Looking back

Hello wotnot and welcome to GN. Good question to ‘jump in’ with.

I didn’t have a long-term vision for my life at any point apart from wanting to be happy. Although it started badly and been difficult and tragic at times, it has slowly and steadily improved so that life now is as good as it gets as far as I’m concerned. I’m happy enough under the circumstances but I never dreamed I’d be here, with this life, now.

We had our golden wedding last weekend, so a good time to think about this. I had hopes for my life, although I felt some of them were unlikely. I hoped for a happy marriage and children, but thought I was unlikely to marry or have children but I actually achieved both. I hoped for a professional career, I achieved that, but not the career, I expected.

Neither DH's nor my profession existed when we left school and this is why I would say that life certainly hasn't turned out in any way I could imagine. Every aspect of life: employment, technology, social attitudes, standards of living has changed so much in my lifetime that my life for most of the years of my marriage was beyond imagining when I left school.

Hello Wotnot, love your question. To be absolutely honest, not one thing ever went to plan! That’s not to say it wasn’t as good, or as bad, it’s just been very very different and I have had some incredible and unexpected adventures. As for the rest of my life, I shall just hold on and see ?

Welcome wotnot.

I never really had a plan and nor did DH. But. despite a few setbacks and sadnesses, I am happy be where I am.

I certainly didn't and never have had a life plan - at 64 and after 47 years of marriage I still don't! I think my husband did and achieved some of them but at the end of the day to be content and healthy is probably all any of us can hope for and the same for our children.

kittylester* I couldn't have put it better. My thoughts exactly.

I never had a life plan, nor I think, did DH. But we met, married, had jobs, children, bought a house and muddled through. Just like Topsy, we just grew. , and I don't think I would change a thing. (Oh but I would like to be without the aches and pains).

Welcome wotnot. I had my life planned, from 5years old I was going to be a nurse, from teenage years I added QANC to the nursing. I did not particularly want to marry but if I did I definitely did not want children.
Met my future DH at 17, became a nurse but dropped the plans for the QAs. Got married and promptly had two DC, I never got to travel but DH did and I had to stay at home and hold the fort. So much for planning.

Any plans I had were minimal and very modest. Mr C isn’t a planner but did have some expectations which have been severely challenged. If we think about our lives as a road trip there have been more than a few traffic jams, many detours, and wonderfully scenic routes to fulfilling destinations. We’re currently in a traffic jam, but know it won’t last, the next scenic route will come.

I know it's a cliché to say it's going to be a bumpy ride, by my goodness it certainly gas been up to now and nothing like I'd hoped or dreamed. But I'm glad to be still here, and I count my blessings. I still have plans but not too ambitious!

I didn't have a life plan. I had hopes , married and hoped for a long happy marriage, had eight years. Hoped for four children, have now buried three. Hoped my old age would be happy but it isn't .

I’ve just turned 60 and still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up......so still think a wonderful new chapter is about to unfold! But I’m happy with my life so far!

I agree with auntieflo completely and of course without the aches and pains

Hello wotnot. Great question! I can't say that anything has turned out as I planned and sometimes I do feel a little sad about the things I haven't done. But (and it's a big but) I've got a roof over my head, food in the fridge, moderately good health and loving C & GC. I think that's all any of us can realistically hope for and as I get older I'm trying to learn to be content and not so restless for change! Although I hope I still have plenty of living to do.....

I wanted the romantic happy-ever-after we were sold in those days. Needless to say, that didn't happen and, like most people, life's been extremely up and down. But, considering what life was like when I was born in 1949, I still very much appreciate the comfort of my life now.
I couldn't put into words what I hoped for as a child but I think of it now as 'glamour' compared to the drabness of the world in those days and compared with that, I live a very glamorous life and am overwhelmingly grateful every day. When I was, say, six years old, I couldn't have imagined what a lovely world we would live in now. Sometimes I look around at my warm and comfortable home or, maybe, a when I'm eating in a nice restaurant or when I'm sitting in an aeroplane, flying over the ocean and I just think "wow!". If I could have foreseen the future, I would've thought I was going to be a millionaire, though I'm a very long way from it.
Basically consider myself incredibly blessed.

Not even one little bit, nothing has turned out as anticipated but much of it has been better. Started married life with nothing, now have a comfortable retirement due to making difficult decisions then going for it and not looking back. Life could have been easier, we have faced more challenges than most and too many health issues but throughout it all we have stuck at it and come through.

Life still throws us curved balls but somehow or other we get through. No one anticipates losing their adult child but one way or another we will start to rebuild our lives and keep on keeping on.

I'm not sensible enough to ever have had a lifeplan.
It was all pretty straightforward until I reached my 50's when life suddenly took an unexpected direction and everything changed completely. For the better? In some ways.

I think I’ve got out of life what I put into it. That’s regarding those things I could control such as my career as an example.

I’m now approaching that part of my life over which I’ll have very little control - my future health, mobility, etc.. This will be very unpredictable.

I read Jo's Boys and wanted to have a Plumfield home of my own full of waifs and strays....have had that and still take them in from time to time.

I would have liked to be Mrs Chips.........but due to the nature of the waifs and strays became more Mrs Fagin.

I have loved and been loved but that can only ever end in sadness, the lovelier it is the deeper the sadness.

BUT, I have been abroad and had amazing kids and dogs of every description and technology and driven cars, read books, been to the opera............lucky me eh?

Nature is my best friend, art and the library, who knew that we would have so much for the taking when we started out so poor, in the slum housing of London after the war.

Like Beejo, I was sold the “get married and live happy ever after” scenario, but also ended up with the bumpy ride. Past generations put up with unhappy marriages to avoid the stigma of divorce in those days. I wish I could turn the clock back, but hindsight’s a wonderful thing and we can only learn and go forward. Life gives us the tests, long before it gives us the lessons ! I have 3 wonderful adult kids, all with lovely partners and 5 amazing grandkids, plus a Mum still alive ... I too am comfortable and have amazing holidays, just returned from the Carnival in Rio for example. The only regret is never finding the right man for me ... but as everything else is so good, can any of us have everything in life ? So my glass is more than half full despite my knight in shining armour ending up a joke in tin foil !!

So sorry you feel like that annie, although it's not surprising given your last year; I do hope with time that life will look up for you, and you'll feel happy again.

Didnt have a life plan, but always wanted to be a Nurse, which I acheived, didnt paricularly want to marry, but met my Husband and subsequently moved to Sweden fifty years ago! Life has been up and down but generally its been good, however I still wish I lived in the UK!

This post has me in tears. I was an only child brought up in the 50s in a happy, loving family but quite a lonely childhood all the same. I wanted to get married, have a family, not want for much and be happy. It all happened in the fullness of time. What I didn't bank on was DH's inherited illness which eventually killed him and ended our idyll. Although we are a close family, they are all living their own lives with their own families and here I am again, back to being the only one. Life has gone full circle and even though I want for nothing materially for which I thank my lucky stars, I never envisaged this, but who knows what life has in store for any of us?

My life has not turned out at all as I had hoped but I try to adapt and I seem to be surviving in spite of myself. No complaints here just silly wishes but they tick me over in the melancholic arena.