Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

to really, really miss my youth and freedom?

28 replies

Vallhala · 10/12/2009 20:58

The world's greatest Jam fan is broken-hearted. Very soon Paul Weller is playing at a local venue. The gig is sold out and besides, he's an arrogant git and has never imho managed to match what he produced with The Jam since he decided to go solo. I can cope with not going to that, but the following night's gig at the same venue is something different for then the two other former members of The Jam play in their new band, "From The Jam", together with Weller's replacement.

The Jam was the band of my teenaged years, of my long hot summers and days of freedom, the backing track to that rush of adreneline, that other life, the one I had when I was young and could do anything I wanted to do. The opening bars to "Going Underground" come on the radio and I close my eyes, I'm there, transported back in time, 17 again, at Wembley and on the guest list....

But I'm not there and nor shall I be. Now this aging Jam fan and lone mother has neither childcare nor transport and will be at home as usual on the night of the gig whilst other, luckier music fans queue in the cold to relive their youth.

And all the while I tell myself to grow up and get a grip, that this is what parenthood is all about, something pricks at the back of my eyes and like the teenager I've long since left behind I ache to be there, just one more time.

Is it just me or do the rest of you sometimes feel this way? I know I should count my blessings but right now I miss my youth and freedom so very much.

OP posts:

CitizenPrecious · 10/12/2009 21:03

I used to do this all the time

...worst was frequent dreams about my Past Life, then waking up to Reality, and trying not to sob into my cornflakes/snap at babies/kick dogs

Never mind dear. By the time you pass forty you'll be resigned to it

Original poster

Vallhala · 10/12/2009 21:05

Oh shit! CP, I am past 40! By five years! Is there no hope for me?

OP posts:

CitizenPrecious · 10/12/2009 21:13

....maybe fifty, then??

musicposy · 10/12/2009 21:18

I'm nearly 43 and I know just how you feel. Generally, I'm really happy with my life, but it doesn't do to think back too much at times! I can remember so vividly being 16, not just the being, but exactly what it felt like. That feeling that anything could happen, that all the exciting things lay ahead....and my life's OK now, but, well, not how I might have thought it would have been when I was 16.

I used to love "Going Underground" too. I remember we all used to just go wild on the dance floor, just bundle into each other, and throw our heads around madly and generally go crazy!

They're advertising this CD of the 80s at the moment and it starts with a bit of Ultravox's Vienna. And immediately I'm 16 and back at the church disco with my boyfriend of the time, who I adored like no one before or since, in the middle of a slow dance, and I could cry, really really sob for everything I had then and somehow lost along the years.

Yet in a way I know it was just fantasy, that maybe everyone's life at 16 is fantastically exciting, and everyone's life at 43 is, well, nice, if you're lucky.

So I know exactly where you're coming from, but I'm not sure there's a cure for it.

CitizenPrecious · 10/12/2009 21:22

Stigaloid · 10/12/2009 21:24

I feel the same - you are not alone.

CarGirl · 10/12/2009 21:25

Perhaps I don't suffer because I had my first child straight from Uni (unplanned) so grieve a lot when I found out I was pregnant!!!

I find the best way is just to not think about what you're missing out on and do not have a mini holiday without children because then the responsibility and lack of freedom hit like a brick......

upahill · 10/12/2009 21:25

Well to be honest I don't yearn for my teenage years. Sure they were ok but I was riddled with insecurity and fear of the future.
However the things that I loved in my teenage years such as gigs, travelling, sex, drinking, having mates round, buying clothes and make up I still do. It's just that I can afford to do more of it now. My life id more exciting now than when I was 17 and 18.
The only thing I regret is that I'm a size 12 now and not an 8.

My mum was laughing at me the other day when I was saying about some of the bands I was seeing in the next couple of months and she said I remember you going to see them 20 odd years ago! I do go and see new stuff as well.
The point is you don't have to feel old or act old. Do stuff you used to enjoy if and when you can.

Acinonyx · 10/12/2009 21:39

I'm a couple of years further on and I'd settle for being 30 and free TYVM. I miss my old life very much - every day. That life is totally, completely incompatible with my current family life. I knew that going in. But I still miss it terribly.

Original poster

Vallhala · 10/12/2009 21:41

Upahill, that's another thing... being a size 12 now and not a size 8.

OP posts:

lilacclaire · 10/12/2009 21:42

I miss my old life as well, you are not alone

upahill · 10/12/2009 21:45

To tell the truth Valhala it's more like a 12 and 1/2 - nearly (but not quite yet ) a 14. I put on a brave face and think of the gym but well y'know......

MeltedTreeChocolates · 10/12/2009 21:48

I miss my young childhood years! You know the ones where you could have a whole world happen with just a few trees, a pot and some mud?

Cant whine about missing 'my yoof' cos I am only a young chicken now

kidding ladies........

bibbitybobbitysantahat · 10/12/2009 21:50

Ooooo does anyone want to hear my Jam claim to fame?

Original poster

Vallhala · 10/12/2009 21:53

Yes please Bibbity!

OP posts:

upahill · 10/12/2009 21:53

Yeah I do Bibbity.....

CitizenPrecious · 10/12/2009 21:55

ooh yes please dear

bibbitybobbitysantahat · 10/12/2009 22:02

Ok. So. Its June 1984 and I've just finished my finals at University (am 47 to save you having to work it out).

Me and a good friend (who has since become a sleb in her own right funnily enough) went on holiday to Lindos, Greece, for a week to celebrate.

So there we are on the beach and my friend, who is very forward, asks a chap sitting near us with his girlfriend if we can borrow their masks and flippers. He says sure ...

and it is ...

Bruce Foxton

(Friend does not recognise him!)

... and there's more, do you want any more?

Original poster

Vallhala · 10/12/2009 22:08

More more more!

Please!

OP posts:

bibbitybobbitysantahat · 10/12/2009 22:17

Oh, its nice of you to take an interest

Well, we get chatting. He's a friendly chap, bit shy, his girlfriend Pat was absolutely lovely. They were staying in Rhodes and had come to Lindos for a day trip and much preferred it and wanted to stay longer.

So they came back to our apartment and had a shower (Bruce borrowed my pink towel) and we went out to dinner. The next day they found somewhere to stay on Lindos and became our holiday mates - we spent several days and evening with them. They were lovely.

My friend's Dad was very well known and so we had some long and interesting talks about fame. He was shy and people constantly came up to him and asked if he was Bruce Foxton and he would just say "No, I know I look like him." He was not rock-starry in any way. One night we were in a gorgeous roof-top restaurant and we had to leave because he was so disconcerted by a really scantily clad woman (possibly a prostitute) flirting with a group of guys. He felt uncomfortable. And he saved food for all the stray cats and kittens and Pat said he would take them all home if he possibly could.

We flew home with them too. Never seen him since of course! I read somewhere that Pat died this year, which is terribly sad; they seemed to be a couple who were real soulmates.

AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 10/12/2009 22:21

well, I was crap when I was young

I am much more fun less uptight now

CitizenPrecious · 10/12/2009 22:26

Original poster

Vallhala · 10/12/2009 22:28

What a lovely story. I've heard that BF is a really nice man, unlike Weller, whom I've met on a few occasions.

I thought I was arrogant til I met him!

OP posts:

bibbitybobbitysantahat · 10/12/2009 22:30

Clement Freud, Citizen .

I've heard that Paul Weller is an arse. By the time I met Bruce Foxton The Jam were no more.

blueshoes · 10/12/2009 22:35

Vallhala, for you it is a Jam concert. For me, going on dive holidays in exotic locations is the thing I miss the most of my youth.

Will not dive again because of the risk of leaving my dcs without a mother.

The sort of holiday on a remote beach in South East Asia that you travel for 2 days by propeller plane, boat, bus etc to get to. Meals on the beach, days spent lolling on the deck of a dive boat, in between warm water dives, crystal clear waters, brilliant coral, oceanic fish, flirting with the divemasters, ...

As you describe, my heart aches, but it is like a door has closed.

Flip

1 2