When did you become palpably wistful?

wait you don't have a teenage option!

because that's when it started. or maybe a little earlier.

I thought about that but … it seemed unlikely!

(Sorry Scott)

It’s amazing to me that this board will never run out of good questions to ask, or poll, or whatever.

we moved when i was three and then again before i was in the 4th grade and both times were very hard on me and i spent a lot of time thinking back to my old homes and friends. after we moved into our new house when i was in the 3rd grade my best friend from my old neighborhood came over with a cake that his mother had given him to give to us as a housewarming gift. i looked at him in the doorway and said "what are you doing here? we don't live near you anymore." i honestly thought that i could never see him again. it made me so sad.

I think a lot of people get wistful in their 20s, hence the prevalence of things like vaporwave, hauntology etc wanting to retreat from the big bad adult world to a time they barely remember. Then in their 30s they shake it off because all you can do is live in the present or, well, you sink.
Right now, in my 40s, I'm not sure if I really get wistful. Nostalgia is a thing but it gives me vertigo sometimes, like looking down from a ladder and realising how high up I am and how far I could fall if I look down too long

😮

I’m sorry, Scott.

i used to make my father drive me to our old neighborhood to trick or treat because it was where i needed to be on Halloween. one time I knocked on the door of our old house and when the new people opened it i immediately told them that this was my house. they brought me inside and showed me polaroid pictures of their daughters dressed up in costume for the night. their father showed me around and then pointed at a room and said "this is my office". and i said "no, this is my room". and then i left.

i agree with dog latin, my 20s were when this peaked. i don't do this much anymore and when i do i don't really get vertigo because my memory sucks now, it's just fragments. i do have a lot of regrets. i'm much better at making the most of the present than i was 10 years ago.

I'm more wistfully nostalgic, feeling left out (again)

Google street view will bring me back sometimes, but it's always a disappointment

Nostalgia often gets a bad rep. Sometimes you get a wave of ephemeral good nostalgia out of nowhere and it's unbeatable.

Hasn't happened yet but I can't wait, seems so romantic

The most important definition of 'wistful' for me is not about nostalgia for the past, but about being full of yearning and melancholy as part of your personality. If that is the definition I would say that I had that tendency from day 1. I can see in retrospect it was an unconscious part of me even when I was a toddler

I remember being 19 in my university dorm and feeling wistful about my teens, which seemed very distant.

Of course university dorms are lonely and depressing places that naturally forment wistfulness and nostalgia

I was watching a swedish teen love movie and realized that this emotional dynamic will never happen again and I felt a little wistful

Probably in my 30’s. Once I noticed the fine line between wistful and tedious, I snapped out of it.

I really get the nostalgia-as-vertigo thing when you’re older. I often think, the reason you forget people’s names more often as you get older - it isn’t about brain decrepitude, it’s about being alive for decades and meeting too many people. It’s not data corruption it’s data overload!

Sometimes you get a wave of ephemeral good nostalgia out of nowhere and it's unbeatable.

I experience this with cleaning products sometimes.. reminding me of my aunt's house in 1977, etc.

My past has always been ever-present, hence my need tonget past it, if that makes sense

Age four for me, I remember being very nostalgic for the carefree days of being only two.

The most important definition of 'wistful' for me is not about nostalgia for the past, but about being full of yearning and melancholy as part of your personality. If that is the definition I would say that I had that tendency from day 1. I can see in retrospect it was an unconscious part of me even when I was a toddler

― Dan S

absolute same, melancholy and yearning are at the core of who i am.

My brother and I are only in the same physical location about once a decade, if that. The last time it happened we drove past our childhood home and rang the bell and the owners let us inside. They'd built an addition onto the house; it was barely recognizable inside. Anyway, I am not much for nostalgia or melancholy; my brain seems to wipe memories away like a computer emptying its trash, but the things that are important to me from my past (certain books, certain records) are mostly still available to me. My childhood is a blur. There was maybe a period in my thirties when I was conscious of getting older and bothered by it, but now I have passed into a zone of fatalism, not chewing over the past but kind of drifting toward death, while still enjoying each day. Arguing with/grumbling at you people is a particular pleasure.

both never and always

I have never been palpably wispy, either.

I don't know if I've ever not been wistful. Moved constantly as a kid (13 schools in 13 years), always felt rootless, never felt like I fit in, always longing for something that probably never actually existed but, hey, rose-colored memories are preferable to shit-colored reality.

Probably the earliest palpably wistful moment I can recall was sitting in my baby sister's room at probably like age 11 and listening to one of her Sesame Street tapes and realizing that there was no returning to those years of blissfully ignorant innocence, becoming all-too-aware of the encroaching expectations of maturity pressing down upon me, and just crying and crying.

Never mind me. My relationship of eleven years just exploded in my face so I'm particularly mired in wist (and alcohol) atm.

One thing that's happened as I progressed through my thirties was becoming wistful for times during which I was totally miserable and in a much worse place than where I am at now. Nostalgia for schools I got bullied at and did my best every day not to have to go to. Partially it might just be the sense of loss over having your whole life ahead of you, partially I think it's just that since I can't go back that makes me want to, pure contrarianism.

at least back to my teens and no reason i could nail down, i've always known i'm in an alien world

Voted Not Yet. Getting sober last year and having to sort out my feelings of the past really made go in an opposite direction.

#bornwistful

def an element of things being better most years than they were previously which makes this hard to situate for me, i would say im not set up for wistful but could be turned to melancholy in a wet winter

Oh God, scott, your story uptheead just unlocked an embarrassing childhood memory I had forgotten about. I had a very good friend in 3rd grade who moved to Texas, which I was quite sad about, but of course by 4th grade I had some new friends and kind of forgot about him. One day in 5th grade someone was at the door, and it was this kid, with a huge beam on his face. I was (and am) awkward socially and was just stunned, not happy in any way to see this piece of my past. He explained he was visiting and was I free to play. And I made some stupid lie like I was busy doing homework, with no further follow up. He looked so disappointed and said goodbye and that was the last time I ever saw him. Not even sure I told my parents about this encounter - they would have been furious how I acted

Incidentally I voted "Never, or not yet"

Glad to see I'm not the only one who was born this way

the sense of loss over having your whole life ahead of you

Been struggling with this especially as I creep closer to 40. Trying to keep an attitude that there's plenty of possibilities ahead of me if I remain open to them, but damn, they are tough to see. All the could-have-beens feel more present somehow. But I've always had a really difficult time imagining the future and setting goals. IDK why.

In my late 40s I hit a point where my outlook changed sharply from optimism/potential to depression/failure. I don't feel wistful, though, probably because it was only an attitude, not actual success or whatever. And if I felt that way now, I'd be delusional.

I’ve never used this word and don’t know what it means so I guess I don’t feel that way lol

My first encounter with “wistful” occurred at age 13 watching Stand By Me for the first time. End scene when Ron Howard or Richard Dreyfuss or whoever it was narrating says “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” I got really sad. My best friends had moved schools and I’d been feeling the lack and knew high school was next for me. Would the rest of my life find me spending a certain amount of time looking backwards, wistfully? (Narrator: “the answer, was yes.”)

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Erica-Hepper/publication/338403023/figure/fig1/AS:846824260784129@1578910045047/Quadratic-association-of-age-with-levels-of-nostalgia-proneness-across-the-adult-lifespan.pngp
Happy arrangement!

40s. all of my mistakes caught up to me all at once and i haven't stopped making them since.

Been struggling with this especially as I creep closer to 40. Trying to keep an attitude that there's plenty of possibilities ahead of me if I remain open to them, but damn, they are tough to see. All the could-have-beens feel more present somehow. But I've always had a really difficult time imagining the future and setting goals. IDK why.

I am just about to close out my 40s - I started them being made redundant from my long-term job (the company closed) and leaving a music project that I had been part of for years. I felt totally fucked! And very much as you describe, have always been a very unmotivated/reactive person.

Anyway from this unpromising start I look back on the decade as fun and great and even redemptive - a lot of things I would have liked to happen earlier in my life happened both professionally and creatively and it was great.

Not trying to get all inspo or toxic positivity here but just wanted to share as I would have found this scenario really fkn surprising/unlikely 10 years ago.

Re wistfulness- I do think a lot about my late teens, that kind of “not quite ready for the world” era which was full of dreaming and everything was new and exciting - I think I use that wistfulness as a sort of motivation though, I want to keep that vibe a bit alive in my life even though the times are long gone. Maybe it is delusional Peter Pan shit I dunno. But I never wanted to be a dull/“reasonable” grown-up and a part of me still refuses to accept it!

40s for sure, particularly after my bought with c4nc3r. But it's not wistfulness for the past, it's more for the present as it's happening, appreciating the specialness of a group of people getting together to do something, etc.

there was an MCI long distance commercial in the 90s that involved a college freshman calling home a lot because he misses his mom. That and the “I don’t want to grow up” Toys R Us slogan was the first inkling of dread

acute sensation of shrinking opportunities from 25-35

Only when I listen to Les Professionels

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Ah, I remember this thread. Good times

I also relate more wistfully to the present than the past, which I see as moments or stages. The present is fleeting, the past is solid. I like to speculate about alternative routes and think about people who have passed me by, but that's not linked to any sentiment of wanting to go back, it's daydreaming really.

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