I certainly felt that way several times in the past, but I got over it. I moved on. Looking back, I certainly have not a single regret. 

I have a "life mate" now who's far more than I had ever imagined possible. And tomorrow is always brighter than today… that's after 30+ years.

Life's a learning curve; there's no such thing as a "missed" opportunity unless you try to cling to something that could not be… possibly for reasons you have never worked out. 

When focussing on what could have been, it is easy to miss what is.

I've mentioned before - when I was a teenager I dated a guy.  I thought he was pretty nice.  My girl friends were dating and marrying his friends.  But I graduated from highschool, and had to support myself.  That meant moving away.  We lost touch.

Years later there was a lot of publicity around a trial.  His wife had murdered him - from reports, she had pretty good cause. 

I thank my lucky stars.  That could have been me in her position.  Or maybe in a different relationship, he might have been different.  Maybe we could have made a marriage.  We'll never know.  But when I heard what had happened I just asked myself 'how did I get so lucky?'

No one knows how things would have worked out if we (a) married a teenage sweetheart, (b) took a different job, (c) moved away from home (or didn't move away), (d) gone to university, (e)  put off having kids, (f) whatever ....

We are who we are, where we are.  It's the reality we are living in that matters.

So, Jlin, you are asking me whether I have had any relationshihps that accidentally slipped away.

I could have spent my three score years and eleven chasing rainbows and telling fish stories about the big one that got away.

But, actually looking back, I can honestly say that if I had it all to do over again, I would be lucky if I were to do as well as I have.

Sure I have regrets, my path never led me to a pot of gold, but the journey has quite eventful.

Health problems pretty much kept romance off my radar for the first half of my three score years an.............................

PS. So when I was 35 years old I turned on my romance radar and it did not take long for it to lock on Namana, and has stayed so and she is still here.

I've had a few situations like this in the past, a relationship that may have blossomed... but didn't...   I do wonder from time to time how my life may have been different had this job or that relationship or the other situation  played out differently..  But I'm also aware of the rose-coloured lenses of nostalgia; and I also know that though the road I didn't take might have been different, it need not necessarily have been better, that the path I ended up on.  Because I recognize that, I don't get too worked up over 'what mighta, coulda, woulda been'.

With a divorce, and now with a separation, I obviously have been in error a couple of times - I didn't reach the social age of 21 until I was 60 or so.

I remember, long go, one girl who adored me - but would never marry out of her faith. Some years later, she changed her mind; but it was too late. Then, more recently but still twenty years ago, a lovely and very pleasant person to be with that I realized, just too late, thought as highly of me as I did of her.

I think I went through too many intellectual and social changes as I grew up with the result that my maturity and judgement fell way behind.

Result - I might well have made a mess of it no matter what I had done.

Graeme, after reading your post last evening I awake this morning thinking about the prophets of the Old Testament non of whom seemed very involved in romance. Also in the Old Testament Jacob was paired with Leah when his heart was set on Rachel.

Now I have jumped from the romances of the Old Testament to Mother Goose's Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater and on to Cinderella and others in Grimms Fairy Tales.

There is also the crying over spilled milk aspect of this thread.

So, Jlin. What have you got to say for yourself in this thread which you have started and is giving me lots of food for thought?

ah, Rachel. She is another lost one. For which I am grateful

Uhhmm, Naman, what do I have to say about it all . . .

Some of it I have said in a Blog that I just posted which was a Reflection adendum that I gave before the minister's sermon on Sunday.

I lost my future to my mental health disorders (s), which claimed my personality, my life, the defininition of who I was ot society and therefore how I was perceived by society ( think of it as being raised liberal and kind but white in the 1950s in Mississippi and then after turnign 20 in 1957 you wake up utterly black, poor and in rags - kind of like being expected to find your way out of that - by guilt tripping, guilt tripped, freaked out, denying family, social workers, doctors, shrinks et al ).  I am so installed as a mental health trip that everything I do is perceived as me doing this despite a mental health issue or because of one.  I am so labelled that I can only consolidate the labels.  I have been denied employment, denied therapy, denied selfness, denied personhood, denied friendship, denied marriage and family.

Everything I have done I have done because I have gone underground and defied the definitions only to have pissed off controllers come back at me, rip off Cinderella's dress and refuse to let me go to the ball, I have worked and deserved to go to. Of course, magic does not apply in this world.

You just get kicked down many many times as soon as you get up and then get told it's the "real world."  for sure, real third world.  I will say it.  It is like being First Nations and being forced to accept one's self as a loser and being kept as a loser and wathching other - luckier - First Nations individuals ( the chief's son, the Chief's daughter, the medicine woman's daughter etc - make it and having everything they have except cash and status and having the hands grab me down and then deciding to end my life

.  And as such, I feel little guilt or remorse; only Canadian, having the crap beaten out of me by self righteous fucks - any race any religion. 

So, are there things that I regret and which piss me off and wanted to work out better oh yes, many many things I would have changed.   It's o.k. to be bitter.  In fact, if one is not bitter for losing and being abused, when one doesn't even know the basics of bullying for real, and tries so hard not to harass or be harassed, not to be bitter would be deceitful and disingenuous.  Also it would make me just stupid.  Gotta say that .

I did get to experience having a family, although with guilt because I didn't yet have a secure career.  Again, it was a smoke and mirrors thing - I did have a chance at ministry which got screwed up - and is another story but the relationship is interesting in that in order to secure it I had to hide it ( like a business speculation) .  I hid my relationship from everyone for three years - kept it completely secret and also the pregnancy.  That is how I got through to that.  One can't do that with a career.  So, I get to be a slave - housecleaner.  the only Trojan horse item I get with that is that I can charge a lot more than most.

A good friend from San Diego (who is no longer a friend because I'm too weird, and so is she, but I will always love her) sent me a poster one that said "This is not a real life.  It is only a test.  If it were a real life there would be questions, answers and tests before the real life." 

Jlin - I used to have another poster that I think you would appreciate. It was a picture of a herd of sheep - one of which was pink - and it had this caption: "I tried being normal once, I didn't like it."

Jlin, thanks for being honest with us. You have showed me that you have put shame behind you and that you still have a future.