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

[CoddlingMolly]

It's hard to explain what I mean but I'll try!

One relating to the future...I feel sad that I won't be around when humans inevitably connect with some other form of life or some incredible space discovery.

There's one regret I have about the past...That I wasn't around for the hippie era.

One that's kind of odd and I can't put my finger on why I feel like this but...I was a teenager in the late 90s/early 2000s and I always had this weird regret that I couldn't ever experience being an American high school kid or going to an American college. Nit sure why but that's really strongly connected to that era and my age then.

Just wondering whether anyone else gets these wistful thoughts!

Crikey, you must be my twin. I was just about to buy our tickets for the Trans Siberian express and a river cruise on the Volga when Putin invaded Ukraine. Last year my plan was to do the 3 peaks in 24 hours, a heart attack put an end to that. At least we have youtube and travel documentaries.

Wistful that I’ll never be as supple, fit and healthy as my teenage self was! Did gymnastics, ballet, swimming etc and was at peak suppleness & fitness… those days are long gone!
Wonder if life would’ve been different if I had been tall, delicate and willowy and have less boobage.. rather than being short, strong and muscly with far too much
boobage🤷‍♀️ My shape had a lot to do with my sporting future such as it was🫤

Same. I was a 70's teenager too, so I had the chance.

That due to finances and responsibilities I'll never get to travel the world. There's so many places I want to go but will never have the time or money to do it all so when I die there'll be so much I haven't seen of the world and won't get another chance. Serious FOMO especially the older I get!

At least you would not have had to contend with appalling racism as well, so at least that is something.

@Nat6999 Filey is beautiful and also my happy place too. I hope one day you will be able to go there again. ❤️ x

This is one of mine too.

I was actively planning a trip to Russia and then after everything that’s gone on obviously that’s not going to happen - really wanted to see the Lilly of the valley Fabergé egg.

I am sad to have never seen the library of Alexandria.

I hope this one is resolved in my lifetime but I really want to see the pyramids before something no doubt happens to them

I feel like this about my parents, as they have both passed. I think of them in their 60s , and sometimes imagine them being around. They'd be well into their 80s now , had they still been alive.

I often get nostalgic about things like Saturdays as a teenager, hanging round and browsing the shops. I couldn't even do it for old times sake as the places have changed.

I desperately miss pre-covid life. I'm clinically vulnerable and it almost killed me the last time I caught it, so I still wear masks into busy places. I don't know if I'll ever really travel or enjoy life so recklessly as I used to again.

That I'll never experience Concorde and I'll never go into space.

I can’t think of any, I have some things I’ve decided I don’t want to do again such as zip lining but I don’t feel sad about it.
I do have a long list of places I’d like to visit and hope I’ll be able to cross them off my list before I die.

I will never be able to have another sunshine holiday and I wish that I could.
I have to be very careful not to get sunburned at all, my DH has to avoid extremes of hot and cold, and we are both immunosupressed so we won't be flying anywhere.

I'm sorry that I'll never be really clever. I'm just about clever enough to know how lacking I am.

Also sorry that I'm just a bit shit at everything. I've nearly been good enough at various things - sports, professional skills, being properly slim - but always give up 90% of the way there because I lack willpower. The shit thing is that I could still probably fix some of that (I'm only mid-40s) but I don't really see the point due to aforementioned idiocy.

Like a previous poster, I wish I could have travelled before the age of the car. The sequels to the What Katy did books give me a huge longing to live in Colorado among the beautiful canyons. Amy from Little women travels in Europe make me want to visit medieval Italian cities by coach. I would adore to canoe through the Canadian lakes with Valency Redfern.

@KellyanneConway @PoochiesPinkEars@Purplebunnie

Me too! Even the 1930s Bedale of my late mum’s childhood in had much more diversity and density of flowers, insects and birds. My mum loved to talk about the hedgerows and the woods of those years.

I read a lot of novels set in the 19th and 18th centuries and studied Old and Middle English at university and the poetry is full of descriptions of nature: the poet falling asleep under a tree on a May morning full of the sweet song of the birds. …

I often think how beautiful the country lanes that Lizzie Bennet tramped would have been, how important the changing seasons and how varied and distinctive the towns and villages of Britain would be with their vernacular architecture and building materials. I’m currently listening to the Wolf Hall trilogy on Audible for the second time and imagining the forests and meadows that the Tudor court hunted through with their falcons and hounds.

Fairy Tales were very much part of my childhood too. Studying Old and Middle English seemed like a natural progression.

I wouldn’t have wanted to live in those times when live was so hard and so unfair, but Oh! To be able to visit them and wander the country lanes and forest paths in a cloak of invisibility!

More prosaically I also wish I’d seen Freddie Mercury live and travelled to Russia. I went to Leningrad, as it was then, as a child and it was magical. I hope I can return one day.

Mine’s really pathetic. I’m Coeliac, and sometimes I feel completely overwhelmed with grief that I can never again eat another sandwich on nice bread, or pies, pasties, sausage rolls, Yorkshire puddings, beef wellington, fluffy sponge cake, apple crumble, pancakes, etc…

I have a wonderful life, but sometimes I’d swap it all for a bacon butty on crusty bread in a heartbeat.

25 and slim. Even if I one day finally manage to be properly slim, I'm already old and menopausal so I'll just be a middle aged, crepey, saggy, wrinkly kind of 'no longer fat' but with an overhanging stomach of excess skin, droopy tits and bingo wings and I still won't look any good in a pair of shorts.

I'll never know what it is to be young and slim and to be able to wear shorts with confidence.

Me too. I'm in the same boat with my daughter. Trying not to be sad is a daily challenge 💐

I never seen Queen or Billy Connolly live.

I'll never be a size 14 again.

Masses of commiserations to all those mourning the loss of the opportunity to visit Russia. 😭

Except for all the people like me and @Careforcarers !!!

I’ll not live in the UK again. When I moved away nearly 20 years ago I didn’t realise I wouldn’t be moving back. I’m only in Europe so could easily visit but it won’t be home ever again.

As for everything else I want to do, I’m still hopeful! There’s nothing I’ve totally written off apart from going to the Moon and unrealistic stuff like that.

<sigh> You're right. ☹️ I'm 53, post menopausal, and have managed to get my weight to just below 8 stone (I'm 5 foot nothing, so that's about right for me). But I'm saggy and scrawny now, a sight that only my DH of 25 years and medics will ever see, if I've got anything to do with it. But I look - I think - okay in clothes, so I console myself with that. 🤷‍♀️ Just not shorts. Unless opaques worn under shorts comes back in fashion... 🤔

I think you've missed the point a bit.

I purposefully didn't use the word regret in my title because the idea isn't to think about things you could do but haven't, things you might have/have had control over. But more feeling wistful about the things that just can't be.