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In the spirit of reminiscence and nostalgia that is floating around here, what are some things that you used to be but are no longer?
I used to be:
A avid sports fan. I used to be a faithful fan of several teams and truly enjoyed watching games on TV or in person. I can't do it anymore. It's no longer enjoyable for me to be emotionally engaged and tense about an event I have no control over. Im still interested and like to read results and will watch major events like the Olympics, but for the most part, watching just isn't fun anymore.
A active theatre participant and patron. This one is only sort of. I teach theatre and direct four school shows a year, but that and my family schedule preclude me from being involved as an adult among peers. I also have difficulty taking off my director's hat enough to enjoy watching a play I am not involved with. I'm always recasting and fixing things in my head.
A movie buff. I used to have an encyclopedic knowledge of popular film. Or at least the actors in popular film. At least enough to be really good at movie trivia and drinking games. This one falls mostly on my family changes. I got married and had much less time or inclination to watch every movie at the video store. Then we had children and our already diminished movie consumption dwindled even more and became dominated by Thomas the Tank Engine and Pixar. I hope this one I can get back to someday.
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I used to be a reader. Life pushes that activity further and further into my past. I guess loosing faith in my favorite author didn't help. Or GRRM treating his fans like hammered horse hokey, or then Rothfuss dropping the ball on the Doors of Stone or my children constantly yelling for attention or...other reasons.
I used to play video games over networks live...now everything is turn based, so I can pause at any given moment.
I used to be filled with certainty. Now I know enough to know how little about anything I do truly know.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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I used to be ignorant that I was a bigot and a sexist. Now I know I have been both those things, and to some degree still am. But I work on it, in the belief that one day I no longer will be.
Really most of the things I have been, I'm just less extreme now. I used to game every waking moment I could. I used to read books a lot more. I used to watch tons of TV.
I still play video games, but most days I don't, I do often watch pros play, and I'm excited to play a bit more with my son on weekends now that he's getting old enough to want to. I really enjoyed Stranger Things, but I'll watch a show maybe once a month.
I'm working hard to be good at my new job. I do finance for Sam's Club. So what I want to be is a senior finance officer, and no longer be a scrub at it. Posts: 1194 | Registered: Jun 2010
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I used to be able to run for miles and miles.
I used to be way more insecure than I am now. I used to think I wasn't strong enough to do a lot of stuff. Then stuff happened and I managed to do what I had to do that I never, had I even imagined it, would have thought I could. There's a lot of peace in that. And gratitude for ordinary days, hours, and moments.
I used to be better at logic puzzles of various sorts, and worse at understanding people. I used to be a lot more anxious and a lot less happy. It makes me realize there's more and more and more happiness available to us as we learn to understand and accept it. I still believe in eternal progression.
I used to not believe in God. I still believe in Science, and in Technology. I believe in wisdom and self-government. I believe the human species has the potential to grow up and make difficult choices to live sustainably, like an adult, instead of profligately, like an adolescent, and to honor our Mother Earth who bore us and whose womb we have not yet left.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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I used to be considered "ahead of my peers" in school. As an adult, I feel much less special, though maybe equally separate from "normal" social life.
I used to be surrounded by animals. I grew up that way, always with dogs in the house, always with a little furry friend of my own in my bedroom. I loved them with my whole heart. And I always envisioned myself raising my own children surrounded by animals. Then at the age of twenty-three I developed an allergy to animal shedding and/or "dust". I refused to abide by the order of abstinence, but two year later I was hardly able to breathe when in a room with an animal's cage. Since then I live alone.
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Dang. That's sad. As somebody about to have a dog again after 20+ years without one that's like how I feel reversed. Posts: 1194 | Registered: Jun 2010
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The cool thing about being idealistic and young is that you can be completely certain of correctness of your ideals.
Part of getting older for me has entailed a slow recognition that nothing I used to be certain about is so cut and dried. To be honest I like the world of nuance a lot better than the world of black and white, and I think it funny or sad when I come across those who think in black and white, as they think it funny or sad that I don't see the world as they do
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I used to be shy and an introvert. (Hatrack helped changed this - I didn't know until the Meyrs-Briggs craze swept Hatrack that I was an extrovert. Once I embraced my pathological extraversion, stopped looking down on people (including me) that liked crowds and excitement and had friends that ranged from lifelong to cursory, and recognized that I needed a bench of at least ten close friends I can call at any moment to hang out, my quality of life improved dramatically. I went from an unhappy sham introvert to a very content extrovert, albeit one that doesn't always remember people.)
I used to be unusually smart and bookish and dress conservatively like an Amish librarian and that made me weird. (This changed when I moved to DC, where the whole dang city is smart, bookish, dresses conservatively and would be weird in most other settings.) (This is a nerdy, nerdy town. My first thought was horror that I wasn't special anymore. The second thought galloping behind was sheer joy that I had found a city of my people - the only community of that before was Hatrack.)
I used to be a commitment-phobic flirter. (This changed when I switched from multiple flirting partners and one best friend to one sweetheart and multiple close friends.)
I used to be addicted to Hatrack. (This changed. It's fine.)
I used to be bad at pleasing higher ups because I didn't finish things. (This changed when they started paying me and then paying me more if I finished things. Turns out I have both a work ethic and a desire to not be poor, and that won out over procrastination.)
quote:Originally posted by Jake: Pan, have you looked into hypoallergenic breeds?
Thank you for the suggestion, Jake. I had heard about them and looked into it a little more just now. I would have to try those - but to tell you the truth, I am more than a little frightened to do so. Because if I got myself an animal again, I would be sure to love it, and once again very unwilling to give up on it. I have been there. I did have pets at the time and I refused to give them away. I decided to drug myself with anti-allergic meds daily. When I cleaned their cage I would take anti-histamines a few hours in advance, wear an air-filter mask, and still had to inhale a double dose of bronchodilating asthma spray to breathe comfortably. I would cough up lots of mucus, too. And there were times when I would wake up in the middle of the night because I could not breathe. That is quite unpleasant. So I kept them until all but one of them had died, and then found him a new home with companions and great conditions and a very knowledgeable caretaker.
I have very little trouble breathing now. I'm not taking any meds except for the occasional asthma spray (maybe once in three weeks). So I simply do not dare to experiment just yet...
quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: Dang. That's sad. As somebody about to have a dog again after 20+ years without one that's like how I feel reversed.
Thank you, Blade. It's so nice that you're getting a dog. Please do make sure to tell us about him/her!
quote:Originally posted by Elcheeko75: I got married and had much less time or inclination to watch every movie at the video store. Then we had children and our already diminished movie consumption dwindled even more and became dominated by Thomas the Tank Engine and Pixar. I hope this one I can get back to someday. [/QB]
I know how you feel. I am 43 and my sons are now 10 and 13 but there was a time my wife and I spent the whole day watching Discovery Kids. When my kids moved their interest to Pixar it was such a bliss ;-)
I got married back in 2001 and our son was born in 2003 - before that I used to be your films, tv shows, comics and science fiction avid consumer which I have switched to occasional and sometimes complete relapse. I have spent quite sometime mostly reading computing books ( I have a degree in Electrical Engineering but I have been a system analyst/programmer/tech writer most of my life ) so kind of neglected the geek part of me for a long time. Then in 2011 I had a complete breakdown and something that has helped me to heal was to read, so I have come back to be a complete geek since then. It helps that my kids have grown and sometimes we like the same things ( well except science fiction and heavy metal music ;-) ) like "Stranger Things".
I was a lame guitar player, table tennis player before I got married but I used to run 4 km a day. Well, bad news on this, I only started to seriously play table tennis and bass guitar again this year. Still I am required to do a lot of exercise though. I am very far from those 4km :-(
I used to like soccer but today I loathe it.
I used to me a very liberal, left guy and proud socialist. Today I still maintain some liberal beliefs but I really don't want to be associated with the left.
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quote:Originally posted by PanaceaSanans: Thank you for the suggestion, Jake. I had heard about them and looked into it a little more just now. I would have to try those - but to tell you the truth, I am more than a little frightened to do so. Because if I got myself an animal again, I would be sure to love it, and once again very unwilling to give up on it. I have been there.
Kinda sounds like me, and spouses. Since my husband died I have discovered a severe aversion to the idea of ever having another relationship for the remainder of my life; because outliving someone you love really sucks.
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I used to be.... young.
(and am sometimes having issues dealing with the reality that I'm not any more) Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Jacare_Sorridente: The cool thing about being idealistic and young is that you can be completely certain of correctness of your ideals.
Part of getting older for me has entailed a slow recognition that nothing I used to be certain about is so cut and dried. To be honest I like the world of nuance a lot better than the world of black and white, and I think it funny or sad when I come across those who think in black and white, as they think it funny or sad that I don't see the world as they do
The word agree doesn't begin to encompass my feelings. I hyperagree. Well said. Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Jake: [qb] Pan, have you looked into hypoallergenic breeds?
Thank you for the suggestion, Jake. I had heard about them and looked into it a little more just now. I would have to try those - but to tell you the truth, I am more than a little frightened to do so. Because if I got myself an animal again, I would be sure to love it, and once again very unwilling to give up on it.
I hear you. I'm fairly allergic to cats and dogs both, but like you I grew up surrounded by them, and when I don't have them around me there's a hole in my life.
in 1999 or 2000, I had a ferret that I loved deeply, and when she died it was horrible. She wasn't my first pet to die, by a long shot, and it wasn't that I loved her more than I had some of my dogs or cats, but somehow at that point the pain was enough that I just decided that I didn't want to go through it again.
In 2004, this neighborhood cat took a particular liking to me. When I was sitting on my patio reading, she'd come up to say hi, and to sit in my lap. If I raking leaves, she'd be perched on the limb nearest to me, and just follow me around the yard like that. My partner and I took to calling her our cat friend. "Hey, our cat friend's looking in the window wondering where we are!" "Hey, do you think our cat friend looks a little hungry?" "Hey, do you think it's getting a little cold for Cat Friend to be outside? Somewhere along the way it had become a name, and she'd become ours. We brought her in for the winter, despite it being in our lease that we wouldn't have pets, and when we moved out the next summer we took her with us. I loved that cat so damned much. I'm tearing up just thinking about her, now, five years after she died. I have only met a handful of cats with as much personality as she had, and I don't think I've ever had a cat that loved a person as devotedly as she did me. When I'm falling asleep, I still, this many years later, think that I feel her jumping up onto the bed.
I had to take tons of allergy medications while she was here, and it was a pain, but I would gladly, without a second thought, start taking them again if it meant I could have her back.
Okay, that was way more personal than I was intending to get here, but suffice to say, I don't blame you for being hesitant. If I were in your shoes I would find a dog that is of a hypoallergenic breed, and figure out a way to spend enough time around it to find out if you'll have an allergic reaction to it. For me, that's pretty easy--my allergic reaction to higher allergen dogs in immediate, and it doesn't take a lot of time around lower allergen producing dogs to know that there would be a problem, long term.
Posts: 1087 | Registered: Jul 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Jake: [qb] Pan, have you looked into hypoallergenic breeds?
Thank you for the suggestion, Jake. I had heard about them and looked into it a little more just now. I would have to try those - but to tell you the truth, I am more than a little frightened to do so. Because if I got myself an animal again, I would be sure to love it, and once again very unwilling to give up on it.
I hear you. I'm fairly allergic to cats and dogs both, but like you I grew up surrounded by them, and when I don't have them around me there's a hole in my life.
in 1999 or 2000, I had a ferret that I loved deeply, and when she died it was horrible. She wasn't my first pet to die, by a long shot, and it wasn't that I loved her more than I had some of my dogs or cats, but somehow at that point the pain was enough that I just decided that I didn't want to go through it again.
In 2004, this neighborhood cat took a particular liking to me. When I was sitting on my patio reading, she'd come up to say hi, and to sit in my lap. If I raking leaves, she'd be perched on the limb nearest to me, and just follow me around the yard like that. My partner and I took to calling her our cat friend. "Hey, our cat friend's looking in the window wondering where we are!" "Hey, do you think our cat friend looks a little hungry?" "Hey, do you think it's getting a little cold for Cat Friend to be outside? Somewhere along the way it had become a name, and she'd become ours. We brought her in for the winter, despite it being in our lease that we wouldn't have pets, and when we moved out the next summer we took her with us. I loved that cat so damned much. I'm tearing up just thinking about her, now, five years after she died. I have only met a handful of cats with as much personality as she had, and I don't think I've ever had a cat that loved a person as devotedly as she did me. When I'm falling asleep, I still, this many years later, think that I feel her jumping up onto the bed.
I had to take tons of allergy medications while she was here, and it was a pain, but I would gladly, without a second thought, start taking them again if it meant I could have her back.
Okay, that was way more personal than I was intending to get here, but suffice to say, I don't blame you for being hesitant. If I were in your shoes I would find a dog that is of a hypoallergenic breed, and figure out a way to spend enough time around it to find out if you'll have an allergic reaction to it. For me, that's pretty easy--my allergic reaction to higher allergen dogs in immediate, and it doesn't take a lot of time around lower allergen producing dogs to know that there would be a problem, long term.
Dang that's 2:2 this thread has made me tear up.
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--- PS: The one time I visited Jake, Cat Friend and I played together in the morning. We were trying to be quiet, and I promised her we could play more once everyone else was up.
She understood and remembered, I swear. She came and found me.
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Since then I live alone.
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Please do make sure to tell us about him/her!![[Hat]](graemlins/hat.gif)
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Clever girl.
