To want to cry at about all the years that have flown by?

[Chairmancow]

Watching Brit pop on BBC, just got a rush of nostalgia that nearly floored me. All those years gone in a flash. I’m nearly 40.
Can’t help wishing i’d made the most of it! They say youth is wasted on the young. All the things I didn’t do that I should have done. All very depressing. And I’ve not even had wine tonight!!

Quite right. Best to leave the pair of them to it.

Funny you should say that but I did. I believe Champagne Supernova was written about that night.

Mine are mainly wishing I’d spent less time pissed and taking drugs and more time studying

Haha, give it another 20 years and I bet you will be wishing you spent more time pissed and taking drugs and less time studying......or is that just me 🤔

I'm 50. I'm going to join you in this pity party. 😭

Wait till you hit your 60's, then time seems to gallop away!

Fuck Wdgin I'm only early 50s and it already goes so fast that I hardly have time to take my Christmas decs down.
Don't tell me it gets any faster ffs!!!

Regrets...I have a few...

One of the biggest is not learning to live ‘in the moment’.

You’ll never be younger than you are today, if you’re lucky you’ll be older.

Every year goes faster than the past, every decade faster than the last. It’s scary, but all we have is now.

Try to make the most of your life now, as it is 💐🍫🤣🍷🚂

I wish I'd slept with less men

I wish I'd slept with more!

55 and better better better than I've ever been!

Honestly, the best is yet to come!

OP, in 15 years time you'll look back to writing this very thread and thinking "Why did I feel it was all over at 40? I wish I'd spent my 40s living it up whilst I still could. But I was so busy feeling I'd missed out on my 20s I didn't realise how lively I still was at 40".

Make a list of things to do which are a little bit daring, or you haven't done them but always wanted - and start ticking them off so you feel you've achieved some personal goals by your 50s and won't have "40s regret" to look back on!

Being 40 is better than the alternative, so cheer up, OP.

And Britpop was shit and Albarn will always be a bellend.

[runs away]

At least you’re not 50 OP it could be worse! I’m in my thirties and trying to make the most of it but it’s hard with sleep deprivation and a toddler!

If you stand with one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow you will piss all over today

I happened to turn on this program today, ahhhh brought back so many memories of the 90s!

Loved seeing some of the more obscure bands as well as the old classic from Oasis & Blur.

Plus what a hottie Damon was back in the day- and still is, though obviously looking older now.

I was definitely feeling nostalgic tonight, thinking back to my teenage years and the start of my early 20s...how much fun me & my friends had, the drinking, the smoking, the boys hee hee!

I'm 42 and I like it!

I think it's a time decisions come to fruition though. And because I spent most of my 20s doing two jobs, that was criticised but now I'm hoping to retire early.

Then in my 30s I decided I didn't want a relationship - never wanted children so that wasn't a consideration - and the whole world had to tell me They Disapproved and You Will Regret It Later.

Now I'm happy and I get to do what I like. Yes, I'm slightly taken aback that songs like The Hooters Satellite came out when I was, what, 8? But it doesn't matter. And I think it's good when time flies. When it's dragging its usually because of boring/unpleasant stuff like illness etc.

I spent my mid-teens to early-twenties stuck at home with ME/CFS so did nothing exciting or interesting at all. No drink and drugs for me, or even much of a social life at all. That's what I regret. And I'd have loved to have gone to Uni. That's my other regret.

On the plus side, the things I'd have chosen to study then are very different to what I'd choose now so I may have ended up regretting it anyway. And I'm reasonably happy with where my life is now, lovely DH, lovely DS, a job that drives me mad sometimes but that I mostly enjoy and I'm generally left alone to get on with stuff in the way I chose to do it. If things had been different who knows if it would be better or worse!

Ha, I thought you were going to say you wish you'd spent more time having fun, going out and been less serious! I'm 40 and regret none of the fun I had in the 90s. I did do a fair bit of travel and university degrees but also my fair share of drugs, bands and general fun. I regret nothing! Make the most of now - you're as young as you'll ever be again!

"All the things I didn’t do that I should have done." I find this mentality very unusual. What would you have liked to do that you did not do? And do you know why you didn't do things?

Sure I've got regrets, that I didn't make a better career for myself or invest my money more wisely. But not the usual regrets sometimes mentioned like not shagging more or drinking more. How would having had more shags and more drinks be of benefit now to me in middle age?

I'm guessing there were opportunities to be wild and impetuous and you chose not to be. Had you been wilder and more impetuous, do you think you would now be looking back basking in the glow? I don't think so.

One of those wild impetuous decisions could have had a nasty repercussion. So why not look back and be glad that you made the choices you did but look to new choices that are just right for you now?

@MsGameandWatching "The only things I regret are I wish I had known how pretty I was back then instead of feeling lumpy and ugly..." Yes, I completely agree. I am sure you were not at all as you feared, neither was I.

I was stunning and I never knew it. One lovely man did tell me when I was quite young (so was he) - teenagers - and I do realise now I looked lovely, but I think the young often look lovely and don't realise it.

Fab thread.

Not telling!

I’m heading for my mid forties and so nostalgic for the 90’s it hurts. I didn’t appreciate it at the time as I was too worried about being fat, and worried that everyone was having a a better time than me. I wish I had appreciated how bloody brilliant my life was. The music! London in the 90’s, gigs, festivals. Cheap flights to Europe.

Trying to appreciate my life now as I know I will be painfully nostalgic about it in a few years time.

Scone, oh London in the 90s was amazing! Sadly all the sophistication and seediness has gone. I do get nostalgia attacks about that but I gather many world cities have changed in similar ways.

I'm with SilveryMoon on this: in my mid-50s and feeling far younger and more convinced that life has exciting things in store than I did 10 years ago.

What I have learnt, I think, is that there is no point in feeling a failure because you didn't live somebody else's life: what you do get to shape is your own life and you do that as well as you can. I have stopped living in the past- which I used to be very good at when I was younger- and I am increasingly aware that the future is limited. So I try harder to do something worthwhile with today.

Yep. It still feel a like 10 years ago.

I ended up without a career despite studying well and getting a good degree. Rubbish housing, difficult relationship. No pension.

It's scary.

I'm 37 and yesterday was going through a box of my stuff in my parents attic that contains all my diaries from age 9 to 22.

It wasn't plain sailing. I was a dick sometimes, very shy, made some mistakes. But I don't regret anything because that's who I am.

Then when you get to your seventies, you tend not to give a toss anyway, (I don't), just enjoy each day, and leave the past where it is, in the past.

I'm 35, but had a real "mid life" moment last year, finding myself getting divorced after a 16 year relationship/marriage and wondering as a single parent what I was going to do.

My friend set me a challenge of doing a 40 x 40 list (maybe do 50x50?). So 40 things, absolutely anything, I want to do before I'm 40.
I did it in December. And it's given me a huge kick to get out there and plan stuff. Everything from taking up a martial art which I've never done before, (and I'm overweight and unfit!), booking some amazing once in life time trips with my daughter, booking concert tickets to cheesy reliving my youth days and a whole mix between.
I can't go backwards, but I can make the most of it going forwards.