To want to be young again?

[HarryorHas]

Just that really.

Life was exciting, less stressful, more fun, I looked great, felt great, had a fantastic figure...the thought of the future was so exciting,

I’m not old, old (43) but god, life was good, wasn’t t it?!

@katy1213

I'd like to be 43 again. It was one of the best times of my life, old enough not to give a fuck - young enough to have fun - and plenty of money for travel. Glad I seized the day!

This is kind of how I feel - and I am 43 now. Life is busy, as I have young kids and am at the “make it break” part of my career, but I feel relatively young, am reasonably fit, and still sometimes wonder what I want to be when I grow up.

@Whatapalavaa

I'm late 20s and it's really not that great. I would love to swap places with some of you on this thread. The dream of retirement is so far away.

I'm only a few years older than you - and I think if you're looking forward to retirement in your late 20s it's a sign that something needs to change in your life!

I'm not sure, I absolutely hated my teenage years! I blossomed a bit aged about 19/20 and then the fun started
I met my now husband when I was 20 and got pregnant (planned!) At 22.
I am now 37 with two older children, I actually feel like now is my time. I am still just about young enough to scrub up well if I want to and old enough not to give a shit what people think if I dont want to bother scrubbing up
The kids are getting more independent every day it seems so things that seemed impossible a few years ago (nipping to the shop on my own) have suddenly started happening! My eldest even cooks tea for us sometimes which is nice.
On balance I dont think I would go back, I've done the hardest part and now it's paying off!

Ah but if you could go back knowing what you know now... I was shy, awkward, insecure, felt ugly and lanky.

Looking back I was tall, very slim, nice figure, large boobs and although not ‘pretty’ I had a pretty cute face.

@JustGiveMeGin

I'm not sure, I absolutely hated my teenage years! I blossomed a bit aged about 19/20 and then the fun started I met my now husband when I was 20 and got pregnant (planned!) At 22. I am now 37 with two older children, I actually feel like now is my time. I am still just about young enough to scrub up well if I want to and old enough not to give a shit what people think if I dont want to bother scrubbing up The kids are getting more independent every day it seems so things that seemed impossible a few years ago (nipping to the shop on my own) have suddenly started happening! My eldest even cooks tea for us sometimes which is nice. On balance I dont think I would go back, I've done the hardest part and now it's paying off!

I feel this way! I also had my child young, I'm 30 now and DS will be grown by the time I'm 40.

I suppose I didn't really have the "carefree" 20s that a lot of people on this thread did as I was already a mum then. But I enjoyed being a young mum and had bags of energy for the baby and toddler years.

I'm looking forward to the rest of my 30s, now DS is older and I'm not tied to bedtime routines and a crying toddler. Going on adventures together, watching him become a teenager and more independent. Then my 40s will be my time for myself.

It's always easy to compare us with our youngest self and wish it back rather than focus in how much abetter we are in than we will be in 20 years time.

I use my mum as a proxi as in many ways, we are very similar. She's now in her 70s and miss the fitness she had in her 50s, so I appreciate how great it is to still being able to enjoy a run or 2h hilly walk. This despite the fact that the menopause has aged me 10 years in only 2 and has come with dreadful insomnia. Good sleep is definitely something took for granted before. I expect I now take being free of chronic pain for granted to in many ways, so am focusing on this, how lucky I am and needing to make the most of it.

Im a bit fed up and 40. Ife didn't turn out as expected and on low wages/house that wasnt meant to be a family house.

I think I'd feel different with a different career if I had managed to feel "settled" somewhere I fit. Now Ive got that awful feeling that instead of "itnwill happen one day" that "oh shit this is it. We won't be travelling to canada/seeing Italy/ having big family Christmasses or living soemwhere "nice." And my body isn't too happy. And the great degrees I have I feel i missed the boat to sort a career change.

I love the kids but yes feel I wish I had time to change some of how it ended up.

I never did the funfilled teens and 20s. Abusive family and survived through it all really. I hate that knocks onto your grown up life!

47 and both children over 18.

Wouldn't go back even if I could ! I was diagnosed with a chronic illness a few years back - life is short. Enjoy it.

@Bluntasduck

Fuck no, my adolescence and early twenties were horrendous. I am so much happier now

Agree! I had a lovely childhood, horrible from age 14 to age 29, picked up again after that.

Happiest in my 30s. Money, but still youth. Everyone still alive. Children small & sweet.

@BashfulClam

I’m 42 this year and we grew up in an amazing era, the 90’s were brilliant, the millennium excitement and the works was so different, it’s hard to comprehend that 1991 was 30 years ago!!! Where did my youth go? My dh says wow 30 years so when we were at high school and said 30 years ago were were talking about the 60’s which seemed so long before our time.

I loved the nineties I could be looking at it through rise tinted spectacles, but life seems better. Even the men were better looking

I feel the same and always have done.

I must be the only person to have had a "midlife" crisis at 16 - I became obsessed with how I wasn't a child any more and where had the time gone, blah blah, and that feeling has never left.

I turn 40 this year. I don't look too bad but in my 20s I was living in Paris, sleeping with mysterious hot French men I met in bars, and having a really exciting life.

Now I am working from home in tracksuit bottoms with my hair scrunched up in a big ball on my head and no make up and wondering where it all went wrong.

I think this past year has given me a real chance to reflect, and I agree, I'd love to go back to my early 20s, my last 2 years at uni when the future possibilities really were endless. I miss having an amazing group of friends, all within a mile of my house, who had the same optimism about life. We had the same timetable, so were free at the same time, no trying to schedule something 4 months into the future when it's the only time everyone can travel 200 miles to get together. I miss my figure, I thought I was fat and was on an endless diet to lose 1.5st, now I'm 2st heavier and would love to be back where I was.

I think this year has highlighted where I feel my life needs work. My career is fine, it's not going to set the world alight but it gives me security and plenty of money and options, but I'm lacking in friends, fitness and feeling good about my body, so at 36 I'm going to change them, as I don't want to spend my 40s feeling the same, and the optimism should still be the same, these are within my capabilities, I've just lost my motivation along the way

I’d bloody love it - but as I look with horror at the increasingly haggard woman in the mirror I try and remind myself (despite the dodgy knee, horrendous womb issues, various annoying health stuff, fat belly, greying crazy hair, jowls, sagginess, exhaustion, hormones etc etc) that growing old is better than the alternative! Not always easy but trying to stay chipper!! I’m ‘only’ 49 so things are no doubt going to continue to go south so must try and appreciate what’s left now I guess..

However yes please - young, free, spontaneous, pretty and happy and full of potential and energy with glowy skin, flat abs & sparkly eyes. Booking a flight on a whim on a Friday afternoon & going that evening for a weekend of fun in Barcelona or Prague or Dublin, wild parties, lost weekends, having power in the workplace because you aren’t invisible, lazy Sundays in the pub with tons of friends, drinking, dancing, laughing & spending proper time with people, no responsibilities, disposable income, gorgeous clothes, doing whatever the fuck I wanted when ever the fuck I wanted to...yes please, I’d go back in a heartbeat if I could.

I did fully embrace and enjoy every single moment of it whilst it was happening though so wouldn’t change a thing! (although to be fair it would probably have been a good idea to not be quite so hedonistic & have made some wiser financial decisions, but I’ve never been great at the whole ‘what about the future’ thing - people say ‘live in the moment’ & I really did, turns out not always the best advice once ‘the moment’ has passed..oops!)...

I miss having hope. I genuinely thought I’d meet someone and fall in love, get a great job and be successful, have a nice house, be able to travel... Now I’m 41 and I have to accept it never happened for me.

Crikey, I wouldn’t want to go back to my twenties! Working 100 hours a week as a junior doctor, too exhausted to have much of a social life on the rare weekends off.
Ditto my thirties, widowed with two babies, grieving and exhausted.
I’m now in my sixties.
Retirement for me was wonderful “me time” - cruising to St Petersburg, canyon walking in the Carpathian Mountains, winter sun in Tenerife and Madeira. Gourmet food in good restaurants. Time to enjoy good books, plays, concerts. Time to develop my bridge skills.
Until bloody Covid came along, hospitalised me and left me ill with long Covid for the whole of the last year, I was having a ball being old!

@Babdoc

Crikey, I wouldn’t want to go back to my twenties! Working 100 hours a week as a junior doctor, too exhausted to have much of a social life on the rare weekends off. Ditto my thirties, widowed with two babies, grieving and exhausted. I’m now in my sixties. Retirement for me was wonderful “me time” - cruising to St Petersburg, canyon walking in the Carpathian Mountains, winter sun in Tenerife and Madeira. Gourmet food in good restaurants. Time to enjoy good books, plays, concerts. Time to develop my bridge skills. Until bloody Covid came along, hospitalised me and left me ill with long Covid for the whole of the last year, I was having a ball being old!

Wow @babdoc good for you! Inspiring addition to this thread. Hope you make a good recovery and carry on having a fab retirement🙂

Life from 37 to 45, menopause hit very badly, then just as I thought 11 years in I got hormonal depression, floored me of my energy.
A complete shock, left me aching, weepy and just flat, never heard of it.
Took too long to get the right treatment and left me with two nasty side effects.
58 now what happened my looks or male attention

@Waxonwaxoff0 it sometimes feels like life is just beginning again, I think it's great

I remember watching Frazier and there was a comment about getting to a stage in life when it takes away more than it gives.

My tipping point came when I was 30 and my dad became terminally ill. Mum had been ill with cancer but had got through it (cured), and we had about 2 months of relief before dads diagnosis.

Yes I miss a lot of when I was young, particularly travelling in my late 20s.
And when I could stay up all night sleep all day and then do it all again.
Being able to pull. Now I think I'd have to pay a stranger to sleep with me!