Is there a period in your life you yearn to go back to?

[Dappy777]

Do you feel any yearning or nostalgia for the past? Is there a time you long to go back to? Do you ever get drunk and feel tearful because those days are gone forever?

I’ve always wondered how common such nostalgia really is. In particular, do people yearn to go back to their teens? My father was a very sentimental and nostalgic man. He used to go on and on about his teenage years - the fun and the parties and so on. I grew up assuming everybody felt that way except me, and that I was an oddity (I hated my teens and twenties).

Not yet but I’m turning 39 in a few weeks and already feeling nostalgic for my 30s. They really have been the best years of my life.

I don’t yearn to go back to relive the same things, but I do yearn to go back and do certain things differently

Yes, my time at university. It was amazing - idyllic place, incredible social life, great people. I have huge nostalgia for the city where I was, and we later moved to live nearby. We've since moved away and I miss it! Ds is (hopefully) going to uni there next year though, so we will have a good excuse to go back (though it's a 4 hour drive away!).

That’s an interesting point. You can hate a period of your own life but be nostalgic for the time, and equally you might be nostalgic for a period of history even though you were unhappy.

I was born in 1976 and was a teen in the 1990s. I hated my teens, but I do have a nostalgia for the period. My home town seemed a lot smarter back then. We had some lovely shops - a beautiful three storey Debenhams, plus a huge Waterstones and Next. They’re all boarded up now. Britain also felt more like a nation back then. There was a sense of shared culture and shared history. Things were quieter too - not so many cars or houses. I still live in the same area and it’s depressing beyond words to see the countryside replaced by housing estates.

Social media has been a curse as well. We seem to have lost the art of conversation. It’s turned everyone into boasting, self-centred monsters incapable of quietly listening to what the other person says.

Yes , my childhood seaside beach holidays and my youth /20's clubbing social life which i really do yearn for and still miss but know its a time and experience that could never be replicated .
I would also like to experience again the first few days with my 3 new born's - not the labours though !

2012, my kids were still little. We had the olympics and life felt really good.

I’m so happy with my life now, I’ve always dreamed of being a mom and I have young children and it’s lovely, I know I’ll yearn to be back here when my children have grown up.

But I also miss my uni days SO much. I met my best friend there and the joy of living with them in our little house was one of the happiest times of my life. It’s not even the partying I miss or being that young, it’s just being under the same roof as my best friends, waking up to get a drink in the middle of the night and finding one of them watching the TV and having a chat, or having a few drinks in the garden as soon as the weather got warm. I’d give anything to have one more day back with them all, we’re all spread out across the country now and I miss them very much.

Yes back to the 90s and get my parents therapy and couples therapy .
Also good solicitors r wills ! Ram their heads together and talk sense into them .

I was a young woman in my 20s during the 1960s when the world was changing rapidly. I had just left my parents house, got my own place and was employed in a well paid professional job. I was free to spend, travel and do what I wanted. I loved it.

Later in the mid 1980s and early 90s I attended uni as a mature student and went on to do several degrees, before getting work as an academic. I loved being a student. No responsibility other than to study, research and get a good degree. I look back and long for those days.

Yes, thirty years ago, when I was 16.
I was beautiful, healthy, lived in a tranquil place, no internet, no men.
Parents didn't turn abusive yet, they upped it when I became an adult. (Did NOTHING wrong, developed anxiety and OCD, another country).
I was a different person.
I realise it's all about me, me, me, but you asked, OP.
Life nowadays is just shit, because you cannot simply get back to how you felt then, it's impossible.
😊

Yes. 1997. That was my golden year. Finished with education, but still living at home. Earning my own money - not a lot of it, granted, but it was mine to spend how I wanted, as was all of my free time. Parents were still young and healthy, no kids, no partner. I just did my working week and spent evenings and weekends doing what I liked.

Sometimes I was bored. But I yearn for that boredom now!

Early to mid 20's. Just got together with my, now, DH, and we didn't spend enough time together. We both had hobbies, spent (too much) time with family commitments, spent too much time on our respective professions. We basically just "fitted in" each other between everything else. What should have been "Our" special time getting to know each other, our "firsts" etc., were rushed. Rather than prioritising each other, we prioritised other things. We thought we'd have plenty of time for ourselves, but there was always something else/someone else needing our time. Not saying we didn't do things - we had lots of lovely holidays, but that we really our only "us" time, limited to 2 or 3 weeks per year - always stressful because of all the planning we had to do to keep other people happy whilst we were away.

It basically pushed everything back - married in our mid 30s, first (and only) child late 30s, then just as soon as we got our son to school and not needing us as much, we had serious illnesses in both our parents which again soaked up our "us" time. Then, sadly after their respective deaths, and our son went to Uni, we thought we'd have our "golden" years in retirement, but then DH diagnosed with incurable cancer. Thankfully still with us, but realistically, I'm looking at retirement on my own and pretty pissed off about it.

So we've never had our "us" time at all. Just one thing after another. I'd go back to our early 20's in a heartbeat and prioritise each other and do what we wanted to do, not do what everyone else wanted us to do to our detriment. Yes, I know it sounds selfish, but there has to be a balance between looking after other people and looking after yourself.

Late twenties. I’d split with idiot ex and spent a couple years having fun with friends, travelling and enjoying myself I’m so glad I did