Like a bucket list, except it’s stuff you wanted to do/be once upon a time but now it’s extremely unlikely. This is harder than putting together a bucket list and somehow humiliating, I think, because everything I want to put on the list is greeted by my inner optimist with, “Really? Why can’t you change course, right now, and get there?” And I have no good answer apart from some flavor of neurosis.
Mars Colonist. I’d still volunteer if the opportunity arises after 2018, but as a sterilized, middle-aged guy with no science background I really have nothing to offer the program unless they just need someone to move stuff around.
Surgeon. It sounded good 25 years ago, but even if I came into the means to get the schooling out of the way I’d be well into my 50s before I ever got the opportunity to surge on anyone. And my competetition would all be half my age. And I can barely read a comic strip anymore, let alone absorb college-level text.
Pro football player. Not for the money or the fame, but because I really loved to play and was actually pretty good when I was in high school. Of course now there are only a few players anywhere near my age, and at 5’5" with no real talent for speed, well, love of the game is about all I could contribute
There is more I could add, I’m sure. But nothing I can really convince my inner optimist is too far-fetched. I suppose that’s a good thing.
Interesting concept. I don’t think it’s humiliating, because life sometimes changes your direction for you and at some point it becomes impossible to go back.
Sometimes, there are no do-overs.
For me, one jumps immediately to mind.
► NFL Quarterback. I didn’t play organized football as a kid, but I could always throw well. My parents were raised in the Philippines, and I was born there, so it was a difference in cultures for us and by the time I knew there was organized sports it was pretty much too late. When I was in high school my best friend was an offensive lineman for the school team and he always said I had a better arm than the QBs on the team, including the starter. In college I QB’d on intramural flag football teams, and one day I went out to the ‘real’ football field to test my arm. I was firing lasers to my friend 70 yards away. I never tried for absolute max distance but I’m sure I could hit 80. Later, I eventually QB’d teams in city flag football leagues, and on other teams, and I was quite accurate. To me there’s nothing more beautiful to see than a nice, tight spiral that’s delivered as a very catchable ball to my receiver, in the right place (hi, low, front shoulder, back shoulder, etc), and then either zipped in there or softly lofted with nice touch depending on the situation and coverage.
Well, I’m 53 now so it’s safe to say it’ll never happen. I don’t feel humiliated.
Space Exploration: Back in the 70’s Mammahomie gave me this Charlie Brown science facts book that postulated that I could very well be living in a space colony by the time I was 35. Well, I’m 44 and but for a handful of astronauts on the ISS, there is no one living in space, and only vague plans to put anyone back up there any time soon.
Lots and Lots of Sex: There are lots of things I’d like to try sexually (different partners, different acts, different locations, etc.), but being married has put the kibosh on most of that.
Lots and Lots of Drugs: I have a list of drugs I’m going to try some day - Special K, Molly, that kind of thing - but doing meth or crack, just to see what it’s like, is out of the question - legally, physiologically, practically.
Astronaut: While I might be useful on a Mars mission as a generalist, SWMBO says no. Watching assorted catastrophes occur over the years has not made my position any stronger in her mind. Pro car/motorcycle racer: My reflexes aren’t nearly good enough any more for these kinds of shenanigans at the pro level. Also, SWMBO says No. See reason above. Drugs: Shrooms, LSD, and other psychedelics. Once I would have loved to try them all and do the whole Fear and Loathing thing, now, not so much. Being a respectible-ish grown up sucks.
Still possible, but becoming less likey each day. Mainly I mention it because of this.
Used to work for a pretty small group within a large company. A few years after I left I wondered what they were working on and who was still there.
Well, damn if one of the projects I was co leader engineer on (and the other engineer was now gone) ended up going to fricking Antarctica! Probably for several weeks. With lots of down time project wise.
To add insult to injury, I bet good money almost all those guys that went had to be FORCED to go. They hated every other cool place we did get to visit.
A fighter pilot. At the point when I would have signed up, that’s when my eyes took a southward shift, and I didn’t think I’d have the eyesight, and didn’t want to sign up and end up driving a C-130 instead of a F-15/F-22.
With that, I always wanted to be an astronaut/go into space. At some point in high school I seriously looked into it and realized just how absurdly intense the competition was, and that outside of being an astronaut, I wasn’t interested in the scientific fields that NASA was. I figured that it was dumb to devote my life toward something that I’d likely not achieve, and then be saddled with a lot of education in a field I didn’t really want to do.
Probably my last one would be to be an artisanal distiller. If I ever come into enough cash, I may yet do this one. I think it would just be super-cool to make my own rum, whiskey, gin, etc… and share it with others, but I’m not super excited about the small business aspects of it.
Oh yeah, the crazy sex that HeyHomie mentioned. By the time I had the whole women/sex thing mostly figured out, I was past the real partying years, and ended up getting married.
Pilot. I’ve always loved flying. When I was in high school in the early 70s I wanted to be a Navy or Air Force pilot but my vision is pretty bad. Now I’m 58 and flying lessons are expensive. Probably not gonna do it at this point.
The whole sex thing others have mentioned goes for me as well. Married at 19 and not willing to cheat on my wife, it is what it is. Which isn’t all that bad—I could have done a whole lot worse.
A musician. I’ve never even tried to learn to play a musical instrument, but to this day I still have fantasies of playing the guitar in a band. It’ll never happen, even though I actually do own a guitar: a cheap imitation Strat. Once in a while when I’m alone I’ll pick it up and pick at the strings for a few minutes, but any actual playing is not an option.
Becoming a pilot. Besides being a rock star, my childhood dream was being a pilot. Being blind in one eye, I knew that would / will never happen, but like the guitar I still dream about it now and then.
Since I was a kid, I wanted to be the frontman for a rock band. It must be so awesome to stand at the front of the stage, performing for thousands of people who love you and your music and are there to see you do what you do best. And to be the frontman, you have to have charisma, and looks, and the moves, and the ability to control the crowd, and basically have them eating out of your hand. And then you get to listen to them singing back to you, in unison, the lyrics you wrote to the song you wrote. What a feeling that must be.
And threesomes. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that my wife would ever agree to invite another woman into our bed. So that’s on the fuckit list, fer sure.
Pro baseball player - I played high school and college Division I baseball, and to this day have a deep love for the game. I was probably good enough to have been drafter waaaaay down in the lower rounds, and would have likely wound up in a low A or Rookie League. I always had a great glove at first base, and had a really good instinct for the game. I hit for a high average, but only so-so on power. That last thing there, hitting for power, is the thing that would have kept me from progressing up through the ranks. First base is a position that most teams are looking for a power hitter to occupy, so it would be difficult to progress unless I really improved my HR and driving deep to the gaps.
Still wonder to this day if I should have gone for it. A few MLB scouts had talked to me my senior season, but I didn’t want to bounce around the minors for years on end. I had a good degree and some good job prospects, so my baseball career ended with a doubleheader against Coastal Carolina in 1988.
I always thought climbing Mt. Ranier would be a fun stroll. But now that I’m past the mid-century mark, the attraction of hiking a couple of days through snow while carrying a heavy pack no longer appeals.
There’s a bunch of similarly outdoorsy things that I’ll probably never get around to.
Famous science fiction author would have been nice. But it turns out that anything I write that’s more ambitious than mild snark on message boards makes me squirm in embarrassment when I read it. So I guess the big bucks and fame inherent in niche authorship must escape me.
Live indefinitely long: when I was in my 20s I thought there was maybe a 1/4 chance that I’d live to see a cure for aging. No such luck.
Be a father: Still technically possible but fantastically unlikely. I would have loved children but I’ve been too dysfunctional most of my life.
Hike up Pike’s Peak: Someday, when I’ve lost weight. Never gonna’ happen. ETA- which reminds me
Lose weight: I’ve been 60 or more pounds overweight since I graduated high school. Now I’d have to lose 80 pounds and I’m in my fifties. Very unlikely.
There are a couple of countries I wish I had gone to when I had the chance. In Pusan, Korea, I could have jumped on the overnight ferry and visited Japan, but didn’t. To save a few bucks, I took a cheaper flight from Khartoum to Nairobi without a stopover in Ethiopia, which I wish I had seen.
Ii could still go, and book a round-the-world flight with stopovers in blank spots that I missed, but vision problems would make travel an arduous chore full of booby traps.
Winning the US Open: With an eagle on the last hole. Scoring the game winning goal for the Stanley Cup: In overtime, Game 7, for the Capitals, on home ice.
**Playing drums for The Who:**At sold out Wembley Stadium.
**Airplane pilot: **I always wanted to be a fighter pilot and commercial airline pilot, but the former is too far-fetched and the latter costs too much and is still too unlikely.
**Concert pianist: **I don’t have the skill, and get stage fright much too easily.
**Navy submariner: **After research, it sounds much less appealing than originally thought.
**Aerospace engineer : **I am really bad at physics, chemistry, and advanced math. And after research, it sounds much less appealing than originally thought.
At age 60, I’ve long since come to terms with the awareness that I’m never going to be an astronaut, or a MLB player, or the President of the United States.
