Did We Fail in Melbourne?

I look back at our time in Melbourne and I feel like we failed. I'm not sure if I felt this way immediately after returning of if it's a feeling that developed later.

A few days ago, I was talking to Jack about it and came up with the excuse that we had only seven days there, and two of those days we used for day trips. But then I redid the math and realized we had been there for ten days. In ten days, you should be able to see pretty much everything. And we didn't. Why?

I think it was mostly my fault. I had lost some of my love of big cities. Then, on top of that, we had just come from having seven nights in Sydney.  I was so over the big city thing at that point.

I was reluctant to leave our little cozy life in St. Kilda.  I loved it there. I liked our apartment on Acland Street. We were in a fairly quiet residential area...well, quiet until the wee hours in the morning. Then it got loud.

I loved walking to the retail area, seeing all the rainbow lorikeets as I made my way there. I loved looking at all the shops—books, bakeries, ice-cream, thrift stores, etc.

Oh, and almost every day we had to pass by Luna Park.  That was pretty awesome.

We were near the ocean.  That's another regret, though.  I didn't go on St. Kilda Pier until our last day there.  That feels like a failure.

Later Tim and Jack met me there for lunch. We ate at this cute restaurant and I felt sad that we hadn't discovered it earlier.

So really. We spent a lot of time in St. Kilda, but even with St. Kilda, I feel we failed.

I also regret we didn't swim in the ocean over there. We didn't do any ocean swimming during that whole trip.

People say you're going to regret what you didn't do more than you're going to regret what you did do

I wonder if that's true. Should we have gone into the water?

The thing is I was never in the mood.  I was totally lacking the urge.

So would it have been better to force myself to swim?  Then I wouldn't have this regret. I doubt I'd be looking back a year later with regret that I DID go into the water....unless we got stung by jellyfish. But even with that, our pain would be gone by now, and it would be an exciting story to share.

I guess the same dilemma fits with the city.  I wasn't in the mood to take the tram into the CBD and deal with the crowds.  I liked staying in St. Kilda. But now I'm feeling I missed out on stuff.

So should I have forced myself to go CBD more—even though I didn't want to—because it would have prevented this regret I'm feeling now?

Maybe.

Although then maybe I'd feel more St. Kilda regret. Maybe I'd feel we spent too much time in the CBD and not enough time in our own neighborhood.

I'm not even sure what it is I missed that's bothering me so much.

Maybe parks.

We didn't see enough parks.

We never went to the Royal Botanic Gardens.

Though I did spent time in St. Kilda's Botanic Gardens.  We could walk there. It was beautiful and convenient. So did I really need the Royal Botanic Gardens?  I don't know.

What else did we not do?

We didn't go to the art museum.

Though we did see a fair amount of art at the library.  I get tired of looking at art, so that was probably enough for me.

We didn't go to the Docklands.

Oh no. Never mind. We did! We went to Costco there.  And you know what? For me, that disproves the philosophy that you won't regret what you DID do.

It's been over a year since we went to Melbourne Costco, and I still regret it.

It's a nightmare there...at least on the weekends.

See, but if I didn't go, I'd probably be sitting here thinking. Man, we should have gone to Costco when we were in Australia.

I'm not sure what else we missed in Melbourne.

I'm thinking of stuff we did do.

We spent a lot of time in Federation Square.

Tim and Jack went to the Melbourne Cricked Ground.

We went to the library.

We went to the Melbourne Museum, and we saw the Royal Exhibition Building.

We went to Chinatown.

We went to Brunswick.

We went to ScienceWorks.

We went to the Queen Victoria Market. We ate jelly donuts.

We went to one of those little arcades and ate at Chokolait.

We exited a train at Flinders Station and saw the outside of the building on other occasions as well.

Now, after writing this, I'm feeling somewhat better.  Maybe we didn't miss too much after all.

I think what we missed was the parks, but it's not like our time in Melbourne was lacking in park time.  We went to nearby parks, and we also spent time at parks during our day trips.

If anything I guess I'm still regretting that we didn't spend more time at St. Kilda pier. It was so beautiful there.  Almost like a dream.  Or maybe I'm looking back with rose-colored glasses.