To miss the past so much it almost hurts

[Duggeeismysaviour]

First off, I'm very very lucky to live the life I do. I'm so grateful for it, and I have many moments in the day with my toddler and baby that are just wonderful.

But I'm so sad lately. I'm doing very little apart from childcare. Not seeing friends (as we left UK in March, hoping to return soon), not going anywhere socially, not working.

I have the clearest memories of years gone by. I have an extremely good memory that means during quiet times I am hit with one memory after another of such specific things. From how I felt during a moment, to tastes, sounds, something somebody said. My mind cycles through all things I used to do, with people I used to know in various stages of my life. People that have now scattered and will never come together again. Things that were so so fun,
totally carefree, and that will never ever happen again. Dinners, nights in with husband before babies, nights out with friends, travelling the globe with a backpack. I have to stop myself from thinking, block it out, because it's painful. I feel like so many versions of me have died and now I'm just a shell, existing for my beautiful incredible children.

I know its melodramatic and completely self indulgent during a time when people have lost so much more. Bi know I'm lucky to have had those times. But that doesn't stop my sadness. Perhaps my bleak outlook is long term lack of physical friendship, along with current sleep deprivation, but I worry about the future, if I'm always looking back at the past. Do i need to just get a grip?

Well, I feel better for having said this here, as I can't explain it to anyone else! Has anyone else ever felt this strongly about their past? Is it a common stage in life (I'm 36) that I will get over, or will I always be sad that I'm not 24 anymore?!!!

The point is that so often we look back at the past with Rose tinted specs! It is difficult because I know my memory is selective, and its only selected the good bits! Day to Day life can be humdrum no matter who we are, and it can be tempting to revisit the past in a warm glow .Try to look forwards(difficult sometimes as I know!)and plan some little treats Lunch out maybe ,or some nice perfume /a dress and so on.Small ones are great ,but also hard work! If you feel tired that can affect your mood too. Thinking of travelling the world with a Backpack may lose its early charm when you are in your mid 30s though!(even without Covid!) My Friend has twins and feels similar to you .Freedom looks great from a vantage point .But ask yourself if it was so good why did you settle down with a DH/DC? Possibly 10 years on you will want to relive your current time with your family .I try to live each day as it comes and not look too far back/forward if possible !

I came onto the thread expecting you to say you were missing the times when your screen were really little. Those are precious days. That said, I found them very difficult. It does get much much easier.

It sounds like you are in a very difficult transition at the moment. You’ve moved into a new stage of your life and weren’t quite ready to leave the old stage yet. I think for a lot of us CoVid has accelerated some of these inevitable changes and the move is complicated by the restrictions linked to the pandemic. They are keeping us tied down and unable to move on to the next phase. I (voluntarily) retired last year and am missing work and feeling like a total waste of space but I know if I could be doing all the activities and travelling I had planned for my retirement I wouldn’t feel this way at all. I just have to remember - this will pass.

Incidentally @TenDays I interpret the JL song so differently to you - to me it’s a hopeful song and a tribute to his partner, that although he’d led an incredible life and had amazing experiences he knew that the life ahead was going to be even better with his new love by his side. I hope that was true for him and I hope it also comes true for the OP with her wonderful children and new things to come.

I'm the same but I am still trying to get over my last relationship and come to terms with the future I thought I had. Especially as he's moved on and she's pregnant :(

My dc are teens now, nearly everyday this week they have gone out after school so I've been home alone. That's great, a couple of years ago they never went out without me (part of the reason my relationship ended) so I'm so glad they are having some kind of normality now. But I do miss those little children they were who needed me so completely.

Life is different now, and good in so many ways, egno more crap kids tv/nursery rhymes, but i miss so much of what I had.

Maybe you are homesick? Looking after young children with no friends around is not fun.

When I was 33 I had a horrible year or so, ending a relationship and I had a 3 year old. I was always looking back. But then, suddenly, I came through the other end and had such a great time living alone with my daughter. She'd go off to her dad and I would feel like I was young again, lovely freedom!

Hope you can get back home soon and find that life settles into a more interesting version with more joy for you.

I had this today. My music app makes a ‘mix tape’ for me and usually this just brings me so much joy!

But I realised that so may of the singers/writers are now dead (Bowie, Prince...)! Or music from films with the actors now long gone...

I could’ve wept - I remember these songs a teen and listening to them. I had time, hope, opportunities, no husband and kids, no responsibilities, my parents were alive, my siblings were young and healthy... 😭

Placemarking so I can come back and read this when I need to....

I feel the same OP. Exactly the same.

xxx

I feel like this often. Weirdly for me it is a longing for the years 12-22 maybe. So much promise, and time ahead, and really, so few responsibilities. I find it almost painful at times.

Omg it was creepy reading your post because that's exactly what I'm going through right now. I'm also 36, very happy on paper with a husband, toddler, home et! but I intensely yearn for past memories. I keep reliving moments from my teenage years/20s, certain holidays or phases of my life and even listening to playlists from way back to keep the memory as vivid as possible. It sounds similar to maladaptive daydreaming (something which I only found out about on MN) however I'm obsessed with replaying my own memories instead of dreaming of an alternate life.

I did have PND/PNA and wonder if it's just a coping mechanism. I'm not unhappy or depressed when replaying the memories, if anything it makes me happy in a slightly melancholy way which is why I keep doing it.

Wow, what wonderful responses, each and every one. This is mumsnet at its best (and on AIBU!!).

I was honestly expecting a lot of "be quiet, be grateful" posts but the understanding and insights are fantastic. I love love the portugese word for this feeling. And the poem, song lyrics... absolutely agree that reading into this feeling, understanding it in more depth helps so much.

Funnily enough, I'm acutely aware that I will miss this time with my babies too. And that makes me sad for my future self!! In those little, gorgeous moments when 3 year old says something amazing, or chubby baby gives me the biggest happy grin, I say to myself "this moment, right here, this one you will one day wish you were back in, and you're in it right now!!" I guess I want to hold onto these moments that keep going away, the time that is relentlessly moving on. But that's a little different perhaps from my other feelings of losing my social carefree past, the selfish experiences I had. (Smells are definitely the worst offenders, a particular kind of bonfire on a summers evening takes me instantly to many different places in my past!)

Anyway, I am not a bundle of misery/intensity in real life, honestly! And thank you all again, I will revisit these responses again as they give real food for thought.

@Thecobwebsarewinning

It sounds like you are in a very difficult transition at the moment. You’ve moved into a new stage of your life and weren’t quite ready to leave the old stage yet. I think for a lot of us CoVid has accelerated some of these inevitable changes and the move is complicated by the restrictions linked to the pandemic. They are keeping us tied down and unable to move on to the next phase. I (voluntarily) retired last year and am missing work and feeling like a total waste of space but I know if I could be doing all the activities and travelling I had planned for my retirement I wouldn’t feel this way at all. I just have to remember - this will pass.

Incidentally @TenDays I interpret the JL song so differently to you - to me it’s a hopeful song and a tribute to his partner, that although he’d led an incredible life and had amazing experiences he knew that the life ahead was going to be even better with his new love by his side. I hope that was true for him and I hope it also comes true for the OP with her wonderful children and new things to come.

This is my interpretation too, that the old days are past and the best is yet to come. I didn't get that until I was old enough to have gained and lost a lot.

I think you are grieving for the life you had, with all its freedom and totally care free.
Because let’s be honest, we all loose all or some of this once we become parents.

I also think it’s becoming easier when we are ‘find Ourself/who we are’ as a ‘new me’, the one that is now a parent. One of the issue is who you are as a person, not just as a mother, but also as you @Duggeeismysaviour as well as a romantic partner and a friend.
You need space for all of those and it sounds like atm you are only a mother.

I get this. I find myself Yearning for my late teens and twenties a fair bit- but I lost both of my parents in my early thirties so I think that I’d strongly connected, as the type of thoughts I have are about why I wasn’t More grateful for my parents when they were around and why didn’t I ask them this or that.

Surely most people want to go back to the past. The other day I was feeling really sad wishing i was back in primary school again. I know my mum would rather go back to when we were kids but I’m sure because of all the recent family shit we’ve been through. I think it’s the fear we are getting older and our lives changing. I feel stupid reminiscing about the past, especially when I lost my young cousin last year in their early thirties who will never experience the future. Op, you still have your children who are healthy and should focus on that. Not everyone is as lucky.

Lovely responses.
Your nostalgia is understandable.
I lived a very privileged life, travelling and having a blast, before and after meeting my husband.
I look back and thank God for the luck of it all.
To go from that to living a small, lonesome life with small children abroad would be some shock, no matter how much you love those children.
This is a period of transition.
Don't beat yourself up.
I will warn you though that, nostalgia for the days when your children were small is such a thing too.
It usually is because the memories are are entwined with being so busy and sleep deprived.

Covid is a very tough time for young parents.

@Frauhubert

Oh god i feel the same. Except it’s about my life I left in London for a new life and new husband in another city, far far from home. I still think of London as home, never call my new house a ‘home’, only ‘the house’, or since it’s really my husband’s house i say ‘in your house’. He gets upset but i can’t bring myself to call in my house, let alone my home. I am longing for the happy days and moments I lived, the job i left and the friends i won’t see for a long long time. My days are empty and filled with sadness. I look at old photos and reminisce. I feel like j live in a nightmare now and hope to wake up one day, back in my happy life. I miss the shops, the cafes, the parks, my old neighbourhood. I don’t REALLY appreciate anything i have now, which makes me feel so sad and ungrateful. It’s been months and months that i haven’t felt true happiness and the closest i get to a warm nice feeling is when i think about the past.

I'm a Londoner too....and missed it dreadfully.. But it has changed so much..Become more gentrified, and not the same as it was.. I still feel really connected to a certain part... and would buy a house there if I could afford it.. Maybe you could return? I watch old you tube videos of London.. :)

Surely most people want to go back to the past.

God no.
I love getting older and most of what that entails.
Each decade that passes is better than the last in my life.

I want to go forward.

I am the same age as you OP and I've started noticing this too. I think it's partly because small children, while lovely, do take away so much of the freedom and spontaneity from your life. So when you're missing those things, it's only natural that your mind keeps wandering back to a time when you were carefree and had the opportunity to be spontaneous. But I think, for me anyway, there's also an element of regret that I didn't truly appreciate the freedom I had when I had it. Nothing can prepare you for the relentlessness, the responsibility and the exhaustion that comes with babies and small children. If I'd known, then maybe I'd have appreciated my late teens and early 20's more instead of worrying about the future. Maybe I'd have savoured all those lazy Sundays, evenings where you pop out 'just for one drink' and end up having a crazy night that you talk about with your friends for years afterwards, or even just the opportunity to go back to bed when you're ill! Sleep deprivation definitely plays a part too as it's so hard to think rationally.
I've also noticed that I do this a lot more in the week leading up to my period.

Yes; yes. I use my nostalgia, my dear departed memories, as an escape – often – to fly away when times are tough. I made so many mistakes, I wasted so much time. It makes me sick to remember.

But... I visited my elderly neighbour last weekend and felt ashamed. He lives alone; at 6pm, he'd long finished his dinner in an empty house and, chatting to me, his cup of tea was going cold. He didn't mind at all, he waved it away. He was pleased to see me. The house was so quiet, so full of memories (his).

I went home and held my children close. Being a parent is hard. But to be so needed, so wanted, and never alone (no matter how much you'd like to be at times)... how very, very lucky we are.

We must remember to live in the now, too.

@RobertSmithsWig

The years with very young children are challenging to say the least for most women (I NEVER look back misty eyed to when they were babies. I wouldn't live those years again for a king's ransom). Things do improve significantly when they start nursery/school - you can start to do stuff with them that's fun and interesting and have a bit more time to yourself. Having structure to the day is also important, so that the day isn't just one big blur - have music time, craft time, exercise time etc. A support network is important, either family members or friends, who can give you the odd night/day off - you really do learn to savour those times. My DD is due to have her first baby shortly and I'm concerned she will really struggle, having lived the sort of life you describe. Domesticity isn't something most women aspire to these days, and most have had careers, money and independence before DC come along, so the culture shock can really hit hard.

However, my DC are adults now and I couldn't imagine life without them. They've brought so much into my life; new experiences, new friends, new highs and lows. They've opened avenues of creativity in me I never knew I possessed, drawn a strength from me I never knew I had and a depth of love I never thought I could experience. I'm so proud of them. I've shared the euphoria of their highs and the despair of their lows, the periods of calm and the times it felt like we were shooting the rapids and heading for a sheer drop. Sharing their journey through childhood and into adulthood has been a privilege and a joy. Hang on in there, it does get better.

I found this such an inspiring message to read. Thank you for sharing this.

I'm a bugger for looking backwards too OP. Thing is, I've spent the last two hours trying to get two toddler terrorists to stay in bed and go to sleep, I've had a whopper of a migraine today, my DH still isn't home from work, I burned dinner and I had to turn down a part time job I would have LOVED because I can't get suitable childcare. Today is indicative of many of my days and while I love my DC I've pretty much hated the last few years of being a parent and yet in spite of all this I KNOW I'll look back on these days with nostalgia 🤷‍♀️ It's a trick, a stupid, cruel trick don't let it fool you!

When I really, properly think back to the days say backpacking around India or Thailand or what have you, if I'm really honest with myself I remember feeling a bit "meh is this it?" after a few weeks and thinking travelling was all a bit "samey" after a while. I craved something "more" and I try to remember that when I return my something "more" to her bed for the 55th time tonight

@RobertSmithsWig your post made me tear up! Everything you said is so true.

What a truly fantastic thread. Such wisdom. I wish I could talk to some of you about this in real life!

OP.

I felt like this after my children were born. My life wasn't as exciting as yours, but there was a distancing of friendships - complicated by post natal depression. I got through it but it was tough and very lonely for a while. I never have that feeling now and i'm in the present with my kids which is more satisfying than all that stuff that happens in your 20's.

I have these feelings sometimes too. It’s mostly an intense longing for the total freedom I had when I was single and living in a tiny, little flat alone. I think about leaving work and being able to shop or go to a my overpriced gym or meet friends for drinks. Or travelling last minute because there were cheap flights. And not having to tell anyone at all. I also miss the pre children days when I was falling in love with my husband. And the baby days with my children.

My life now couldn’t be more different now and is wonderful in a different way but I still miss it.