to think I've hit an age of looking back not forward?

[Setsquares]

I'll be 50 years old next week.
Youngest DC will be leaving for university in September.
I'm in a full-time, stressful job, which will see me through to retirement in 14/15 years time. Will never be a high earner (teacher).
DH and I bumble along well enough together. Certainly not exciting, but not awful.
Elderly parents.

My looks have faded - frown lines, greying hair, tired eyes, bit of extra weight on the hips.

Becoming more cynical about the world and humanity in general.

AIBU to think that my life now is about looking back on the good times (I had a great time in my 20s, in a big city and did lots of travelling, and then the kids' pre-school years were probably the happiest of my life), rather than expecting the same level of 'adventure' ahead?

I'm 54 and got sacked from a job in a school last year. Empty nest now too. I think I did go through a phase of looking back but feel in 2026 getting a bit back to normal. Probably never going back to a 'senior' job now, but sod it.

Binned off some voluntary stuff too. (Eg school governor) in effect prioritising self.

Got four weekly uk holidays booked this year. Air bnb etc.

Tell myself every day I'm living to 100.

Watching vastly less news helps.

I’m in my 40s and I’m always looking back on the good old days. I think it’s pretty normal. I’m sure there’s great days to come but there’s something lovely about youth that will never be replaced.

Teacher here, very similar age 25 years in to the profession.
I think that during term time work life balance can be hard to achieve. Your post feels a lot about the slide (or struggle!) towards retirement and you have not mentioned any other interests than work or your children. It feels as though your narrative is dependent on others but of course tell me otherwise if that’s not right.
I have had therapy for nearly 2 years now due to some awful life events and it has helped hugely. I can reflect on my own interests and it supports my thinking around myself in relation to others. It has helped me to build my own interests and to structure time for these habitually into my working week - and not to feel guilty for it. This is helping me be a better teacher, parent, friend, daughter, wife etc too.
Short hand I think I’m saying find your interests if you can and explore them! Longhand, consider their purpose.

I'm about your age, and very much looking forward to retirement. It'll be amazing to finally have free time, and do what I want to do.

I felt like this at 50. No DCs at home, DH and I financially comfortable and had a slight panicky feeling of I’ve done everything, all the good stuff is in the past etc.

Fast forward 5 years and I’m now divorced, happily single, less well off financially but like a pp, menopause has felt like a second spring and my life is no longer dull.

OK divorce is quite radical but you do never know what’s around the corner!

I have just turned 50 and couldn't disagree more, my mindset is very different.

I see life as one big adventure and my biggest fear is not having enough time left to do everything I want to do.

My child is older and left home a long time ago, but now there is the excitement of grandchildren. They come on my adventures with me.

I think now with less responsibilities, my 50s is the time to refocus and have a healthier work/life balance. I have reduced my hours at work, go to the gym a lot, doing some studies (career related, but enjoying the learning), spending time doing hobbies, more time with friends.

Sure I have a few grey hairs and getting some fine lines now, but I think I look the best I have looked for decades as I'm really into weights and the gym now.

Just think of all the freedom you will have now the kids are grown up! I appreciate it can be a hard adjustment, but most people soon get used to it and hate the idea of going back to having the kids around all the time!

Like what? If you enjoyed raising a young family and vibrant youth nothing is ever going to touch the sides in terms of the fulfillment you get from that.

Happens to us all at some point. We all die.

but I am damned if I am going to live any other way than as grateful and joyful as I can. Trying new things, scaring myself a bit, grateful.

you sound negative. You have raised two children who are happy enough to head to uni. You remain married and solvent. You have had a long time with your elderly parents. You are presumably solvent. Honey - you have won the lottery of life!!so many would kill to have had this and haven’t managed.

br grateful every day and regain your joy. Dye the hair, lose the weight and plan a trip for you and your husband you wouldn’t have done before.

if something terrible happened tomorrow and you lost someone - and I sincerely hope this doesn’t happen - you would kick yourself for not seeing how much you have

I'm the same age and weirdly feel this less now than ever. I was guilty of looking back a lot when I was younger but now that things are really slipping away - child going to secondary school and parents terminally ill, I'm almost scared to look back too much. Suddenly being 50 years in I realise how fast it all goes and to appreciate it all, and living in the moment has been really helpful for me. We'll look back and wish for these days soon enough too.

I am 60 in early March and I can’t believe it. I want life to slow down. I am like you, in a full time stressful job and helping an elderly Father. I feel exhausted and am lacking motivation. I have done some things for me, leading up to 60 - I have lost weight and had my veins done. Of course now people tell me I look too thin, but it’s better for me. I would say start doing some things for yourself, even small things. You still have 10 years on me and I genuinely wish I could turn the clock back…

Reading all of this and very much relating. It’s good to hear from posters above like esperanza who have managed to turn this feeling around. I too am in a busy, stressful job and am the breadwinner with two DC still to go through uni. So no option to reduce my hours for better work-life balance. Plus, recent bereavements I think have over-focused me on the struggles and health changes in later life. That sounds very depressing written out! Up until last year I’d have been one of the posters encouraging people to be more positive and find their joy, so I’m not sure why the sudden switch. I do feel this is a temporary gloom but not quite sure how to find my way out I think. OP do you think there are stresses impeding you moving on eg work and maybe caring for elderly parents?

I’m 50 and feel the complete opposite. I am so so excited about retiring/at least going very part time. All day long to do my hobbies and gardening. I’m excited about grandkids if I’m lucky enough to get any. I’m looking forward to my kids getting their own jobs so that the money I earn will be mine again. So, no, I don’t relate to this at all.

What about Grandchildren if and when they come along? Will that not be a fulfilling and wonderful new chapter of life? I appreciate you say you’ll never be a high earner but is there nowhere you want to travel to? You’ll retire - could you use some pension money for travel? Buy a camper-van and travel around Europe?
It’a not ‘smug’ to have a positive mindset and feel optimistic about the future like someone has suggested.
50 isn’t old - you could do anything! Learn a language, start playing a new sport and get a new hobby, travel, even look at using transferable skills from teaching to start a new job if you wanted to. It sounds like you’re a little bored of your life.

This makes me sad. I am 68 and I really appreciate my life - let’s face it, I am in the final stretch. At my age, you’ll be kicking yourself that you felt like that at 50.

My philosophy is not to look back - live in this moment and its difference from before or after. You aren’t tied to toddlers, you presumably have more financial security, you have long standing friends, you aren’t trying to prove yourself at work as you’re secure in your role …

You only get one go at life. You only have yourself to blame if you don’t savour it.

I’m sixty and I definitely don’t feel like this.

My teens and twenties were WILD! I dated A list rock stars, traveled extensively and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Thirties were blissful with a young family, and forties were tough, unhappily married.

I don’t look back unless I am reminded of a particular person or event. I still have the same friendship group as I did in my teens so maybe that helps?

At sixty I still feel there are loads of things for me to learn about. Places to go, people in my life I can love and laugh with, despite my single status. I definitely look forward far more than back.

Yes, me too. I've felt like this since I was 35!

But I had such a massive amount of fun in my 20s and early 30s that I don't regret it at all. It'll never be that good again, but such is life.

I’m 64, and don’t feel like this. Any reason why you and your DH can’t travel and have some fun once your youngest has left for uni. There’s a saying, you don’t stop having fun when you get old, you get old when you stop having fun. I think there is truth in it.

It’s personality, not age, imv.

I totally reinvented myself at 54 and 13 years later live a totally different life. I lost my adult ds suddenly 18 months ago and i could have descended into grief and misery but I havent. No point. I will not be reduced to a husk because of his actions.

OP, you sound so sad and defeatist. I am nearer 60 than 50 and don't recognise your feelings at all - the best is yet to come!

Work is easier without responsibility for children and DH and I have more money and time than we have ever had. I enjoy doing fun things with my adult children and with my friends and DH. I take part in a sport that excites, challenges and stretches me and I have ambitions and goals for this season.

Why are you drifting listlessly through your one precious life? As a teacher you will have great holidays you can spend doing things that fulfil you - it is only on you if you don't make something of your life, no one else is going to do it for you.

G** No
I’m 10 years on from you.
Both adult children got good degrees and settled in uni city.
Happy for them and regular visits and get togethers.
I have blond streaks in my hair, to hide the grey and enjoy walking , so incorporate it regularly into my day, to keep fit and healthy

Both parents passed peacefully, after a good life ( sad but peaceful)
Me and dh are closer than ever, with romantic breaks now and then.
Works going well (Tiring, but that’s work)
Busy updating a few bits in house , now we have the money (another bounus of child free)
Couple of grandchildren in the picture too.
I’m the happiest I’ve ever been

DH and I did a lot of travelling together and had a great time in our twenties.

Thirties was raising young children, which was absolutely brilliant.

Forties was navigating the teen years and parents starting to age, but enough energy to have fun.

Fifties looks like tiredness, grind of full-time and stressful work, university costs, empty nest, friends who are going through the same, probable death of parents, menopause, sagging face and body...FFS.

Learning Spanish or taking up life drawing is not going to combat this feeling. My happy place is with my memories of travelling in South America when I was 25 or watching my DC splashing in the paddling pool in my early thirties.

Four friends, of similar age to me, have died during the last six months. Three to cancer and one of a heart attack. I would have thought that this would create a carpe diem moment, but it seems to have had an opposite effect.

I have increasingly felt like this and for me, I think it's grief. I lost my Dad 3 years ago and got a chronic illness 4-5 years ago. I find myself increasingly looking backwards as my child gets older. He is mid teens now.

I think I am grieving myself before I got ill, my Dad who died suddenly, the life I wanted and didn't get... Because I don't see much optimism because I am unwell and can't change my situation that much.

What I don't think helps is technology.... Google Is constantly sending me reminder pics from years ago when my boy was little and FB has photos of the places I grew up in and how they used to look in the past (when I was there). Looks so long ago.

So for me it's a bit tangled up. Nostalgia and grief and that lack of hope because I feel too unwell to make changes or cannot make changes.

Maybe you are grieving? Your children are now adults. That's a big life stage. You're probably looking at your husband and you probably could do with some time to reconnect and remember who you are as a couple, not mum and dad.

If I was well, and at your stage with a nice husband (I will be single forever now most likely) , I would perhaps try and plan some trips together? Is it possible to plan for early retirement and try a new job for your last working years that is less stressful? Can you go part time? Id be thinking about what you want out of life and try and be selfish a bit. Travel, new hobbies..etc.

Also menopause is a shitter. Can make us feel flat. You might pop out the other side if you're not there yet and be ready for a new stage of life?

Sorry...too long a post.

Yes so much this. I’m a similar age and have started preparing for being dead - selling stuff, not buying new, throwing away paperwork etc.
I have a mentally ill adult child who is permanently in crisis and I just see my others going off out into the world and me being stuck in a low paid job paying for the two of us until I die. It wasn’t always like this, but somehow this is my future.

X posted with yours. Sorry for your losses. Id say it's grief @Setsquares . Give yourself some time. Try and be kind to yourself and ask what you feel you need right now. It's a very weird thing is grief. Comes in lots of forms and does funny things.