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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Who are you really?

85 replies

JustonTime · 30/01/2020 23:52

I'm 100% convinced that I should have been born in France, learned piano, had a horse and obviously spoken French.

Who do you feel you are? Or am I the only one who feels they were born in the wrong country? And era.

Seriously though, it's like a memory in some things. I don't have to learn French - it just reminds me of words I know? Same with piano. And France, I feel at home there.

OP posts:
Oldhaggard · 31/01/2020 03:22

I think maybe I should have been born 200 years earlier, horses everywhere and I'd have loved a simple, hardworking but simple lifestyle, on a farm somewhere just getting from day to day instead of all this non stop life all the time and the pressure to be everything to everyone and never quite getting anywhere. I also think I'd have probably found love/a husband easier too! I'm sometimes fed up of being the strong independent singleton in a world where everyone else has a partner. It sucks.

Original poster
JustonTime · 31/01/2020 03:26

Definitely born into a wealthy family- possibly aristocracy.

I actually couldn't help but belly laugh at that, because my French, horsey, piano playing family are surely aristocracy too.

OP posts:
BritWifeinUSA · 31/01/2020 03:38

I feel I should have been Asian. I used to tell my mum when I was a child that “when I grow up
I’m going to be Chinese” and also that I wanted a Chinese baby. She said I’d have to marry a Chinese man.

I did live in China for a year. Felt very much at home. Never had a Chinese boyfriend though.

evilharpy · 31/01/2020 04:15

I should have been Spanish. From my very first Spanish lesson the grammar made far more sense to me than English and I picked the language up very easily. I feel at home there, the way of life just suits me better, I am absolutely hopeless at coping with cold weather. When I was younger I just assumed I’d move to Spain when I left school. Then I met and married an English guy... oops.

hibiscuswater · 31/01/2020 04:23

I should have been born in New Zealand, I would have been if my great grandparents hadn't emigrated. I've got one parent with NZ citizenship but I can't claim it.

Today though I'd settle for anything that would let me keep my EU passport.

PenelopePissedstop · 31/01/2020 05:03

Edwardian lady, middle class, well read, seeking social justice through a passion charity project to benefit children.

calmama · 31/01/2020 06:14

Don’t know. But I feel more at peace in India than anywhere else I’ve been. I feel like an alien in my own country most of the time.

TurtleCavalryIsSeriousShit · 31/01/2020 06:48

I'm like @Lillygolightly, I think I could've been a great, single, career woman, living in an apartment in New York. Having lots of sex with different men and eating in restaurants all the time.

Or I could be a small town, farm girl. Happy with the simple life and nature.

When I was younger, growing up in South Africa, I always thought I'd marry a wine farmer and live in an old Cape Dutch style house in the Cape Town area.

Or I'd be in the middle of the country somewhere, running my own conservation farm with lots of wild animals. So yes, chameleon (or fat cat) just fitting in anywhere.

Nothing2doooooo · 31/01/2020 07:23

Nice to see some people's past lives here. Very interesting read.

@JustonTime Wasn't sure if you knew about it or believed. Didnt want to 'woo' anyone Grin

flouncyfanny · 31/01/2020 07:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Bigmango · 31/01/2020 07:53

I love this thread. So I have a weird affinity with American pioneers. Whenever I see places like Montana in film or TV I get a weird pang like I’m homesick. I’m planning on an American road trip at some point and hopefully some riding. Maybe I was a cowboy? I definitely love horses. I’m not woo at all but this has always made me question past lives etc as it is so specific. Funnily enough I am part American but my family is East coast.

MaisieMaisie · 31/01/2020 07:56

I was French too and a ballerina. Not a prima, corps de ballet. I didn't have any children.

I have two left feet in reality and while I do speak French (as a result of feeling at home there and spending some time living and working there) I most certainly do not look remotely French nor like a ballerina Grin.

MidsomerMum · 31/01/2020 07:58

I should have been born in Sweden. Whenever I go there, I feel like I’m going home.

IamtheDevilsAvocado · 31/01/2020 07:59

London 1939...recruited into SOE... Spend was behind enemy lines...

Or
Was discovered at school as a fantastic actor... Amazing award filled careerGrin

GonnaBeMaayy · 31/01/2020 08:02

I should have been born in Norway. I’m a total Scandiphile.

MrsMoastyToasty · 31/01/2020 08:02

I should have been Victorian upper class with plenty of staff. DS would have been presented to me every evening by the nanny once he was bathed and dressed. I also would have rocked a bustle.

DeeZastris · 31/01/2020 08:05

I genuinely think I should be Greek, living on a Greek island and being the captain of a boat. I love the food, culture, people, scenery, climate of Crete especially.

I should not be doing an office job in rainy, dark Scotland.

JustDanceAddict · 31/01/2020 08:05

Interesting, but I feel I was born into the right time. Born early 70s and enjoyed growing up in the 80s with the music etc.

TheDarkPassenger · 31/01/2020 08:10

I do believe in reincarnation but I’m quite happy with my life as is, I feel at home and won’t and settled.

I do begrudgingly agree wth my mother though in that she acts younger than me and I’m like a 70 year old who likes staying in the house and going to bed early.
Hahahaha I love it though

TheDarkPassenger · 31/01/2020 08:12

Cosy, not ‘wont’ I’m clearly shit with technology too

BillywigSting · 31/01/2020 08:12

I always felt like I should have been a gypsy (not Roma, Irish taveller), with a caravan and a few of those beautiful horses, barefoot on the cobbles and never in the same place twice.

My uncle recently did some work on our family tree only to find that, surprise surprise, we are in fact descended from travellers. And none of us are homebodies, we all have itchy feet and a bit of a nomadic streak.

I used to fantasise about marrying a lovely gypsy boy when I was 16 and we'd have lots of adventures in the irish mountains and a beautiful caravan that would be spotlessly clean.

Never did though. Got stuck with a lovely English man who hates travelling and has great disdain for caravans

overnightangel · 31/01/2020 08:15

“I don't think you're alone. There seem to be an ever increasing number of people who think they were born in entirely the wrong body.”

😏👏🏻

EssentialHummus · 31/01/2020 08:16

Northern. I'm foreign and I noticed after 10 years in the UK that all my friends and a fair few lovers were from just a couple of places in the North of England. Something about the broad humour and the directness I think.

MysweetAudrina · 31/01/2020 08:16

I would have been a cathar in the languedoc Rouissilon region of France. My children hated me for dragging them around the remains of the 17 Cathar castles in this area of France. I probably would have had healing properties and been burned as a heretic.

whydoihavetogothroughsomuch · 31/01/2020 08:19

I feel I should have been born in 1912. The titanic looks so familiar Sad