As Mason, whom we have seen grow up before our own eyes, in Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2014), finally goes off to college, his onscreen mother Patricia Arquette has an outburst. The empty nest syndrome. Then she says something profound: “I just thought there would be more.”

As I go through the motions of living, I am haunted by the same feeling: “I just thought there would be more.” I thought even after all the gambles I played, my life would turn out to be okay.

Now, I am wiser, and distraught. There was no miracle, and my life is reduced to a list of missed opportunities.