When we were house-hunting over two decades ago, and after looking at at least two dozen different ones, both my wife and I each had our fall-in-love-favorite houses, but alas, financial realities left us to settle on settling into the tiny abode we have now. Since those two houses that we had missed out on were within a few short miles away, we would sometimes pass by them as we went about our normal routines.
Weeks after closing the deal on our house, we still dealt with a small dose of buyer’s remorse as we saw other people moving into our intended dream homes. I sometimes wondered what it would have been like to live in the house I wanted, I imagined commuting to and from its location, saw myself tending the garden or cutting the grass, puttering around ing chores, enjoying the backyard barbecues, I surmised what the interaction with the neighbors would have been like, etc. Little by little, those pangs dissipated, and soon disappeared completely.