I "wasted" ages 10-32ish being in outer space and even had my long-time therapist express regret for me but I don't see it that way. You could not have gotten to "here" if you had not done what you did. You did marvelously, Ygrec! You got "here".

Sure, all of us could have made different choices then/now but that's only if we had been different people and we weren't! Why didn't you become a rocket scientist or millionaire, you fool?! I could have had children and then maybe I would have felt different, been less lonely or felt more fulfilled? There are unlimited ways things could have gone, if we'd only. . . but that's no better than my anxious worries for the future, I can't know the future and you and I can't know what "could" have been other than in our imaginations, because it wasn't what happened!

I graduated college in 1972 with the "wrong" major (which I finally got a second degree in in 2007). Your life isn't over yet and there are lots of things you can still do if you want. But you probably don't want to because you have done and been someone else all this time! You could still "grandfather" children, there are zillions of children that would love a grandfather-figure.

But you were "doing" things when you were in outer space and I don't think what you became with the help of that time is wasted. Outer space required that I have a really good imagination. I believe I write well/better than I would if I hadn't been in outer space, hadn't had to "use" my imagination, creativity, courage and other abilities to keep myself together during that period? Were you a literal vegetable? Did you and yours go hungry or not have a place to live or a "life" because of your actions during that time? Were you wholly dependent on others and could you have done it any other way than you did but decided not to because the way you "wasted" your time was easier and you were lazy? No!

I don't think your life was a waste Ygrec, I'm selfishly glad you had the life you had that brought you here to us at this time.