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I was asked about the no kid thing recently. My communion sponsor has three kids and none are in relationships or have ever been married. They are probably in their early 40s. She knew I didn't have kids and I guess wanted a second opinion. Her daughter had told her that she just didn't have the urge. I told her that I had felt the same way. Never felt the urge to have kids. She is okay with never being a granma, but her hubby - not as much. Who knows maybe the two sons can still produce one day?
My wife works in an Elementary School with hundreds of young kids. One of her co-workers, who is slightly younger than my wife, is married but has no children of her own. She and my wife were talking one day about having and not having young children in their immediate families during the approaching holiday season. The co-worker stated that a person will find other ways to surround themselves with children when there are none in their own family. Profound.
was OK while it lasted, but always more of a nightmare than a dream (Abusive parents / 30+ yrs of caring for them... now caring for others.... ) so goes it.
Maybe next time...
But... I have been blessed and know it, certainly nothing went as planned / dreamt . probably best that way.
Bo choice!
My plans for my adult life have never quite worked. Some of it was really bad. I like living where its unstressfull, away from a large city, since I don't have all these stressful cituations which were too much. Yes, the options are more limited, but there's something relaxing in that itself.
And I've thought about all those great plans. Thanks to health issues, I get tired easy. There are fun things I'd like to do, but in moderation. A few I'll hopefully find a way, but I know my limits. The good thing is I have time to persue things I really need private and calm for, like writing. Just give me the chance for a science fiction con once in a while and I'll be good with slow and mellow.
When I see an older person in a sporty car, I think, "Good on 'em." It's better than driving an ugly tank of an SUV. Why not enjoy the drive if you've got the means in your old age? you don't have to drive at sports-car speeds to feel the superb handling and enjoy the wind in your hair and the stars above. What's there to ridicule?
I’ve always worked hard for what I wanted the most, and it came. But the things that were out of reach, I never tried for.
I think that most people who have dreams that are unfulfilled, have two problems:
1. They have dreams that are simply out of reach unless something very unusual were to happen. Most of us are unlikely to marry a very very rich drop dead gorgeous heiress---no matter what we do.
2. They are simply not willing to put together a plan and then do what is necessary to get what you want. I knew I wanted to be able to retire, so I got into a job which had a pension system in the public sector in a state where it could not be raided by law, and where it had to be paid because obligations like that were in the state constitution. Unfortunately it meant that I didn’t make much money compared to my friends.
Dreams have to be possible. And then you have to work your tail off for them.
Interesting that almost no one mentions the limitations to one's "dreams" that an aging body dictates.
I've always had horses, but weakening knees made me give that up---could not even get on anymore. I pictured the rest of my life with horses so this was a hard concept to grasp.
Hiking and river rafting were our other passions----and the same failing joints have now precluded those.
So we moved away from the gorgeous area that offered all that, when retirement became mandatory. It was too emotionally wrenching to have it all "in your face".
We always loved the beach but never thought living on one would be possible in our income bracket. Then we discovered the advantages of expat living and here we are. Now it's sedately walking on the sand, tossing a Frisbee, and occasional Ping-Pong. LOL. I try not to wince when horses go prancing down the beach.
As a very young woman I was helping a resident in a nursing home who was dying and she offered me this advice, "make happy memories because that is all you have left in the end and they will comfort and sustain you." I took her advice.
Sure I have mini dreams, but wherever I am in this life, through thick and thin I try to make happy memories
I did all the "goals" I had- not really dreams- and found out what they were and what they weren't. Each one cost me big time. I almost wish I had just slogged it out at my current job and gotten that much more pension.
Oddly, I am retiring in January. Never had that idea/goal/dream because I didn't understand money or pensions or such. Here I am, with a pension hard earned on night shifts,and that enables me to go for one last goal, which really is a dream- to live in a small Western town. The reality is that I think I can become part of a community for the first time, well, second. My job has become a community of sorts, which makes it hard to leave, but leave I will, on Jan. 27.
And if the Western dream doesn't turn out positive? Nothing gained, nothing lost. I'm sure it will be as flawed in its own way as my aging life here in the East. I do hope to have some healthy time for horses, and so far, it's looking fine. I have always wanted to live with dogs and have made that happen.
I have always hoped for a great companionship (never thought of it as marriage but something a lot like marriage), never wanted kids, and have had but a couple of false alarms on the companionship. That seems like a dream that I'll just have to accept isn't happening. Don't know how realistic it is, anyway. But I do take relief in knowing that I never dropped the right guy, never stayed too long with the wrong one, and never had an unwanted pregnancy or child.
Many things in life you don't "think" you can have, you can with sufficient motivation to obtain them. Half the things on OP's list qualify.
The other half take the acquiescence of people, and that throws a wrench into fulfillment sometimes. People cannot be bent to our will, or not for long anyway: they tend to escape when the situational arbitrage, as I call it, passes:
Frustrated spouses walk out
Frustrated kids grow up and find a way out
Jobs too good to be true usually pass due to some kind of change
As for moving where I wanted, check and check. I went where the work was, which was where I wanted to be. The work is elsewhere, too, but huge amounts of it near and dear to what I love in life. In fact there is if-anything more this kind of work in places like WA DC and Boston, where I wouldn't live for all the tea in China, as they say.
Can't have marriage without love, or not for long, see second paragraph. Since I by-and-large don't care about others to that extent, must accept the inevitable outcomes (chuckle). Fool me once, shame on you; fool me two, three, or maybe half-dozen times, I'm hitting the eject button and should have wised up years earlier clearly. Dealing with women and insane emotional problems is for the birds, the juice has never ever justified the action.
Travel? Save money, plan it out, or work smarter at your job to make more money. I travel where I want, which is damn few places anymore because I've seen the vast bulk of the U.S. so "why." It's do-able, I've been on some epic adventures in life.
I don't have any more dreams that haven't been fulfilled in-toto due to the application of sufficient willpower (career, education, etc.)
It sounds (to me) that you have never had to experience the opposite of what life can bring to people.
Do you assume that because I am unable to move and or travel that it's because of my failure to work hard or save enough? Do you think because I didn't love my ex-husband that I bailed out of the marriage after a short time? I stayed in the marriage for over 21 years. We had many bumps in the road. He had many affairs, we did attempt counseling. We had two children. For me leaving a bad marriage because I was not happy while having two young kids did not seem right. When you are a parent and bringing up young kids, you don't always think of your own misery. There are their lives to think about, too.
Hind sight is 20/20 in many cases. I look back at how I did things 50 years ago and realize I could have made better choices, or at least different choices. But what is done, is done, and there is no going back.
And please remember that women are not the only sex who have emotional problems. Men have their own problems. For being a husband and father, his expectations were rather selfish and unachievable.
His Christmas list of things he wanted, had I bought those things for him, would have made it impossible to buy for the kids and their wishes were far less than his. Life was supposed to center on him but it did not.
I think the "Serenity Prayer" still holds true, no matter how old one is. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."
I think that as long as there is the POSSIBILITY of still achieving one's dreams, one should not give up on them -- but if there is no REALISTIC chance of having dreams come true, then in one's old age, one should just accept that and think about and appreciate the GOOD things in one's life.
For myself and my husband, we have given up on the idea of being close in any way to any of our relatives, but we have not given up on our idea of our dream retirement home -- or at least something very close to it. And we still have the HOPE of acquiring some good mutual friends in our retirement. For various reasons, that is something we have never had in over 30 years of marriage. (I would love to live within just a few miles of another couple that is compatible with us in personality and in interests.)
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