Hey Fellow Boomers, I Am 60 And Have Lots Of Regrets, I Will Share Mine, Share Yours

[ChubbyStar]

I dropped out of college in 1979 to marry a guy I really didn't even like. God, it sounds so stupid to write that and then to think I did it, but I did, and I regret that. You?

[Comatose Sphagetti]

1. Had a chance to get my graduate degree paid by my employer.

One year program. One class a week.
And I didn't do it.
Grrrrrrr.

[Cartoonist]

2. I let a wonderful lady slip through my fingers

I have many regrets, but that's the one that would have truly changed my life.

[ChubbyStar]

4. Yes the love that we let go

The worst kind of hurt.

[kacekwl]

3. I regret I never learned another language.

among other things.

[Hotler]

11. May I suggest...

https://www.duolingo.com/
http://www.openculture.com/

I've been dabbling in Duolingo, playing with Spanish.

Have fun.

[kacekwl]

15. Thanks, I'll take a look.

[DBoon]

31. I regret I only started to learn another language in my 40s

and that I didn't start learning a musical instrument until my 50s.

[Funtatlaguy]

5. This is kind of like auditing in Scientology.

Ok, there was this one time, at band camp...

[ChubbyStar]

17. Yeah that's exactly what I had in mind

If you don't like it post in another thread.

[True Dough]

6. I hope no one here is consumed by regrets

We cannot change the past. The best we can do is learn from it and let that help guide better decision-making in the future.

I know that sounds corny but it is how I feel. I have minor regrets but I try not to dwell on them.

[ChubbyStar]

18. No dwelling here, just shedding

[True Dough]

22. Good. Shed away!

I don't mean to be a shed disturber!

[ChubbyStar]

24. FFS did you just say that?

Why did I laugh?

[Arkansas Granny]

19. I feel much the same way. I had to give my granddaughter a little

pep talk not long ago and tried to convince her to concentrate on her successes, not what she considers her failures. Life moves forward, not backwards.

[DUgosh]

7. I regret not staying out of the sun

My skin suffers

[MuseRider]

8. Had the chance to get my Masters

in music performance and could have either traveled and played as a soloist or found a good orchestra gig. Instead I stayed here where I am happy but always wonder about that other life. I would have loved a life on the stage as a soloist. Even if I would not be good enough I could have tried and I stopped before I found out. 65 years old with one wonderful son and another who got married and decided we were not useful to them so I do have a granddaughter but have never seen her. Wish we knew why. Yes I have regrets.

[Laffy Kat]

9. I regret not finishing college, too.

However, I will say that considering I never finished my degree (communications), I've been relatively successful. I am comfortable, even though I am now divorced. I guess not having an undergraduate embarrasses me a little; I don't feel like I'm given credit for what I know. It's probably more about vanity than financial success.

I also regret not learning another language, although it's not too late, it's just soooo hard now. Learning anything new now is difficult.

[angstlessk]

10. I've been thinking of a 'nostalgia' topic?

When one reaches a certain age, there is more past than future, so the past interferes with the now.

[BeyondGeography]

12. Same age as you...I wish I had my kids earlier so I could loaf now

But then they wouldn’t be the same kids, would they?

[Hotler]

13. I married a women for all the wrong reasons.

And in fact she married me for all the wrong reasons also. I asked her to marry me and I shouldn't have. I don't think it lasted 2-yrs.

[Arkansas Granny]

14. Hey, fellow Boomer. I am 72 and I regret beating myself up for things I did

that I can't change.

We've all made bad decisions in our lives and suffered the consequences. I would rather see my life as an opportunity to make things better instead of second guessing past mistakes. The past can be fun to visit now and then, but you live in the present.

[CanonRay]

16. I married my college girlfriend

and I KNEW it was going to be a disaster. Two years later she cheated on me, and I still thought I could make it work. I wasted 5 more years before divorcing get. Finally found the right one and have been married 37 years.

[Corgigal]

20. Wow,

everyone regrets are so important.

I was a tiny little lady when I was 19 and always wanted to be a jockey. I met a woman who worked at Santa Anita who said she could hook me up as a warm up for the thoroughbreds. We met when I just joined the USAF but she left only 2 weeks into basic. Invited me to go with her back to the track.

I just wonder. Might have suffered a broken neck week 1. How I loved riding my horses though.

[wasupaloopa]

52. 30 horses died at Santa Anita this season. We use to go there but never again.

We had 3 Arabians and a Quarter Horse. I could never see them killed like they do at the track.

[Corgigal]

55. I'm aware.

I was young and it was a long time ago. I'm a New Yorker, going to California to ride beautiful big creatures was a calling.

Took the other road. However, I do go see Justify and American Pharoah every year.

[Skittles]

21. I wish I had tried more to help my brother

I knew he had a drinking problem but I did not know how bad it was until he passed (he lived in another state)......he was 11 months older than me

[ChubbyStar]

23. Hey There, My Sister 13 Months Older Died From The Same Thing

I went to Alaska with a two year old to try and save her. Could not, and I cry for her so many days.

[Skittles]

25. it's hard

[ChubbyStar]

33. Skit I Know

I always remember Mikki in a good way, until I want to kick her ass.

[Skittles]

35. exactly

[GP6971]

26. We bought a Ford Pinto.

Worst car ever.

[Lunabell]

27. I regret not going for my RN.

I got a BS from FSU in 1990, then I went to vocational school for an LPN. I fully intended to return to school and get my RN but life got in the way. I regret not doing it. But I do have my BS in Child Development from FSU.

[leftieNanner]

28. 66 year old Boomer here

My dad pushed me in college towards the sciences with the ultimate goal of med school. Because he wanted to be a doctor himself. Ruined my time in college. I did graduate, but sometimes wonder what might have been if I had pursued music, drama, or writing instead. The things I really liked.

[Midnight Writer]

29. I regret posting deeply personal stories about myself on an open internet platform.

[fleur-de-lisa]

64. LOL! I'm with you.

[dawg day]

30. Listen to Edith... regret nothing... (but of course I do)

It hasn't been a bad life overall... it's just been a lot more MINOR a life than I imagined. I think many women of our generation would probably admit that... we had enormous potential, but there were so many obstacles, and we kept settling for what seemed best and safest-- getting married or taking that "safe" job or whatever, because the cost of making the wrong decision was pretty extreme.

But heck, we still have time! Let's do something MAJOR with the time we have left. (Starting with utterly humiliating Trump.)

[ChubbyStar]

37. Good Lord Edith Was Magnificent

So are you.

[dawg day]

39. Isn't that wonderful?

She sounds so world-weary and yet triumphant.

[susanr516]

32. Yep. Dropped out of college to work

And make sure my ex got his degree. Three decades later, I got an associate degree from a community college. Graduated summa cum laude, 3.96 gpa. I have a lot of regrets, but that's the biggest one.

[dawg day]

40. But that's still a triumph--

I teach community college, and I know how hard it is to stick it out and focus on the studies and get such great grades. You were meant to be a lifelong scholar, I think! I hope you can go on to more studies.

[sinkingfeeling]

34. I gave up 3 years of a 4 year college scholarship to marry a

guy I had nothing in common with in 1967. I was a protester against Vietnam and he was the son of an Air Force colonel flying bombing raids.
Never finished my degree.

[Generic Brad]

36. I regret nothing

I have had more than my share of disappointments and betrayals. But none of it was self induced. I chose my best life.

[ChubbyStar]

38. That is fucking amazing

Good for you!

[AJT]

41. Well....you aren't dead yet, there's still time to make big mistakes.

If I could do it, you can too. Don't give up!!!!

[kimbutgar]

42. I wish I had seen James Brown, Michael Jackson and Prince perform live in concert

I had a chance to James Brown but no one would go with me.

[dawg day]

46. Oh... I had tickets to see the Stones,

but lost them. I was 15, and scatter-brained. Really!

I really have never given up beating myself up for that mistake.

[Sneederbunk]

43. I hired a dog to mow my lawn. It did not work out.

I also made the mistake of paying him in advance.

[KT2000]

47. OMG -

[ChubbyStar]

48. Kk You Win The Thread

[OnDoutside]

54. Oh, that's rough.

[Bayard]

44. I wish I had learned diplomacy skills much earlier in my life

The phrase, "Being honest to a fault", has certainly been an apt description. I initiated a lot of my own misery.

[Mendocino]

45. I wanted to be a forest ranger,

let it slip by for a nondescript mostly nothing job.

[cpamomfromtexas]

49. I regret not dealing with abusive parents sooner

I wish I had told my grandmother of their abuse. But I was afraid of the fallout if I told.

Now I’m fighting for what she left me that the abusers have tried to steal.

[ChubbyStar]

50. You hang on darlin'

Hang on. Speak the truth now. You know it, you lived it. Hang on.

[Rollo]

51. No real regets, but... I could have been an astronomer...

Year was about 1973. I had a summer job on campus with an astronomy research lab. I worked on a project that was setting up measurements for studying, of all things, the first suspected black hole (Cygnus X-1). They wanted me to continue working there, and maybe switch my major. They even put my name in the paper, acknowledging my technical contribution. I decided I wanted to do biology instead. But I still have a reprint of that paper, somewhere.

To this day I'm not entirely sure why they wanted me to join them, but it's the thought that counts. Sometimes I do wonder how that might have played out.

[emmaverybo]

53. I wanted to be rich and famous. Things worked out o.k. anyway. Our decisions are the best we

could have made at the time, given circumstances and what little we knew.

We also tend to forget the good decisions we made and the really horrific ones we avoided.
When I spend time regretting, I remind myself of what a waste that game is while life is still to be
lived.

I’d never have contributed much to anyone else’s life if I’d been rich and famous.

I do wish I’d have made more of the limited talents I had, but then I’d have had to face just how
limited they were.

Anyway, most of the things I enjoyed doing, I can still do if I put the time and effort in.

I won’t get rich and famous, but I could enjoy the doing. Is it Gandhi who said something like “it doesn’t matter what you do, only that you do it.?”

As Jessie Jackson has said “God’s not done with me yet.”

[MFM008]

57. I wasted at least 10 years

On someone i was to naive to realize didnt really like me much at all.

[mnhtnbb]

58. Staying too long in both marriages

I married for the first time at 21. Way too young. We had actually broken our engagement and then got back together. I guess I regret getting back together, too. The first one lasted 7 years.

Five years after the divorce I met who I thought was the man of my dreams. We married 11 months later. The first time he was verbally abusive --3 years, 1 child, and a major move to another part of the country later--I was stunned. Wondered who was this man? Where did that behavior come from?

The verbal abuse, the bullying, and the disrespect increased over the years, mostly when we had disagreements about something. Never politics. We had a lot of fun together, too. Both liked to travel. But I learned to be careful about expressing my opinion when I knew it was different. One time I watched him be so nasty to lost baggage airline personnel over a problem of his own making when he switched carry-on bags with someone else going through security, that I had to leave the area. Didn't want to be associated with him. Still, I stayed in the marriage.

After our house burned down in 2007--most probably from him smoking outside without an ash tray when I'd asked him numerous times to use one--I actually spent several months in therapy grappling with the issue of whether to leave him. We'd been married 22 years at that point. I ended up staying with him and that's my one big regret that I didn't leave him after the fire.

We'd been married 32 years when I finally had enough and left in 2017. A year later, the day after his 76th birthday, he put a shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger. He left not only a physical mess, but also a legal, financial, and emotional mess, too. My youngest son identified with him. Didn't want me at the memorial service a couple of months later, so I didn't go. He has only just this weekend begun speaking to me again. We had lunch together and neither one of us spoke of the almost 2 year estrangement. It was weird. Almost like it never happened. So I don't know what made him change his mind, but I decided to accept the renewed relationship. Maybe some day I'll ask him.

[samnsara]

59. dropping out of grad school....but my dtr needed attn at the time...

..but education is something you can get anytime of your life. Other regrets....not learning to swim or not learning how to drive in downtown Seattle...


on the other hand what im proud of is NEVER taking up smoking!

[Nay]

60. Back in the Reagan years, we didn't become expatriates like we wanted. We saw all

this shit coming, and we didn't move out of this country. I've apologized to my kid a dozen times already.

[mnhtnbb]

65. In '94 we had a chance to move to New Zealand

Went to take a look. Hubby (mentioned in my post 58) didn't get treated the way he wanted, so he turned off to the whole idea. We could have chosen Auckland or Wellington (another doc from South Africa took the position in Christchurch that I hoped hubby would get) so we stayed in the US.

Twice since then I was hoping to get us a place out of the US, first in Panama during Bush years which we gave up because of the fire, and then on Bonaire as recently as 2015. He backed out of Bonaire because he refused to acknowledge health issues that were going to make him need to retire.

Now at 68 I don't want to make a move abroad on my own.

My passport is current, though. Just don't know where I'd go solo if I was inclined to leave.

[hunter]

61. I don't regret anything.

In every other timeline I'm dead, in a prison for the criminally insane, or just scraping by in a post World War III wonderland.

[sarge43]

62. 76 here, Silent Generation

Two regrets

1. Started smoking

2. My college major. Should have elected history instead of English

A bunch of things I wish I hadn't done, but that's life.

Q: Done anything stupid today?

A: Not yet, but the day isn't over.

[Yavin4]

63. Didn't study Computer Science in undergrad in the 80s.

Didn't stick with web development in the mid 1990s. Lost out on huge career potential left and right.