Yes, quite wistful, just like you. And sad over the missed opportunities. I always felt so different from everyone else at school. I wanted to go to college really, really bad, and of course could not. One of the guidance counselors talked to me about college and I had to tell her that my religion frowned on higher education. I was inducted into the National Honor Society, but my mother had to look long and hard to make sure there was nothing wrong with a J-Dub being in the National Honor Society before she would permit it. I remember being scared to death that she would not let me.
In high school, I took mostly classes that would help me get an office job, though I really wanted to take the college prep classes instead. But I knew where my future lie and there was no fighting it. My senior year, I was in Office Occupations, so I actually worked in an office half a day, which I really enjoyed. There was a dinner my work had that I was invited to and I really wanted to go. But ...........it was on a meeting night and my righteous mother would not allow me to miss the meeting for the dinner. I hated that. My boss got corsages for all the Office Occupations girls working for her to wear to the dinner and she got me one, too, even though she knew I could not go.
I was put in a college prep English class my senior year, which I was very proud of. Not many kids were accepted into that class and it was really an honor. I was getting all kinds of literature mailed to me from different colleges. I would keep all of it and just pore over it. Later on when I lived on my own and had left the "troof", I did go to night school at the local community college, but I was never able to finish. I worked full-time and then became an unwed mother and just felt I had too many responsibilities to continue. In later years, after I was married, I did attend a class here and there to further what I wanted to do career-wise, but never actually got a degree. I always felt like I really missed out. I have thought that once I retire, I may go back to school then.
I was born in 1952 also. My father was not a witness, but my mother definitely wore the pants in the family and made the decisions, and always based those decisions on her religion, which she shoved down our throats. Family Bible studies were like a punishment, and of course, we had to read the daily "hex" every day as a family. She never knew I referred to it as that or I would have been in lots of trouble. I still laugh about the daily "hex".
But life does go on. I wish things had been different back then, but overall my life has been good. At least my kids have had the opportunities that I did not.