Do you ever feel you should be living a different life?

[YawningHippo]

Just that really.

I love my life as it is, but I feel such a pull towards certain things that I wonder if I was meant to live a different one.

Anyone?

I feel like there are hundreds of different lives I could have lived. I wanted to be so many different things (although all linked by one common theme). I really like my job but I wonder if I had more support as a teenager, or if I was a braver person, what I would be doing now.

I would Dad that I feel very humbled in my real life because I am actually a doctor and I really feel for those who wanted my job and of circumstances where different would have done medicine.

I came from quite a disadvantaged home and my desire to be a doctor meant I missed out on lots of other things ( I don't have children for instance)

However there is always Paris...

I am emigrating in the next 2 years. Just waiting on ds to complete his GCSES and then it will all depend on if he gets into college to do the course he wants to.

I feel like I am planning to go home

I feel like I am planning to go home

When I first arrived in the US age 21 I felt like I had come home.

I spent another 15 years living in the UK, but I've been in the US for 10 years now and it feels more like where I'm meant to be than anywhere else, for now.

I might well change in the future though - I don't feel like I've finished moving around.

Not so much a pull to another life.

But sometimes I think how my life would be if I hadn't walked out on a fiancé ten years ago - and actually shudder.

So glad I walked.

Sometimes it is utterly clear to me that I should be married to Prince William. Then I remember that he is gay, so I had a lucky escape

110%. I feel like I have a ghostly twin me inside my head who's fading a bit more with every passing year. I know that sounds like pity party martyrdom... but it's like when you look in the mirror and don't recognise yourself for a second, all the time.

prince william is gay??
am I in a parallel universe now then, or have i just not been paying attention?

Pretty common knowledge that he is gay

well, google reveals that he was named 'straight ally of the year' is that what you mean?

Pretty common knowledge that he is gay

Has anyone told Kate? Is Harry the father of her children

I live at least 6 different lives inside my head, some possible, some totally impossible fantasies, and a fair few that require a lottery win (I refuse to put them in the impossible category - at the least they are improbable, but you either win or you don't so its basically 50/50, so I expect to win any day now* )

*no, but I really do.

The trouble with the 'possible' lives is that they're conflicting. If I follow one, I shut the door on the rest and I can't quite bring myself to do that so I just do ... nothing. I'm storing up a whole world of regret for myself and I really need to just bite the bullet.

We relocated because of my DH's job and it often feels like a temporary measure - as if I'm going to move on somewhere else eventually.

In reality, it's highly unlikely as our child has been here for the majority of her life now so it's her home even if it doesn't feel like mine/ours

I also love Paris, unfortunately as I do already eat the coffee and croissants frequently I don't meet the skinny criteria

I had a really specific idea of the job I wanted and the job I wanted on the side, since I was six. And I'm doing it. And yeah, to be honest, it feels kind of summative. In a nice way. I do wonder if I should have had a different ambition though! Grass is always greener!

Rainallday- I used to do that job too and where I worked there was a very high turnover of staff because although it can be rewarding it was also soul destroying. Yes some delivering babies (I delivered 3 over the phone in my time there) and helping people genuinely in need but a lot more of 'I CALLED 10 MINUTES AGO WHERE IS THE FUCKING AMBULANCE???!!' and 'IF SHE DIES IT WILL BE YOUR FAULT YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH!!'. I started off really enjoying the job but got really disheartened when I realised how vile people under stress speak to the person who is trying to help them. In my experience people don't stay doing that job for very long they either try and progress to radio or leave.

To answer the op, yes I have always had this gut wrenching feeling that I am not in the right life. In my teens I used to cry myself to sleep about it. I have learned to cover it up, but it's still there.

Kind of ...I feel I have a "book in me" 😂😂

Yes to the better childhood/zero guidance thing also undiagnosed (though blatantly obvious) mental health issues mean that I have nowhere near reached my potential and following severe illness/chronic pain and ongoing illness resulting from this, I never ever will. I seem to get more bitter as time goes on and there's no way to change things. OP please go for it if you feel so strongly and have the means to do so.

I also have an idea for a novel that has been there 4 years. It's all there on my head, I just haven't committed more than than a chapter to paper. I try not to dwell though on how little I have achieved thus far in my life and just try and think of what I'am good at.

Thank you all for sharing your stories. It's been nice to know I'm not alone.