If you could live a whole other life, what would it be?

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Completely out of the blue, I just had a whole picture of myself living a completely different life. I was in America, somewhere with lots of horses and pines and the matriarch of a large family with a well-respected, pillar of the community husband and a brood of beautiful, healthy children. Not a clue where this came from and a million miles away from my actual life and what I've ever wanted.

It got me wondering, what other lives might I have lived? Have you ever daydreamed about living a completely different life and what was it?

I don't think I'd dare indulge in an alternative life deliberately. I don't think my heart would be able to take it!

In perimenopause though, I did have a recurring "vision" of another woman's life that. Last year I decided "sod it" and to start moving in that direction.

I’d be a shit hot lawyer in New York with an amazing apartment overlooking Central Park. The odd date/companion but happily single.

I'll be the spoiled daughter of a billionaire please. I will have a gorgeous chateau in the south of France, staff for my many rescue cats and be as eccentric as I like.

In an alternate reality I’m an amazing drummer part of a super successful group, touring once every 3 years only, as we’re soooo successful we don’t need to do more than that! 😎

I'd live in an apartment in Paris with a balcony where I'd smoke and drink red wine and coffee and play jazz. I'd have a lover who put his washing in the basket rather than treating the bed as a staging post between the wardrobe and the washing basket. I'd eat a lot of cheese and olives. I'd have a fantastic consulting role and earn a fortune for dispensing wisdom before travelling the world.

Single, eccentric librarian with a wardrobe full of bright prints and glasses with coloured frames.
No kids in this life I think. Not rich, but happy. Two cats. Occasional mountain walking holidays with female friends. Member of a rock choir. Regular theatre trips on my own.

I would’ve been a famous ballerina!

A huge New York loft, maybe working as a moderately successful musician or artist. Enough to fund a lifestyle of eating out often and travelling. Lots of friends and might smoke an occasional spliff and be chilled out. Or, living in a scandi country, with a beautiful house overlooking a small harbour with a nearby beach. It would be all blonde wood and wooden floors and hygge. I’d be fit and fairly slim and be a writer.

Sigh.

Yes. While it would be nice to bin the lot… I’ve decided, too, to move in the direction of the woman I’d like to be. I’m finally ready to leave my old self behind. It was fun, back then… Not now. One good thing about PM, at least.

I'd go back to being the kind of person I was in my 20s, but embrace it even further.

My ideal life would be, traveling solo, reading and writing books, dabble in a bit of archaeology, teach when I needed to make money in my itinerant life. I would have lots of casual relationships as I move from place to place but never be tied down. Ideally, I would like a small pet to travel with me. I would be wearing lots of loose white shirts, fantastic jewellery and a broad brimmed hat. I would have sturdy walking boots.

I love my kids too much though to put them through any instability (which the above life would inevitably give them).

I remember seeing a lady making jewellery in her gorgeous little studio shop. In Ibiza. I was 25 & working in London, I was thinking that life it would be my dream scenario. I still have her jewellery, I wear it every summer.

Careful with the husband, though… On that same holiday I was out every night with a hot guy who owned a beach cafe. Looking back now, I suspect there was a wife! I really hope it wasn’t the jewellery shop lady…

I love my life, my dh, dd and dog. Great family , friends, career. No complaints

But if I had an opportunity to have another life I’d think it important for me to do something different. I love travelling and am lucky enough to have several holidays a year. If I could live again I’d maybe stay single, just travel the world, learn languages, immerse myself in cultures, and work place by place. Maybe have a lot of situational relationships (intimate). Of course that’s a bit of a dream as I’d need a bit of money behind me and I’d need to think about what I’d do when I’m old!

I’d want to know if I had hindsight of my previous life though as having my dd has been the best decision of my life, so I’d want to experience that at least once throughout all of my lives (and have the same dd).

This is my dream life too

I'd live in a cottage with my cat and small dog, surrounded by a couple of acres of food forest and vegetable beds. A few chickens wouldn't come amiss.

I’d be a cat. Maybe even my cat. Someone makes my meals, lots of time sleeping, no responsibilities, private health care, everyone seems to quite like me, freedom to come and go as I please, direct access to river and woodland.

I have about 5 fantasy lives that I dip into every now and again. Mostly involve living alone. The quiet slightly off grid frugal one, the successful wealthy business woman one, the traveller, the city dweller, the earthy country one.

I would have studied medicine and married an idealistic fellow student. We would have bought a house in North London for a song and now both work part-time in worthy and satisfying roles as GPs or in a community mental health clinic. We would have had three children, all of whom are now grown up, thriving and live round the corner (perhaps my idealistic DH also has family money). We have a wonderful circle of bohemian interesting friends and are forever going to the theatre etc. Perhaps I am also involved in the local am dram society in some way.

I love reading these. I think it's striking how often we want solitude and how much our dreams have so many elements that are we could embed in our real lives.

I would choose health, a healthy body and a non ND mind. Though without the ADHD I don’t know who I’d be. So perhaps keep the ADHD. But a healthy body would transform my life.

If that’s not playing the rules of the game properly, then I would choose to live somewhere where I’d be bilingual. I would be a Finnish artist, a painter. I’d have had parents who loved me, thought about me and were interested in me. I’d have a brother and a sister whose company and opinions I enjoyed and who liked being with me. I can’t think of anything else, but that’s pretty different already. And I’d still like a healthy body in Finland.

i’m quite keen on this daydream and I think I’m almost there already…

If I could live a whole other life for a start I would have been born NT, I wouldn’t have dedicated the last 8 years caring for a parent with dementia and have studied harder at school so I had more life choices.

I’d love to live deeper into the countryside or by a little harbour somewhere and I’d be a popular author or a bespoke silversmith/jeweller with a little workshop at the bottom of the garden with a beautiful view.

Years ago when landlines and answering machines were a thing I came home to a long rambling message from a VERY posh granny who was detailing all the lovely things Flora and Bertie had got up to on their ponies and how the housekeeper was coming later and darling, I'll bring the children back soon but they won't need tea because we had an impromptu picnic on the tennis court, such lovey weather oh but could I ask our gardener if he could pop over to theirs and something about linens and Libertys and lots more 'darlings' and for about 5 minutes I was Lady so-and-so living in a posho house in the Cotswolds and my kids had a Duchess for a granny and lots of animals and staff. Until the message ended and I was snapped back into the reality of three kids in a two up two down and turkey dinosaurs that would not cook themselves.
I do sometimes think of wrong-number Granny and wonder if she would have minded adopting me.

I would love to life a life without my epilepsy. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to live a life that isn’t controlled every day by a health condition. I just want to know what it’s like to be able to experience a life without feeling scared and anxious every single day. That would be enough for me I think.

I'd still be married to DH, and have the kids but I'd be a journalist for the NYT living in a brownstone in Manhattan. I wanted to be a journalist since I was a kid, life just never panned out that way.

I once nearly slept with a Spanish friend of a friend while in Spain (is that the most boring story ever on mumsnet!) and every now and then I imagine this whole other life where I didn’t sack him off and now I live with him in Spain. It’s hard because my parents don’t get to see their grandchildren grow up - but the lifestyle makes up for it!!

Can we have imaginary lives that don't carry any consequences? Id be a super cool animal rights warrior. With my metal clipper thingies I'd be breaking into labs and releasing all the poor rabbits and beagles ( along with my buddies who would re-home them). We wouldn't get caught and we'd be able to get them over the trauma and stress they've been through. and we'd go our whole lives only using soap and shampoo and so on that aren't now tested on animals and none of us would get ill with anything that the animals are used to test those meds on.

Think I saw the other day rabbits in some countries now have some of their hair pulled off whilst they are still alive to harvest for cashmere as often and bountiful as it can be. Awful thought.