Best years of your life?

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Just interested on when you felt the best years of your life were?
I'm up getting ready for work, listening to music I listened to at 17/18, and I find myself feeling very nostalgic and wishing I knew how lovely that time of my life truly was. I'm only 32 now, by no means old, but I'm currently wondering if my time during late teens/early 20's were as good as it gets?

Would be interested to hear anybody's thoughts :)

From 31-36, I lived in China. I made connections I have never made before or since. The country was amazing. My job was amazing. I just loved it.

My 30s were good, my 50s are even better: the kids are grown, I’m fitter than I’ve been for years, I know myself pretty well and my boundaries are excellent.

Now. I'm 34.

I had a baby when I was 18 though so a different experience to many. I'm enjoying life now with a teen, I finally have more time to focus on me and my career and my social life.

My 50s really stand out. DC were grown up and I got a new and very interesting job in academia which also gave me a lot of travel - Thailand, China, Canada and the States and several times.

At 50 I got a new and very interesting job in academia. It gave me lots of stimulation and scope for development as well as a lot of opportunities for travel - China (3 times), Thailand, Canada and the States (many times). I had ten very good years.

Hopefully, they are yet to come.

I have had some great times and some truly terrible ones but I would like to think my best years aren't behind me.

I'm 50 this year and loving life now - kids are 14 and 12 and easy and fun. Yesterday we had a lovely curry and binge watched Traitors and I was thinking this is so much fun!

DH and I - both types who want to be in charge - have both mellowed a bit and become more accommodating of each other and less quick to conflict - more of a team who can let things go.

Life's not easy now - very busy, lots of work, organising, planning, responsibility and ageing parents on both sides.

But I am happy.

The college years were also great ( leaving out the heartbreak of my first love dumping me).

20s were kind of adventurous - travelling and working and then City job - but despite loads of money and friends I was fundamentally lonely and a bit lost really. Was not really mature enough at that point for the job I was doing.

30s - kids were babies. That was a good experience and I felt DH and I did well enough as parents. But hard hard work even though they were very cute. Work was on the back burner and unfulfilled.

45 on - kids more independent and work more rewarding.

My 50's. Children are adults. I'm mortgage free. Can do anything I want. Don't have to live around others needs.
Have savings, disposable income and I'm happy in my own skin.

Probably mid to late 20s. I had got the job I had wanted to do since I was a child, was living with and then married DH and pre-DC we had time to travel and have fun.

As someone else said, pros and cons to different ages. Looking back, my mid twenties were a dream. I was working as longhaul cabin crew back in the glory days, so it was all Caribbean beaches, shopping in New York, safaris in Africa, while staying in 5 star hotels on generous expenses with bags of time off.

Everyone was young and fun, we drank the champagne we’d stolen from 1st class, partied and were permanently tanned. I got to see all sorts of amazing things - Great Wall of China, ancient pyramids in Mexico, Grand Canyon, tango dancing in Buenos Aires.

I had a great little flat with a sea view and a roof terrace that I filled with pots of geraniums. Nobody else’s mess, my own agenda, no responsibilities or stress.

But I was lonely. I didn’t want to be single. I spent too much time thinking my life was too hedonistic. So I quit and got myself a proper career and a commute and a boyfriend. Life was never as much fun again.

That said, the primary school years with my dc were good. I enjoyed the school gate camaraderie and coffee mornings. When I’m old, those will probably be the days I look back on the most fondly. Now they are sullen teens, dh seems to be bad tempered all the time and my perimenopausal body is no longer my friend. I seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time clearing up other people’s mess.

I think retirement will be good though. I’m optimistic about the future.

Life was most exciting and fun around 17/18 in the early 90s. Music was my passion and I had a great group of friends. We spent our time going to gigs, festivals etc. I think it was so exciting because we suddenly had freedom - for the first time in my life I could go away without my parents, live like an adult without any of the responsibilities of paying bills etc. It was a magical time! I just felt so passionately about everything.
Then I went abroad for a year and when I came back everything had changed, the friendship group had splintered. I got involved with an unsuitable man and became quite depressed.

None of my life has been great tbh. But I suppose the best time was around 26-28. I was living with my ex, we weren’t madly in love and in the end he didn’t want to marry me and he left. But at least I wasn’t UNhappy. It was stable and undramatic, and I had a nice job and some money, I had no kids to think about, we went out and had a nice time together, his family was lovely, my family was still healthy and nobody had died yet. Most of all I still had my own health and looks.

I’m in my fifties and my fave decade was 37 to 47 overall, there have been positives and negatives in all decades.. I do really miss climbing trees which was something I loved, I had some health issues from age 48.

Career wise I was where I wanted to be, DS was born when I was 34 and it was just so wonderful raising a very young child. He is still great but it’s different when they are grown. We paid off our mortgage when I was 37, DH was 35, it was very liberating. We went on holiday often I remember going overseas three times one year, we had a massive month long road trip across part of the USA when I was 44. I also helped set up a charity when I was 45 that is still doing a lot in the community locally.

I am 48 and love my life as it is now. Great teen DC who I enjoy spending time with. Confident at work. Retraining for a second career that I am excited about. Lots of friends old and new. Love being independent and paddling my own canoe. I know myself so much better now and feel much happier in my my own skin.

For me, it was when I had a preschool child! I made so many new friends, loved my neighbourhood, was also self employed for a couple of days a week, so never dreaded Mondays.

Either that or my own childhood, up until about age 9.

I feel sad that’s all over now.

Happiest now than I’ve ever been. Young child and a baby, running a business I love, happy marriage, love where we live and made lots of friends the last few years. 10 years ago I couldn’t have imagined any of it, I was leaving my horrible ex and sleeping on my sister’s sofa.

Turned 60 last year.

Mortgage paid off, job I enjoy, lots of plans with DH now we're empty nesters.

Carpe diem!

None of my years have been notably better or worse than any others. Being young and carefree was fun, but I didn't have the hard-won self-knowledge and achievements I have now. Having babies was fun but hard. I really like where I am now. Every year and decade has brought good things. I'm old enough to be out of the small children fog, to know who I am and what I want, and have the skills and discipline to get it.

Early 40s for me - I was fit, healthy, had a job I enjoyed, and a good social life. Kids were young adults but living at home. Life was good.

It's an interesting question as it will be so different for everyone depending on their life and also what they value. For me, my early adulthood was very hard as I had left a home where I was the victim of DV so emotionally I was hindered and it held me back a bit and I didn't have much confidence about things. For many years in my early 20s I also suffered from very bad nerve pain in my arm due to undiagnosed coeliac disease. It was a struggle.
Now at 31 I haven't eaten gluten for a few years (self diagnosed as the doctors were hopeless), have a degree, have lived and worked in many parts of the UK and now work for the local authority of a major city. I have bags of confidence, friends I adore, a good relationship, and work I enjoy . My best time so far has definitely been the past few years to now, second best probably the age of about 7-9, when my homelife was more settled. We didn't have much but I played out with other children every day and had so much fun..

Early 40's for me.
Had my children young separated from their father at 36.
Found freedom and independence in my 40's.

17-22ish sadly a long time ago. Wish I had actually done more instead of settling down into a relationship

I feel nostalgic for my late teens/ early twenties. I had a baby but was still living at home, working full time and going out partying every other weekend. I definitely had more fun back then. I'm now 36, married and a stay at home mum to 4 kids and I feel more secure in myself as a person and more content, even though my life is dull at times so I think there are good and bad points to any stage of life.

I’m in my 60s and I’m lucky enough to have found positives in every period.

The exception to that was my 50s. Having difficult Teenagers then watching young 20-somethings struggling to start careers; horrendous menopause that started at 52 and ended at 58; tough job at a mid-senior level; and I think my long standing husband and I drifted a bit without the kids to anchor us and both with quite tough jobs.

And then we retired early and life is great! We removed the pressures or they went away (kids/meno) and we found each other again. We’re grabbing life by the throat.

I was at uni in London 86-89 and lived there for a few years afterwards too. It was the most fabulous, carefree and affordable time. Am always shocked now (from afar) how prohibitively expensive London is now. And often wish I had bought even the tiniest little place there then.