What I don’t miss…

Nora Ephron famously wrote a list of things she wouldn’t miss after her death, but I don’t think you have to be expecting that momentous occasion to look back. Here’s some of the things which have changed for me that I can honestly say I don’t miss at all…

  • Commuting – or having to travel on public transport (buses, tubes and trains) in the rush hour. Working from home for approaching 20 years, just thinking about all that wasted time in my past makes me shudder.
  • Having to dress to fit other’s expectations – be they professional rules, or just what’s considered attractive and/or acceptable for a woman at whatever age/stage of life. A combination of working from home and being a woman of the f*** it generation has been liberating 🙂
  • Worrying about my hair turning grey. I didn’t enjoy the salt ‘n pepper stage, but as soon as it went predominantly grey, I’ve never been happier.
  • Doubting my intelligence. Doing so for the first 5 decades of my life was a monumental waste of time.
  • Feeling uncomfortable when I eat/drink out by myself. When I first moved to the UK, even entering a pub alone in my village said things about a woman’s morals🙄
  • Hangovers. Other than champagne (or good sparkling wine) which I indulge in maybe once or twice a year, I don’t drink. The last hangover I had was years ago and I so don’t miss them…
  • Being unable to see clearly immediately I open my eyes, and having to scrabble on my bedside table for glasses or contact lenses (in order to be able to see clearly). Cataract surgery was absolutely transformative. An amusing aside is that it took almost a year before I stopped tossing & turning in bed wondering what it was was I’d forgotten to do each night.
  • Dating. I’m not going to say dating in my fifties didn’t involve a lot of frogs, but it was still mostly good fun. It sounds like the experience is now utterly dire, and has persuaded a lot of lovely women they’re better off staying single (young ones in particular). I could rant on this subject at length, so I’d best not start…
  • In the UK sanitary products are taxed as a luxury item, so being a woman, that’s one clear benefit of getting older 🙂
  • Doing the washing up every day. It never felt much of a chore at the time, but there’s no doubt my hands and nails grow stronger and longer for not being in hot soapy water every day.
  • Airports. As a child, I was more familiar with international flights than I was with travelling by bus, but the ability to travel in comfort by train to mainland Europe means it’s been over 10 years since I last travelled by plane.
  • Bad to average coffee. Ever since Himself moved in with me, my coffee standards have risen. I’m now used to freshly ground, freshly brewed, barista-quality coffee at home. And even though I can only drink the occasional cup (too many years of drinking strong, black & not great coffee messed with my digestion), I believe it’s even more important to make it enjoyable and excellent.

Is there something you no longer do and don’t miss at all?

© Debs Carey, 2025

29 thoughts on “What I don’t miss…”

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  4. I got horrific hormonal migraines almost every month. No way I miss that experience 🙂 BTW- some states here still tax menstrual products so we too still live in the dark ages when it comes to women.

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  5. “In the dark ages when it comes to women” in more ways than one Deb. I keep on hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t a bloody train coming to run you down.

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  9. When you noted the UK policy I thought that surely the USA had moved beyond that archaic practice. The states that still follow the tax imposition are all ones that lean very obviously towards the standards of male/female divide in all aspects. Just to realize this practice still exists among “civilized” countries makes me livid!

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  11. Deb, TBH, it makes me livid too. And like you, I have a daughter and a female grandchild, so I am even more livid on their behalf.

    I’ve had only a couple of migraines in my life – I cannot fathom knowing you have to live with them every month. Truly, if this happened to the male of the species, the amount of money which would be poured into solving the problem would be staggering.

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  12. Oh, hard agree with the entire list. I wish we had better trains and public transportation. Also better men, but dating for a decade definitely made it clear when the right guy appeared.

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  13. Fun post! I agree wholeheartedly with dating. Once in awhile I had fun, but the women I got involved with the most seriously always turned out to be crazies. Tara saved me from all that!

    For my own list, I would add dial-up internet, cassette tapes, and having to wear a tie to work.

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  15. You’re so good at making lists.

    I’m going to be contrary.

    • Strangely enough, Though I seldom had to commute, I think back fondly on the commute to and from my first job. It was a 25-min. drive through a peaceful countryside, a good chance to get my thoughts together.
    • Even though I wear turtle necks and sweatpants now, I did enjoy those years abroad when we all wore pretty dresses sewn by a dressmaker.
    • Strangely enough, at the age of 82, my hair is mostly still brown.
    • I still feel uncomfortable eating out alone.
    • To make it short, I’ll just say that I’m glad to be done with menstruation and the migraines that went along with it.

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  16. Yup, I agree totally on the fact that it’s a lot easier to recognise the right guy when you’ve been dating for a while Autumn. What upset me recently was hearing from my American cousins that their daughters, their nieces (and friends of both), are reporting that on top of the usual stuff, there’s increasingly large numbers of guys influenced by right-wing Christians of the ilk of Charlie Kirk, and as these girls have been brought up in progressive, liberal households and have good minds and independent spirits, they’re not prepared to accept expectations of that kind being imposed upon them. So they’re giving up on dating while still being only in their twenties.

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  17. Yeah, you do seem to have had more than your fair share of crazies. You’re what a friend of mine dubbed a nutter magnet. Welcome to that club, for I am one too and ’twas Himself who saved me.

    I was going to ask you what you had against cassette tapes, and then I remembered using them… and, yeah, no argument there!

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  18. Janis, I like the way you think! 🙂 There have been some creative and impactful art projects along those lines in recent years in the big London galleries, but I suspect younger generations decided to focus on coming up with better alternatives instead (hence the growing use of moon cups among them).

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  19. Nicki, my list was personal to me and while there are items which resonate with people, I like your list for being personal to you.

    I recall being a working mother and needing my drive to and from work as it allowed me to change my mindset from mother to professional and back. Sadly, I didn’t have the peaceful countryside, but lots of people rushing to work and or taking their children to school, so had to keep my wits very much about me. I have a colleague in her 70s who also still has her natural dark hair with just the odd gray – you are both to be envied 🙂 I like the convenience of a dress – just one item of clothing, no worrying about matching separates – but tights & I don’t get on, so that’s sadly limited to summer for me. It seems I was lucky to have avoided the monthly migraines, for which I am hugely grateful.

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  20. Well, in good news, our elections on Tuesday showed gains for the progressives in the 18-29-year old males. I would highly recommend not dating a white boy, though. And absolutely no Mormon boys. A nerdy child of immigrants is often far less entitled.

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  21. Nutter magnet is pretty accurate! I’m glad we both broke that spell.

    The fragility, the poor sound, the inability to skip right to a particular song. Cassettes were never my favorite; the only reason I ever bought them was because of the Walkman.

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  22. Himself complains that I’ve shared my nutter magnet with him whenever he gets some weird sort wander up and make random conversation with him when we’re out. He swears it never happened before he met me 😀 I just laugh and remind him of the time I saved him from the gay guy covered in bling who was trying to pick him up (“oh my, that’s a really long lens” you’ve got there) and to which he was totally oblivious. The guy skedaddled with great speed when I returned with our coffees 😉

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  23. Thanks, I’ll pass those recommendations on. The children of my cousins are likely to be open to that as my cousins were brought up in England and the Middle East, not sure about the wider friends and family. Indeed, I suspect the main problem may be the dominance of white young men, although I’d be surprised at Mormons – unless they’re prevalent in DC and Denver.

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  24. They are, in fact, prevalent in both those places. There’s a huge LDS temple that you can see from the Beltway outside DC–I even dated two Mormon guys in high school. And Colorado, like many western states neighboring Utah, has areas that are 20% Mormon.

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  25. Ouch! I didn’t know that – thanks for the heads-up. That could explain why they’re having so many problems.

    Before my mother moved to the US to live with my sister, she used to live near a big Mormon centre in the UK (the one outside London) which I later read is where shortie Cruise used to spend his leisure time when filming over here. Thank goodness she didn’t realise, she has form for getting star struck by the worst people.

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  27. Rosemary, I remember moving to the UK in 1976 and being given decidedly old fashioned looks when I walked into my village’s local pub (where I was meeting friends). My female friends told me they generally waited and went in with someone else – another woman at a pinch, but ideally a man, or they’d be regarded (and in some cases treated) as being on the pull, or worse. Moving to London a couple of years later, I had no such issues. I presumed it was the difference in dynamics between big city/small village, or pPerhaps it was just my part of Surrey which thought that way.

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  29. Thanks for the link Caroline, I hadn’t realised the campaign had been successful 🙂 Not that it’s any use to me, but I am extremely grateful for my daughter’s and granddaughter’s generation.

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