They keep tearing down buildings that have personal significance to me. My grade school, my first job, my favorite skate spots, teenage hangout spots, etc. Some spots became better things but most were turned into parking lots. I know Joni was singing about nature and whatnot, but Big Yellow Taxi hits me hard.

All the trees and groves around me to build yet another fucking gas station.

The forest near my childhood home. It's still there. I'm not.

Last summer I went there, and the place was so familiar to me that I recognized individual trees.

Dead pets. Miss em. Wish they could have stayed with me forever.

Playing in a band. It's never been easier to play on my own, and in some ways I think it's hard to be in a band since it involves a lot of compromise. But I do miss the feeling of regularly playing and making music with friends.

Mechanical fountain soda machines with free refills. This stuff costs like 2 cents and is always the best way to drink soda, but they seem to be dying out and disappearing.

Playing video games with friends. As I get older and tastes diverge it feels hard to get a group together to play games. It's even more rare to play games together in the same room, staying up late into the night.

Finally, I miss that feeling that life is ahead of me and the ability to focus on dreaming and thinking about the future. As I get older, a lot more stuff is in the rear view mirror, the possibilities of the future seem more limited, and it's easy to look back and question how you spent all that time in the past. I get more sad and scared thinking about the future, even though I'm sure that good things will happen too.

I used to have this yellow dress that I loved and I am pretty sure I accidentally donated it like 10 or 15 years ago, but every 6 to 10 months or so I still think about that dress.

I miss incandescent Christmas lights from the 70s.

the colors they had were warm and magical.

you could go down the street at night and the whole neighborhood was filled with this technicolor dream rainbow that you just can't make anymore.

Two things.

A specific spicy pepper pasta sauce from twenty years ago.

And my cat.

The Choco Taco, rip

Quiznos subs

This is just stupid of me, but I hate how they changed the grocery store I had been going to for a decade. Everything's there, just in a different place. It has been over a year and I'm still not over it.

Inconsequential and deeply personal?

My happiness.

I wish we could roll back the last 30 years and have a do over. Everything is shit anymore.

Many many moons ago (like quarter century+), Burger King had this thing where you could shake up fries in a baggie and make them cheesy. It was great because their fries are straight up bland ass so it was a perfect canvas.

Now it’s just bland ass again :(

The city made my grandparents cut down their weeping willow because it was taller than the electrical lines. That tree was like 40 years old and massive. Then they cut down all of the willows at the city park to build in a stupid marina. We used to have willows.

McDonald's fruit & yogurt parfait. For $1. I loved those things. Yes, I can just get yogurt, granola, & fruit and make my own, but they're not the same. Haha.

My youth.

A certain stuffed animal I had when I was a kid. It got lost in one of the numerous moves in my life. It was worn and creased and it's eye were cracked but it was special.

I miss del taco being in San Francisco

Dead people

I miss places that weren't overrun with traffic.

I lived in LA right at the end of "it's LA. Everything is 20 minutes from everything else." Which was mostly true other than a rush hour that politely lasted from 3:30 to 6:00pm. Only places like The Valley or Long Beach or Montebello/West Covina took 30+ minutes.

Every time I visit now, everything is stop and go traffic. Not just there, every major city. Road infrastructure hasn't, and can't realistically, keep up with basic population growth. Sprawl is a disease. It's urban planning cancer.

Altoids Sours, specifically the mango ones. Those were my absolute jam. Probably for the best, in regards to the structural integrity of my hard palate.

I've lost so much which would be considered deeply personal that none of it matters anymore, but you know what I don't miss? Fucking fast food. Sounds like a giant ad in here.

Bark candy in flavours other than chocolate and vanilla/white chocolate. Or mint chocolate. I swear I’ve had it in orange and raspberry and maybe others. Like the consistency of a chocolate bar but it’s not chocolate. No one else seems to remember this.

Wendy's ruined their bacon too. It's no longer the old applewood smoked bacon, now it's the same shit you'd get at Burger King. Cardboard.

Along those lines, the Culver's turkey sourdough melt. (Not the BLT, not the patty melt.) It's been gone so long, I can't even find mention of it on the web, but it was my go-to when we'd stop for food after a weekly club activity, and I miss those times.

There are some toys I had in childhood, neither any longer in my possession nor recoverable, the loss of which has left surprisingly deep mental scars.

Not comparable to a parent losing a child for obvious reasons, hence qualifying for this question, but probably about as close as you can get without it being that.

Pepsi Blue and Clear Pepsi, both were amazing sodas that came back for like a week; just long enough to taunt me.

Frosted vanilla creme pop tarts.

They were a staple in my house growing up so they were something of a comfort food. Always had a box on hand at all times, they were especially good toasted and covered in butter.

They were discontinued, then brought back for a year or so, then vanished again. I fear I shall never look upon one ever again.

In-N-Out pink lemonade. They switched to fake sugar and it just isn't as refreshing as it used to be.

Hardee's: The Big Roast Beef Sandwich. One of the few nice memories as a kid. None where I've lived for a long while. Finally went on a trip where there was a Hardee's and it's no longer there. The BBQ sauce made it amazing. Now it's just Carl's JR with a different name.

Taco John's: The Super Potato Ole... got it again on a trip years later, it's cheap crap now. Again none where I've been living.

I've looked on Google maps a few times at the house where I was most of my childhood and it's turned into a dump. Satellite view shows one area where it actually looks like trash has been piled up in one area and there are multiple broken down vehicles.

Any time I have enjoyed a sandwich at Panera, they have changed it or cancelled it. There was a cheddar roast beef sandwich which hit just right back in the day. Then they had an Italian sandwich with pickled vegetables that also slapped. They discontinued both and I'm so bitter about it I still refuse to eat there

I still pine for Fresh & Easy frozen Indian food. I have yet to find any restaurant that matches the Methi Malai Chicken and Chicken Makhani they used to sell. Wish I had saved the boxes to try to recreate the recipe

Sex. Minus the "deeply personal." Well, minus the "deeply."

I miss those yogurt covered Cheerios and the yogurt ball snacks from when I was a kid.

I think yoggos are the closest I've found that replace the yogurt ball snacks but man I miss those Cheerios.

Hudson's department stores. It was an upscale regional chain comparable to Macy's or Marshall Fields. The buildings themselves still mostly exist, but the remaining ones got converted into Macy's years ago.

Lettuce.

I miss when Burgerlords, Sage Bistro in Los Angeles were vegan.

yeah at one point it was the best you could get outside of popeyes

There was a local ice cream place that I would've loved to try out had it not closed back in 2011 or so.

McChickens and McDoubles burgers both being on the dollar menu. It wasn’t that it was even good, but it was something my brother and I bonded over snacking on after midnight for years when we lived at home still.

I know both exist still, but it’s not the same. The value is just gone and so went our little cheap late-night snack ritual.

mh150 sunglasses from decathlon. Wayfarer shape but they fit my rather large head just fine and I liked the colours. They were cheap (£10) so it didn't matter so much if I lost or broke them. They were mirrored.

For about 6 years I relied on them and now I need to find a new brand or supplier.