Is anyone leading the life they had envisaged?

[mommie]

I suppose I just wondered how many people had really got the life they had intended?

I never wanted children, or a husband and was going to be a career girl.

I have a very happy marriage,wonderful DH, the most gorgeous little boys, that I still sometimes can't believe are mine and a lovely stepDD.I still have the job I love as well, but only do it 3 days a week to make time for the more important things, my family

I was convinced I would die at 21 too. A fortune teller told me I wouldn't live to my 22nd birthday and I really believed that until I did.

At the moment my life is far from how I could ever have imagined it. But this year has been a nightmare, and while it's getting worse just now, I can actually see the end. I too believe in bad cycles and good cycles and that everything happens for a reason, and luckily, I can see all my mistakes, and the causes of my problems now, and the END too!! And then maybe my life will start to go the way I'm (hoping) imagining it will in the next few years/decades.

tell god your plans and make him laugh

no - I thought I could have it all but it's not exactly like that

Ha soooo not but I love it and wouldn't change it for the world.

Not really ( to answer the original question) I'm happy now but at 40 (nearly 41) still feel like I'm waiting for life to begin in lots of ways and that there isn't masses of time left to be feeling like that but i don't know where to start....aaargh! I never imagined i would have 1 ex husband and 1 ex partner with a child by each of them with all the complications that brings especially now i am remarried to DH who is lovely but doesn't get on at all well with DS2 so, although life is a lot better than it was 5 years ago, it still isn't ideal but then, who's life IS perfect? I've just read this back and realise I sound like a guest on the Trisha show with my exes and different dads etc Merlot, I followed your "Holland" link - how beautiful.

Didn't have a definate life plan. Am basically happy though and its got nothing to do with material things as my life isn't terribly great in that respect. Would not have bought a house that needs renovating in retrospect. Didn't expect a child with special needs, didn't expect to marry a much older man.... all these things are difficult but they don't make me terribly unhappy. Have thought about things that I should have done recently as I've just turned 40.... but expect to do more later on... my parents still travel regularly abroad and they are in their 70s.

I tend to focus on the good things and there are plenty of them, rather than on the bad.

No, read too much Georgette Heyer as a teenager and decided I would only marry at least a baronet!

Thought I'd have more money and a bigger house - nothing palatial, just like my home when I was growing up. Property prices mean 4-bed detached way out of my league, sadly.

Oh, and I wanted three girls - including twins. Got one boy instead but he's wonderful.

ha ha ha! the life I had envisaged!!! ha ha ha!

No... that's the answer.

I was going to have 3 girls, a rich husband and a big house. I was going to be a writer. My kids could come to me with all their problems and I would never be judgemental and critical like my mother.

Had one girl and 3 boys, in my 20's. Thought we'd get it all over with in one go and have a life of our own when they'd grown up. My dd moved out when she was 17 and never tells me anything. DH will never earn masses of money and we've been in debt for 20 years. Have to work full-time and never have time to write. At 42 I feel time is running out, and I will never have the life my parents had.

I so wish I could turn the clock back and do everything different, especially when I hear about people I was at school with who are rich and successful with professional careers.

I never thought I'd be a sahm at 30. I was going to work in a City law firm until I made partner and then have kids, at maybe 35 or so, who would probably have a nanny and we'd all live in a huge Victorian house in north London and go on terribly exotic holidays in far-flung places.

So that hasn't happened. My 20-year-old self would be appalled, but I'm much happier the way things are now.

I am living the life i always hoped i would - nothing fancy - SAHM with 3 kids, nice house, lovely husband, friends and family around me, dog --- am i really boring and without ambition??

I envisaged different things at different times of my life - my hopes and dreams at 17 changed when I became 25, for instance.

zippitippitoes, that was my life plan
wonder who's got it instead of us?
Oh I know, Kristin Scott Thomas, (cos an actress would have been just as good as a lady novelist)

not really envisaged anything. but have achieved what i really wanted

I most certainly do not have the life I envisaged. But in some way, I feel that now I'm getting closer to the image I had when I was a child of how I'd be as a 'grown-up'. I've done well academically and professionally, I have a wonderful dh and gorgeous ds, and I hope I'm dealing with the hang-ups and (in the scale of things minor) traumas sustained on the rather bumpy route here. I know I sound like I'm taking stock although I'm only 28 - but after all that's gone and is going on in my life (see 'sad abour parents' thread for an excerpt) I feel I've got stuff to take stock of.

Nope. I thought I'd have travelled, had a wonderful career and now have settled in a little village in the english countryside near where I lived as a child.

Instead, I fell in lurve, am now 'settled' in a new town in Scotland, haven't got the wonderful career and didn't travel. I do admit sometimes I feel a bit sad and panicky that I didn't do what I'd planned for myself.

my only life plan was to fit travelling the world somewhere into my life.......but dh and dd came along so travelling never materialised as dh had/has v good job and didnt want to leave it....never thought i would always be soooo busy all the time and i never thought raising a child/keeping a house/working all at the same time would be this demanding....I stare in admiration at parents raising their children on their own.

my only life plan was to fit travelling the world somewhere into my life.......but dh and dd came along so travelling never materialised as dh had/has v good job and didnt want to leave it....never thought i would always be soooo busy all the time and i never thought raising a child/keeping a house/working all at the same time would be this demanding....I stare in admiration at parents raising their children on their own.

hoped to be living abroad but having lived away I missed my family too much and felt isolated. so I'm not living the life I intended but a different and more meaningful one I hope.

No! and i thought my goals were realistic!

xmas 2001 -i thought id get qualified in childcare (which i wanted since i was really wee) travel for a bit-canada, so see family there, for 2 months in summer of '02 and do two charity things - bike hike through india, planned for autumn '02, and a walk in china, march '03, then settle down, find a man, marry, then have kids, (in that order) and own and manage a childcare nursery, pref before im 40.

Instead I had to drop outta my course after 2 months and work full time, had a baby in dec 02 to a man i havent seen since i was a few weeks preggers, meaning i couldnt travel to canada, or do either of the charity things.

But I am more experienced in childcare than i would have had in my course, I have a nice life, finacially comfortable-ish (have a tenner left at end of most months..wow ) and i have had two men fighting for my affection in the last few months...and Im planning to go to canada in 3 years with my dd, and together we are doing volunteer work closer to home. I feel fulfilled (without a man) and am planning to going back to study next year, and open a montessori styled nursery within the next 10 years.

No. I'm meant to be a millionaire authoress and live in a calm, minimalist, beautiful house.

I'm also meant to be willowy and be able to wear linen without it crumpling and never, ever look flustered or knackered.