.

Me too
from a young age always wanted to visit Australia, pet a kangaroo and hold a koala bear.

im much older now and don’t think I’d cope with the flight 🤔

That I'll never know what it's like to the be the mum of a strapping son.

That I cannot go back a century and see this country before the car became king.

Agree.
I had an ex who never touched me really, without me initiating. The day i realised how sad i was about it was when i saw couples same age as us ....3 couples.. within id say 50 yards, holding hands. I was happy for them but envious. I wanted that.

Me too, I often think that when I’m walking the dog and I wonder whether there used to be bears and wild boar around. I’d love to walk in the woods at dusk and hear wolves howl. Too many fairytales as a child I think

So many places I won’t see, or see again.
I’m nostalgic for my youth.
I’m sad that I won’t know all the advances that will be made.
Sad that I won’t see my youngest grandson.

So many things, but so many to be grateful for.

Some things like travel the world in a camper van, not technically impossible, but realistically highly unlikely.

However I suppose one would be feeling like I truly belong in one place. As someone of mixed cultural background, with relatives in 4/5 different countries, I sometimes imagine what it would be like to be, or at least believe yourself to be100 % something. I always feel like I belong in multiple worlds.

I'd always wanted to go to Japan ... but then I learned about how environmentally damaging flights are, and decided never to go. I'll always be sad about it.

That I wasn’t in my early 20s in the 1970s when living in London wasn’t the expensive dream it is now. That when I did move to the SE that I hadn’t got made redundant and had to move back ‘home’ - hate it here but no chance I’ll ever be able to afford to move back down south now.

That I never flew Concorde, I probably wouldn’t have been able to afford it but I’d have loved to just once….and I hate flying!

The American thing for me too!

I'm the underachiever of my family, and also settled young. I often wonder what my life would be like if I'd pushed myself to my full potential and married someone else (two separate issues I know). Just had a "nicer" life, I suppose. Nothing wrong with the one I've got, but I could have done so much better.

I've always wanted a house in the middle of nowhere with lots of land around me, which isn't really achievable for someone at my level in the UK. Again, if I lived in America then it would probably be easy! Oh, to have their space and natural environment.

I also wish I was more attractive and naturally slim. Yes I am shallow!

Wistful that I'll never feel passion again.

Married 30 years to someone I get on with, who's a decent bloke but not interested in sex (or maybe just not into me sexually, hard to say).

I've thought about leaving many times but when I weigh it up I don't think it's worth blowing the rest of my life up for, especially when there's no guarantee I'll find it elsewhere.

That I will never have a conversation with my severely learning disabled daughter. She will never have a relationship or friends. Sad rather than wistful. I'd give everything for her to have a relatively 'normal', healthy life.

💐

Isn't all just a TV version of those things. In reality, my friend said High School was awful and nothing like depicted. A bit like social media it's a glossy fun view, not reality.

There's lots of countries I'd like to see but don't think I'll be able to due to finances. I could change my financial situation to earn more but running a house as a single person isn't cheap.

OP, I recently attended a lecture about the search for exoplanets, and the researcher who gave the lecture was optimistic about the chance of finding life on exoplanets or moons, since there have been recent discoveries of Earth-like exoplanets. Although alien life will probably be less like humans and more like bacteria (https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/search-for-life/can-we-find-life/).

And it's interesting to see how many people are mentioning wanting to visit Russia. My brother died last year, and our shared hobby is/was learning languages. When he was a teenager, he wanted to learn Russian and take the train across Siberia, so I'm sad for him that he'll never get the chance to do that. (Among many other things - like he never had kids, and so I'll never be an aunt). I'm now working on the Russian Duolingo course on his behalf.

I will never be a ballerina

Sending strength and empathy your way, from another chronic pain sufferer. It's so hard at times, I know.

Same. ☹️ Damn you, Vlad. 😡