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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to ask if it is normal to have intense nostalgia, yearning for youth once you hit 40ish?

119 replies

lemon8de · 22/08/2018 19:36

This is going to sound really sad but over the last few years I have suddenly started thinking a lot more about the past, about people I have not seen in 20+ years and having this intense sort of nostalgia. I am over 40. I thought it was just me but several of my friends have also said that they have this too and that they have suddenly had the urge to contact people they haven't seen in years or start listening to music they haven't played in years. Is this common?

OP posts:
corythatwas · 26/08/2018 08:50

Normal feeling.

It is, however worth remembering that somebody's nostalgic "when we were real people doing real things"-youth will have been somebody else's "everything's spoilt these days by this horrible tinned noise and television, nobody's talking to each like they used to when I was young"-middle age.

I was already a middle-aged parent in the 1990's and don't remember them with anything like the same "unspoiled golden age"-nostalgia as some pp. My generation were too busy going around muttering "but of course they don't have music like they used to"- in exactly the same fashion as our parents did in the 60s.

What you can do is decide to go against the current. If "more of a lived and real experience rather than a virtual one" is what you're after, you can spend your time on that. There are still people out there who keep busy exploring nature or doing crafts. There are people who do am-dram and play quartets and sing in choirs. I am sure there are people who spend time on whatever unspoiled reality people indulged in in the 90s. Go and find them. Talk to them. Learn an instrument and play it if you're bored with the internet. Perhaps a bit of retro cooking (what did people eat in the 90s- not a lot in my case, but some people must have been better off). Make useful things to have around the house. Even the most modern house-hold can still do with sauce-pan holders. A knitted jumper never goes amiss. And if you go really olde-worlde and learn to lay hedges or mend fences, the National Trust will love you.

One thing I find as I approach the other end of middle-age is that I am actually getting more tolerant of other generations. I'm getting more of a sense of perspective, I can see that my generation was one small part of a chain rather than "when it all happened". I seem to be getting a second wind.

As a pp said, very wisely, these feelings come and go in phases. But you can always seize the wave and use it to think over where you want to go from here.

SeaGlassHunter · 26/08/2018 08:52

To be honest, I really wouldn't want to go back to my youth. Looking at my teenage DC and their lives in contrast to my life at that age reminds me how much better things are now. I have so much more confidence and so many more opportunities aged 40 than I did aged 18. I wouldn't go back if you paid me.

AndromedaPerseus · 26/08/2018 09:51

Have found “Now 80s” on channel 88 which plays 1980s pop videos remembering my 16-18 year old self ( revising for Alevels to The Smiths and Madonna. “Walking on Sunshine” being played at every freshers disco) Smile. Amazingly nostalgic for me especially as DS1 is now the same age and starting sixth form college

PrivateParkin · 26/08/2018 11:29

Some great, thought-provoking posts on this thread. I'm early 40s, and I've always been prone to a bit of nostalgia-wallowing, so it's nothing new to me at this age! The main thing that makes me feel nostalgic now is when I think of my good friends from school/university/early days of working in London in the 00s. I'm still in close touch with many of them, but I don't live near any of them, so I don't tend to go out and socialise that often... Which in turn makes me feel nostalgic for those times. On the plus side, when I do see them, I feel 20 years younger Grin

I do look forward though, very much. You have to, imho. We owe it to our younger selves.

PatriciaBateman · 26/08/2018 14:06

This thread has been a real revelation. I feel only a cold, gnawing fear about the past (bad childhood), and a feeling like I'm never far away enough from it, like the monster's hand reaching out from under the bed to pull me back in.

The older I get, the more elated I feel, and I'm so looking forward to what seems to me an ultimate goal - retirement (good health permitting), and a quiet life full of gardening and books and gentle music.

I feel so hopeful reading this thread that my own children will have happy memories to look back on, and it's brought home the importance of this time period for them, and making it as warm and full of love as possible. Their childhood is my now.

SirGawain · 26/08/2018 16:19

I wish I knew then what I know now. Youth is wasted on the young😚

MassDebate · 26/08/2018 16:42

I’m approaching 40 and have felt like this lately. For me it was triggered by the death of a childhood friend - some of the best times of my life were spent with her and it’s made me yearn for what was. It’s also reminded me of what a fab group of schoolfriends I had (still have) and how many great times we had together going to concerts, on holidays etc. I have a great life now but I do miss my youth and the joie de vivre which came with it.

twostepsister · 26/08/2018 16:50

Feeling this too as an over 50 who has had a rollercoaster of a year including separating from my husband of 26 years, full hysterectomy, depression and too many other things to mention. I joined FB recently and have reconnected with people I haven't seen in over 20 years. I have friends posting links to songs we used to listen to back in the day and discuss the memory that song brings to us. I have just been chatting to my cousin who lives in Texas and reliving memories about our parents. Life is so short and I have a carefree attitude about contacting people from the past, if they don't want to chat or accept me as a FB friend so be it. But I have built a lovely network of like minded friends who I meet up for coffee and lunch.

Wildery · 26/08/2018 21:15

Hurtling towards 40 and feeling like this too, but then I've always been sentimental and wistful - I remember yearning for my teens when I was in my twenties. I'm a regretful person, I have loads, mainly around the anxiety I had in my twenties and early thirties that stopped me going out, keeping in touch with friends, pushing myself at work etc. Even so, I was so carefree compared to now. Life for most people is just easier when you are young. I lost both my parents in my mid thirties and I've seen friends go through really horrible things like break-ups, fertility problems etc. I miss the endless possibilities of youth and the feeling that the whole of life was ahead, and it does feel similar to grief to me. Though someone once pointed out to me, when I was complaining about it, that all those "possibilities" back then weren't real, they were just an illusion and most of them were guaranteed never to be realised.

LunaTheCat · 26/08/2018 21:22

In my early 50’s. I wish I could be 20 again with the knowledge I have now!
In reality I was unhappy as a young person - untreated depression, dysfunctional family. Didn’t know how gorgeous I was back then.

augustusglupe · 26/08/2018 21:40

I’m 54 and I get this, sometimes it’s overwhelming, it was today.
I was looking at the old road we all lived on when I was very little. We didn’t have much then. My 2 sisters shared a room and I shared a room for 5 years with my big brother. I had a bed, he a camp bed. He was 16 years older than me, so hardly ever home, but today the happy memories of that house came flooding back. I was sobbing my heart out thinking how funny and kind my brother always was....I’m crying writing this and poor DH is oblivious, asking what’s wrong.
I get very nostalgic about mum, dad, who have long gone and my, what seemed like, carefree childhood.
Saturday morning tele, my best friends, my family, anything can set me off.

Poppiesway1 · 26/08/2018 21:55

I’ve been feeling like this for the past year. Desperately aching to go back to my early twenties. My Grandmother and her sisters developed dementia in their early 70’s.. my DA is now suffering dementia also which has made me panic that it’s going to affect me also.. and that I only have about 28 years left.. so feel like I’m counting down and regretting / missing what I’ve done and could have done Sad

Nannyplumshairstyle · 26/08/2018 23:33

Now Ive had a baby I get this. Especially when I go to a music festival or on holiday etc and its all just slog.
I really miss simpler times where I could really be in touch with who I am.

stuckinagut · 27/08/2018 08:54

I think there is a graph somewhere that shows happiness in humans over their lifetime - it follows a big 'U-shape' bottoming out around 35-50 years around the well known 'mid-life crisis'. It happens in great apes too. I looked it up when I was around 37-38 and I started to feel a bit like a flower that had had its day and was starting to whither, despite achieving more than I could have imagined and being otherwise very happy with life. I'm still in the 'U-bend' at 43 but am hopeful I'll start coming up the other side soon! Also still raising young children and wondering if this is helping to keep my spirits up or whether I've done my children a disservice by having them at their time of greatest need when I am going through a natural cycle of low mood.

thecatsabsentcojones · 27/08/2018 08:56

I'm 43 and remember my younger days well. I was a massive worrier and to be honest now I'm in a pretty solid marriage, have two kids, a nice house etc I don't have that horrible dread of what could have happened in my life. Half of it's done now and it's a nice place to be. Whereas I was full of anxiety for the future when I was young...daft really, given those years are meant to be the best of your life.

nearlythesummer · 27/08/2018 22:47

My husband had an affair years ago and ever since I've been absolutely longing to be with my first boyfriend. I know it will never happen, but that sense of love and trust with your first love is so powerful. Hitting my 40's now and that feeling is a strong as ever. I'm still fairly happily married though with a lovely life, so I can't really complain too much.

flossietoot · 28/08/2018 00:46

My first boyfriend sadly died last month. Would give anything to go back to being 19 even for just a few days to relive lots of happy memories.

littlegecko · 29/08/2018 05:55

I'm 38, and get this nostalgic feeling too.

When it hits home for me, is when I'm with all my family (parents, children, aunts, uncles and cousins) - and I can feel the generational shift. So me and my cousins are now very clearly the "mum's and dads", our parents are the grandparents and our kids are the new generation. It hits home how quickly life passes.

I have reverted to listening to music from the 1990s and even bought trainers similar to what I had then. I've even bought my teenage kids Adidas originals and Ellesse clothing - as it resembles what I would have been wearing back then.

I am back in touch with my best friend as a teenager (we had always stayed loosely in touch) but then I had a great desire to see her. We spend our time chatting about the old days and people we knew.

I'm glad other people experience similar emotions. I thought I was having some weird "clinging on to my youth" crisis !

lemon8de · 29/08/2018 15:27

Thank you so much for all your responses! Seems human emotions are fairly standard and what I have been feeling is all normal.

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