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Nostalgia

lostmyway

How much do people tend to reflect on their lives as they enter their 60s, 70s, and beyond?

I’m finding now that I look back a lot at the missed opportunities in my life that I had to take a different direction, I realize it’s a bit too late. At the time, I thought I had plenty of time to change things, but I fell into a routine that I found very hard to break. As the years passed, I reached a point in life when I realized I should have acted earlier.

Does anyone else have these kinds of thoughts?

  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    See, that's where we differ. I don't like myself as I am now because I feel I've let people down by not giving my mom and dad any grandkids or even leaving home and making my own way in the world. My three other siblings have all had one kid each, while I stayed at home and supported my parents financially, and in later years, was a carer for my mom. I suppose the latter had some value, but the only reason I became a carer was because I couldn’t face leaving home and standing on my own feet, which I feel never allowed me to realize whatever potential I might have had. In 1974, I did manage to break free and move into a flat with my sister, her friend, and an engineer who worked at the same place as me, but that was more out of desperation than choice. It didn’t work out, as living in a flat is like living with other people who have their own lives, and I didn’t feel there was much of a “family” atmosphere. After a year it all fell apart, and I came back home, which my dad probably appreciated since I think he and my mom were struggling financially without my support, especially with two younger kids to bring up.

    You seem quite self-sufficient, with educational achievements, the ability to drive, and the freedom to choose which friends you spend time with. However, apart from having a so-called friend who wasn’t truly a friend and took advantage of me back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, I’ve never really had friends. One reason is that I get easily hurt or upset if I feel someone is being disloyal or humiliating me in any way, even as a joke, and it puts me off people.


  • No because you make the choices at the time that seemed best, hindsight is always 20/20 vision. Of course there are things I could have done better, things I'd have been better off not doing or doing differently, but I have no real regrets, not really, I like who I am now and I'm the sum of my experiences thus far.

    One of the things I find funny about looking back at life, is thinking, 'how young I was then', then being my mid forties or early fifties.