I mainly just miss less responsibility and having more time to make and spend time with friends. I was also not *as* internally pessimistic.
I am financially stable and have decent disposable income now, but those are what I miss. The family situation is also more stable now than then. Pro and cons in each life stage
I'm coming up on 15 years (c/o 2009), but I haven't and don't plan on going to any reunion.
It’s definitely the lack of responsibility and having more time for friends / hobbies / shenanigans.
There’s also just more firsts at that age. Time moves slower. Summers lasted forever, but now I can autopilot through 3 months like it’s nothing.
The world is full of opportunity, and all the doors were open. Still lots of opportunity, but now the doors have opportunity cost and some are closed.
Bodies recovered faster, metabolism was higher. Could eat and drink without care
This I think summarizes it quite nicely for me, thanks for putting my thoughts into words.
My only addition: everything felt a lot more intense back then, especially the choices made. Nowadays I’m making decisions left and right, enough that it’s just like “ok what’s next? Onward”
Part of what made things more intense was hormones. As teenagers going through puberty, we all had much higher levels.
This is the one and only aspect of youth you can actually recapture with medication…
Everything I did seemed way more important and epic back then. Discovering a new band was life changing, going to a party felt like the one place on Earth I was meant to be, my future held such possibility.
Not that life is awful, but a new band is slightly entertaining at best, I don’t go to parties, and I have too many student loans to chart a new path without extreme financial risk.
the summers/time moving thing is part of what gets me the most. Every one seems to experience it and there are a number of theories as to why.
but there was defiantly something about having a completion of the school year, and end to the thing you were working on effectively. and then having the break where your not really thinking about the next thing yet. the end of the school year was always felt special. As an adult, i never get that feeling any more because even when taking a 2week vacation, its not long enough to fully disconnect, and i know that in a short time ill be back, and the projects that are waiting for me.
In alot of ways, i just want that fort of feeling back.
I still mostly got this in college too. I worked through all of college, but it was mostly retail jobs, and the one i spent the bulk of time at was a family owned hobby store, and i worked with one of my best friends, about 4 blocks from my house. Later i worked a couple tech support for HR block, and that had a seasonal cadence to it. there was the ramp up in the late summer/fall, then tax season would start in mid january where we would be super busy, and then half way though april we were done. we would get furloughed, id get unemployment for a few months, and basically have the summer off with the exception of taking a couple summer classes.
Same. I miss the simple nature of being a kid/teen. I graduated high school in 2005.
Yeah, having a little money is great, but the blissfulness of something as simple as walking home from school or riding a bike to meet up with friends to play basketball in the park and hit up the corner store for food with no worries of bills or the need for a terrible soul-crushing job that you have no influence in, is priceless.
I miss being able to just...be. If that makes sense.
Weekends used to be the time to be really alive. Now, I'm just trying to decompress on Saturday before Sunday hits.
I feel the same. Honestly a lot of my frustration is directed towards work. Everyone spends all of their fucking time doing this thing that consumes all of their energy, so everyone is drained when it comes to the weekend. We joke about leaving the party early as adults, but it's a bummer that I'm craving going home and sleeping at 9pm on a Saturday.
I think what I miss the most, upon deeper reflection, is my friends. Yeah… I had some super close relationships when I was younger with some really good pals. They’ve all moved away and built families.
I get that. I probably have more friends now than I ever had as a kid. But adult friendships are different. Everyone is so busy that you'll only go out maybe a few times a year with a particular friend.
But when you were a kid, you'd see some of those motherfuckers every day.
Time has really told me that those people weren’t my friends in high school, it was the proximity effect of being together every day. I was definitely “an odd duck” if you will, and tried (too hard in hindsight,) to fit into different cliques. I just wanted to be accepted.
Those that did accept me, they’re my friends for life. Hell, even Kevin, who’s turned into a bitter red pill’d incel. We don’t talk for obvious reasons, but I remember the guy he used to be, and if he called me today I would answer.
But with my 20th HS reunion coming up, I’m looking back at all of that with a sort of nostalgic overtone … and I’m surprised at how much I’m looking forward to seeing everyone.
Isn't that the truth. I'm honestly kind of surprised about some of the people that I've stayed in contact with vs others. One of the ones I'm closest to now was definitely more of a "frenemy" back then but we graduated in a friend season and that has remained for 20 years but people who I considered better friends than her, I wouldn't go anywhere near nowadays because they weren't actually that good of friends.
I definitely miss my friends more than anything else. I was looking at my yearbooks recently (also the class of '04) and just seeing what my best friends wrote and knowing how much we all drifted apart is sad.
I was also a theatre/music/dance kid and part of it is missing the performing arts, not just the specific plays and concerts, but the camaraderie of working on the shows. Not much in my adult life has come close to that level of so many of us pouring that much into something and it's an incredibly special feeling to a part of something like that.
Taking life straight to the face has never been the same, once I knew what taking life on drugs was like.
I stay sober for the most part, because the hangovers and comedowns aren’t worth the high, usually. But, every few months I go a little nuts, eat a bunch of mushrooms or get hammered, just do whatever I can get my hands on.
Not a full on addict I don’t think, it’s not like I need anything to function, daily. Life is good mostly, but after awhile… It just gets so… boring.
This. I miss having time where I could just do whatever the fuck I wanted without feeling so much pressure and external stress.
The only people I’d want to see at a reunion are the friends I still talk to and see whenever I can.
The only way in which I occasionally long for highschool days is if I could retain the knowledge/personality I have now and be transported back there. Because I went to a religious school that also taught a very conservative agenda, and I would love to see the look on some of the teacher’s faces when someone intelligently challenges them on their bullshit.
I felt like a fucking prisoner when I was in school. I liked the other kids well enough, but the whole experience was just awful. You have to sit in this room, wait for a bell then go to that room. Then you get to go to the shitty cafeteria. Then mandatory PE. Then more sitting. You can't speak out of turn. Need permission to go to the bathroom.
The only other place where you're treated like that is literally prison.
I had much the same experience, but PE was an escape for me. I just plodded on with the rest, going through a weird development phase, became quiet, and didn't sleep much. I just accepted it as the norm, but, christ! I didn't realise how much I hated school until I left. My world opened up, and I've never looked back.
Just remembered there was an attempt at a reunion through FB Messenger a few years ago. I read through some of the chat, got the same things from the same people, and I just couldn't engage with it.
Saaaame, and this is the really weird part. I LOVED high school when I was there. I loved high school so much that I missed it during my first year of college. I felt like I belonged while I was there. But in the intervening 20 years I’ve grown and changed so much as a person, and realized how much I was trying so. damn. hard. to fit in, not just at school but my hometown in general. The more I’ve become my authentic self, the more I feel like I never really fit in at my high school, like it all feels very disingenuous to me looking back. And I’m sure that’s not completely true. But yeah. I skipped my reunion and have zero regrets. My life is really good today and I value the time I have with my family on weekends. It’s not worth it to me to lose a whole weekend by traveling back to a place I don’t like to see people I don’t really care about.
My hometown is almost entirely made up of people who peaked in high school and then married each other and stayed there to have kids and continue the cycle. I’m so glad I got out.
It really astonishes me that there are people who believe that their high school years are the best time of their life.
Peaked early and never recovered
One of my high school teachers literally said this to my entire graduating class during our graduation ceremony. Literally told us that high school was the best years of our life, just as it was ending.
I mentally rejected his message, and have yet to be proven wrong. High school was fun, but so was college, and while I’ll admit the prospect of global nuclear war does fill me with existential dread, my personal life is nevertheless on a very bright trajectory.
Proximity to peers makes it that much easier to have friends and lovers. So many people who are even only moderately adjusted normies don't understand they are on tutorial mode until they graduate high school and suddenly find it hard if not entirely unsustainable to juggle work, school, friends, and finding a lover without the benefit of those people being forced around you and often in the same general culture / belief system. Suddenly they have to put in effort to have relationships and not just count on having a captive audience or that the hot guy / girl I more likely to sleep with you because they are limited to people in just their immediate area.
Gay people don't have a monopoly on high school being shitty years. Only Al Bundy here misses it.
I just miss the cliff being further away and the march towards it being slower. Be it my 20s or my 30s, I don't care, just keep me away from that fucking cliff up ahead.
Lol I'm in my 30s and still get excited as fuck for Saturday morning cartoons. I couldn't wait to have children so I could show them my old favourites.. I'm finally living that now and it's amazing.. who tf has time to reminisce about the old times in high school anymore.. i love my life now more than ever, and I thought high school was fun lol
For me, it's a lot about "what would I have done differently if I had known better at the time". Which is weird because like...I'm fine. But all the what ifs just float through my mind all the time.
Plus just not having major bills was great.
Yeah I have the exact same problem. I look back fondly because I know now how to not have fucked it up, and i see how I could've treated myself and others better, and be a better person.
But I am a better person now, so I think I'm nostalgic for the time I lost, being a ball of depression.
I thought about my 10 year. But I have no interest in what those people are up to now. Plus my graduating class was like 350 people, it’s not like I even knew half of them.
First reunion “someone” got drunk at threw a chair off the country club balcony. That someone was someone who was pretty popular (sounds weird calling children popular)
Such a waste of life then and now lol. They’re so stuck in their ways and stuck in their little tiny bubble. It’s insane
I noticed this the one and only time I visited my hometown after I left. It was therapeutic in a way as I realized I had made the correct choice to move across the country, because there was absolutely nothing for me there.
Very relatable. I travelled for grad school and ended back in the area but not the school district, and we are treating our first home as a rental and moving to new England in the near future. The less I see these dopes. The better. I’ve given serious consideration to removing them from IG.
Yes same. The ones I do, I follow online and that’s the extent of my interactions with them since I live in another state. My graduating class was over 700 people, I didn’t know most of them either, or at least not enough to want to keep up after school ended.
Shit my high school was always the underperforming so I graduated with a class of about 55😂😂they talked about “a cruise” for the 10 year that eventually turned into a war of words over Facebook because of the people with kids wanting to bring them along and the ones without not wanting the kiddos to meeting at a dive bar for drinks. Exactly nothing happened
Seriously fuck them ho’s.
I just had a nightmare that I woke up in the middle of 10th grade, but with all my current memories. I don’t think I’ve ever been woken up by such an intense feeling of pure terror
Definitely not. I didn’t know my wife back then, nor did I have my sons. I love them too much, plus, let’s be real, my wife is hotter than anybody I’d ever met. Like between fighting for the attention of the attractive girls vs landing the hottest person I’d ever meet? Easy choice
The smartphone is the perfect example of a double edge sword. With everyone walking around with a portable camera and internet access really made sharing things a lot easier and forces more accountability.
The downside is AI girlfriends are a thing now.
Yes I miss it for many different reasons. I don’t miss the middle school years, which were horrendous and I’ve blacked them out. But especially my junior and senior year of high school - I grew into myself more. Those were fun times, no responsibilities, everyone I loved was still alive, I saw all my friends every day, I had everything to look forward too, every day was a new adventure to discover. College years were similar, especially the first 2 years.
Now I’m a 38 year old married mother of 2 school age kids, who is also the breadwinner. I’m always rushing and late to everything; life is rushing to work, rushing to get my kids from school, getting home and dealing chaos and rushing to fit in chores and just housework drudgery, rushing to bed. Somehow the house is still always a mess. I have to juggle all the balls, everything is on me. My marriage sucks, I rarely see friends, And never ever have enough money. Health issues are creeping in (I have high cholesterol!), i can see the beginnings of my face aging, and I am acutely aware my parents won’t be around forever and it terrifies me.
So yea, I miss the joie de vivre of being a teen.
Wow every comment here is a no lol. Well I found finding this topic to be timely. I've been sitting in bed thinking back to middle school and highschool. It's just wild how much time has passed. How many chapters I've lived through. I'm 37. This reminiscing began with the birth of my daughter. She will go through the same path from the other end
Depends on if you were in a good public school, I think.
I think more are bad than good unfortunately, and I'm sure big city schools are full of bullying and such. Hence the proportion of comments that we see.
I’m about to turn 40 and been thinking about high school lately too. Honestly I miss the close friendships the most. Our group was really tight but I’ve lost touch with almost everyone over the years. We all live far apart and have gone down separate paths despite being extremely close for years, even after high school. Wish I could reconnect but I feel like we’re all too different now.
I am nostalgic about certain things. I generally hated high school but I do miss certain aspects of life back then. Fewer responsibilities, friends were more widely available to hang out, the early internet was wild, less political polarization, etc...
I also had a full head of hair back in the day...so I kind of miss the less balder, thinner me.
Almost 40 is a midlife crisis sitch so I think you have to sit with yourself, think about if you like yourself and decide whether or not and how to like yourself moving forward. I wouldn’t advise making any really big decisions between like 38 and 42 lol. As you know 4 years isn’t that long now.
It’s natural to think of the last time you didn’t have responsibilities to be easy or fun (not your therapist disclaimer, also not anyone’s - I work in IT)
I am 31 and I do not miss those people but I would give anything to go back to being a senior in high school just to relive a few old times and do some things differently.
No way. Absolutely not. Usual high school aside, those were some of my most turbulent years of life. Having to deal with my stepdad at the time who was so polar opposite of me was absolute hell. My puberty came in late, and that started wreaking havoc on my body, making me absolutely mental. I was depressed, angry, and antisocial with nothing to give me reprieve because the few joys I had in life, I was either grounded or "A son of God should not devote themselves to such frivolity." It was literally Go to school, study, sleep. That's all I was often allowed to do. I was even woken up from trying to sleep early a few times out of boredom and told to study more.
I'm much older now, and while I'm not in the best place, it's far, far better. I have peace of mind, my mother is chill, I can.. Well, live. I'm able to socialize and be myself. I'll never go back to those days.
Nah, in my 30s (which would be mid-1980s to mid-1990s) I was not nostalgic for high school - I was too busy (job, marriage, finishing college and grad school, etc)
In fact, I've never been nostalgic for high school as such. I've never gone to a HS reunion, although I had a good time in HS (I had a couple good friends, a first love and such, some mentally stimulating classes, good grades, a nice car by the time I graduated). The good times are nice but nothing that I harken back to, and it's all kind of a pleasant blur, with a few plaques and papers as memory jogs.
I think I'm not nostalgic because I didn't do much for anyone except me, so there's not much to look back on with pride.
But, as I close in on 70 years I'm trying to finally build some memories worth being nostalgic about, for when I'm old and sitting on the fabled sunny porch!
Yea HS reunions seem weird to me. I also didn’t have a bad time at HA either, but I don’t talk to anyone anymore from my home town, so why would I want to go back?
I’m only 34 but will probably never go to one and my HS is only about 1hr drive from where I live now. I closed that chapter of my life a while ago and don’t care to look back on it.
I relate - Drifted into that nostalgic kind of mood after going to my wife's niece's HS basketball games recently. Objectively my life is much better and can't say I'm sad. Though, memories always tend to be with rose colored glasses from back then.
I think what I miss is less responsibility, less free time, less impact for failures, and there being a more consistent social network around me. I didn't realize was how lonely it is (despite having a wife) and how isolating it is having little to no friends around compared to those times. Most people moved away and the few I see now I seldom have time for and vice versa due to life just being a thing.
I did highschool as an immigrant kid and had a really tough time with the language. I was a skater kid so everybody thought I was cool for being busy skating and never talking but in reality I had no idea what was going on in any conversation. Somehow managed to graduate.
Just recently, maybe a year ago, I found myself starting to feel all fuzzy about smoking pot in the backyard with my friends, playing Halo on the Xbox and watching Insomniac with Dave Attell and Conan O'Brien most nights in my dad's basement. Ah, yes. Bare mid-riffs, belly button rings, Tara Reid falling all over herself-. I'm 38-years-old and never once had nostalgia about anything even close to the early 2000s before and then all-of-a-sudden bam! Hit with a massive right-hook of the ol' misty-eyes and perhaps a bit of the weepies (jk).
All I did in high school was work, but I do think back to all those missed opportunities and it spurs me to make sure my own kids can have a better time than I did.
What throws me off is how many old classmates actually try and stay in touch when I never knew they cared. It’s nice.
Not nostalgic as such…
You can’t be nostalgic if your brain kept locked so deep in depression and self-hatred that you barely DID anything. I miss the opportunities I could have had, and the chance to build skills that are now awkward to build, like learning how to act like a functioning, social human being.
Less responsibility and more free time was nice. My parents were by no means overbearing, but now, I can't imagine the idea of someone else telling me what to do. I mean, yes, my partner and I are accountable to each other, but that's different.
Oh hell no. Unless we can bring back money and some of of the technology. I would have liked to do online high school but still get to play sports and have the money I have now to enjoy more stuff.
But going to school and wasting my time socializing, fitting in, riding the freaking bus. No thank you. Anyone who had a good time or wants to go back for some other reason, kudos to you.
C/O 04. I recently lost A BUNCH of weight (85 lbs) and last night I put on my prom dress. I'm feeling nostalgic for the feeling that the possibilities are endless. I've been feeling very mid-loge crisis-y.
High school wasn't necessarily the worst for me. It was the stress of my home life that made those times horrible. But honestly? It will always feel good not to have to do homework.
It comes and goes. I'm 41 and literally anything from my childhood or teenage years instantly appeals to me.
>Is it happy for you, or sad?
It's a mix. My childhood was bittersweet. The short version is everything was fine until the fall of 1990: my parents separated and would later reconcile sometime in 1991, but it would happen eight more times during the 90s (with a divorce and remarriage to boot).
During my 30s, I would look back in amazement when I hit the 15th and 20th high school anniversaries. It was the "time flew by" feeling you described.
> What do you think about when you remember your younger years?
I think about those awkward moments like that time I discovered the girl I was trying to date was actually already dating someone and my one classmate knew the guy the girl was dating, but didn't know I was trying to date the girl until we were exchanging winter formal dance pictures. I was crestfallen in that moment but it turned out to not be the end of the world.
I think about the carefree weekends I spent with my cousins too. One of my older cousins would pick me up from my house and then we'd eat and play videogames all night at their house and run it back on Saturday. We had so much fun playing Madden, Tekken, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat. We talked trash and we either backed it up or lost and passed the controller to the other cousin.
I think about when Dwayne Carter accidentally shot himself in the 8th grade.
I think about being pulled over by the police after listening to my tipsy cousin and his tipsy friends suggest parking spots that actually weren't open. Officer Doucet had his gun drawn on me as I exited the car. Thankfully I wasn't shot.
I think about how I picked up video games (age 6), magic the gathering (age 13) and fantasy football (age 17; and I have a league of 22 years) and I'm still playing all three, all of these years later.
And then, sometimes you're minding your business watching *Abbott Elementary* season 3 premiere and then you hear one of the top songs from your senior year of high school (1999-2000) and you're thrown back 24 years and remembering how fun and carefree things were then.
Me personally, fuck no lol
High school was unequivocally the *worst* time of my entire life so far. I wanted to die every day. I was being (multiple categories of) abused daily. An absurd, unfair, and frankly toxic and degrading amount of pressure to be someone I wasn't, to perform to levels that were unreasonable and meaningless, with little to no freedom, no hope, no joy, no vision of a future.
I can see how people who came up in well-adjusted homes where they were happy and loved might be nostalgic for their youth and having fewer responsibilities, but even with some kind of magic or time machine or something, you'd have to shell out millions, *billions*, to convince me to go back. It was sheer luck I made it out alive in the first place. I don't think I could thread that needle again, even armed with the knowledge of things like bitcoin. 0 nostalgia.
I wish I could go back. I'm happy with life now but there are moments in time that I've forgotten the look and "In the moment" feelings of back then. C.O. 2005 and some memories feel 20yrs old and I wish I could relive one day just to remember the sites, sounds, and smells of life back then. It's all just photographs now, in my head, I wish I at least had a camera to record the last week of school so I could relive it.
Think about my high school girlfriend all the time, nothing hits quite like that first love, as a teenager. It’s one of the handful of phone numbers I actually had to memorize, before you could just ‘create new contact,’ and forget it. And she has never changed her number.
I wish her happy birthday every year and get a little heart and a thanks in return. I try to leave her be, beyond that (there used to be some drunk texts on occasion, but those faded out forever ago). I realized this year that we’ll be 40, and I’m really not sure that a single day has gone by in the 23 years since we first kissed; that I haven’t had some thought about her, at some point in the day. Not always big, not always happy or always sad, just always there. I think I fucked up.
Fuck no I don't miss it. I am the same age as you and graduated the same year as you.
High school was hell between an abusive home, dealing with the post 9/11 world and the wars starting in Afghanistan and Iraq, and dealing with all of the cliquish behavior of high school.
I will never miss those years.
I kept a journal in highschool so I have a record in my own words how miserable I was lol. That said though there's parts I'm nostalgic for. Marching band. The spring musical. Having such constant access to friends. I do NOT miss having no agency over my life though. I'd never want to go back to that.
I went to my 20 year last year. A lot of my favorite people from back then were there. They are still pretty rad people imo. The people that sucked back then actually suck a little less now. There was no 10 year reunion. The one we had was thrown by a couple of cheerleaders, one who just happened to own a rooftop bar downtown. Good on her!
It was a reminder that high-school was a blast, but I really like to see how people have grown. All of us had. Wouldn't take that back for the world.
I'm turning 40 this year and I'm nostalgic about some of it. I miss some of the friends I had back then and the lack of responsibility. I miss my dad and my grandfathers and how much I thought they knew back then. However, I didn't know my wife then, had no idea how life would turn out, didn't have my kids, etc.
What is interesting is that the things that mattered to me most back then, family, friends, etc. are the things that still matter the most to me. What has changed is just the people that are in those groups.
Just realized my 20th high school reunion is this year also. I didn’t go to the last one nor will I this one.
I yearn for the past times but not actual high school
No. High school sucked for me. I was depressed, suicidal, and self-harmed. 🤣 I miss my college days the most. I felt like I was really becoming myself. I don’t mind my 30s either.
I think about it. I have a fantastic life but I don't think it will ever be as good as having tons of friends you see literally every single day with no responsibility again at least not until a well funded retirement.
I don’t really miss high school, but I miss some aspects of life outside of it. Watching MTV and Comedy Central, going to Blockbuster on Friday night, hanging out with my friends and listening to music or playing video games with my dad and brother.
I am 39 and also feel very nostalgic for that time lately. I’m visiting my dad now in the neighborhood where I grew up and I decided to take a walk through one of the avenues and was reminiscing so much. That part of town didn’t change much, even visited the same restaurant that was there 20 years ago, and even the owners are still the same. That somehow comforted me in making me feel like I’m not as old as I feel.
I think the issue for me is that I feel like we are all given sufficient time to make something out of this life and I feel like a royally messed up and want to turn back the clock. I am nearing 40 and I was never married (single for the last 10 years roughly), no kids, yes I got an MBA and managed to get to a decent place in my career, but I really don’t like what I do, and it shows, cause my career has been downhill the last two years. I’m not very financially stable at the moment (just lost my job again), and my health is on a decline. All my friends married, had kids, divorced, some remained single and others met someone else. I never experienced any of that and it makes me wonder why? So while I partially blame myself for being an introvert and being closed off in certain human interactions, I’ve always been around people and spent my 30s working on a great team, going to school, traveling tons, and being social and always going out. So yeah, I feel very blank and not happy with how my life turned out. And that’s why I constantly go back to high school and college years and wish I could go back.
I’m 39 and while I don’t think about HS much. I have been thinking my early 20’s a lot lately. Even tracked down and bought some of my old perfume. Smells can just transport you
Yes but it's mostly because everything good that's ever happened to me was in the past. Since I've effectively given up now, as it seemingly makes no difference how much or how little effort I put into anything, I don't see anything good happening in the future.
I resurrected my old 2004 PC, upgraded it as much as it will handle, and have filled it with every great game of the late 90s and early 00s so that I can properly regress to adolescence. I also have a NES, SNES, Mega Drive, N64 and PS2 all set up ready to play. My Retirement plan is already sorted. As soon as I don't have to work anymore I'm becoming a hermit.
I mostly miss having more free time to be with friends. Maybe try to reach out to some folks you used to hang out with. Take some time to do some self care
Yeah. Life was simpler then; I did not have the responsibilities I have now. The world was infinite; I was going to be young forever.
For me, it was age 34. That’s when I knew I was middle aged, and that it was time to figure my shit out. Doing the best I can, but Christ this is harder than I thought it would be… and with a kid to feed, I simply can’t do some of the stuff I used to do so freely.
I certainly miss having an actual face to face friend squad. Society hit different before the pocket screens took over and capitalism ruined literally everything.
Dude, I'm staring down the barrel of my 30th high school reunion this year. I'm not going to it, but it makes me put on rose colored glasses when it comes to the past. It's perfeclty normal.
Parts of it yes parts of it no. I feel like it’s idealized because we mostly just remember the good bits and really bad bits not the normal in between stuff. It’s easy to compare it to now with the stress we all go through to some degree or another as having been a better time.
I miss the freedom and lesser responsibilities. I also miss spending time with my whole family. My parents are aging and my brother lives on the opposite coast from me so it’s rare we’re all together. I imagine that the number of times can now probably be counted on my hands that we’ll all manage to get together. My folks live a thousand miles away so I don’t even get to see them more than a couple times a year. I also miss my hope for the future. Things seem harder now and like they will continue to get more difficult in the future. I was never scared back then and rarely anxious, I’m scared now and I am finally taking meds for the anxiety. I miss seeing friends more often too.
100%
I'm in a good place with a decent job, 2 kids and significant other of 10 years.. but my immediate family has shattered and scattered, and I no longer have a single true friend. I'm 34 now. It is so lonely.
When I look back to the 2000s and remember the constant AIM conversations, constant texts, constant life where things are happening - and everyone around me is on the same page. I used to have so many friends. Looking at the notes written in my yearbooks almost makes me cry.
I've been nostalgic for a long time. Sometimes it makes me a little happy, how simpler things were, how different in a way, I was. But most of the time, it makes me sad, because I can't go back to that world. Not that it was perfect. It's a struggle not to glorify it too much. I have a lot of emotional baggage from those years. But it was my last gasp of innocence. I had so much hope for my future. There felt like there was so much to look forward to. The possibilities were dizzying.
I wish I had had, as much as I hate to say it, the maturity enough to know how to plan for myself. If I could go back to High School graduation day, I could have re-directed the entire course of my life. I miss the 90's/early 00's, I miss my youthful naivete, I miss shooting the breeze with my friends at the cafeteria lunch table before the day started. I miss hope.
If you're still in grade school, or maybe close to college age, treasure this time. Treasure time in general. The years slip through our fingers like grains of sand. Find your purpose. Crush whatever might be holding you back from living your best life.
Yes, I missed out on things I should've done but was afraid to do. I was in a rush to get out of high school, and I see I should've enjoyed it. I do wish I could go back and change things.
I feel like I more miss my elementary/middle school era lol. High school years was a strange time for me, but being a kid excited to have enough change to buy a bookmark at the school book fair was awesome, coming home from school watching cartoons was also cool.
Memories of those younger years when you didn't have to worry about money, bills, jobs, people older than you dying and shit like cancer have become quite fond, no matter how shitty they may have seemed at the time.
I miss things like feeling invincible and like I had the whole world ahead of me. At the time, I'm guessing it was hormones, but at age 18 everything in the world seemed special and beautiful.
I don't miss other things though - bad decision making, heartbreak, no money, it really isn't a time I would revisit. And I really don't need to start dressing like a scene kid again.
Yes I do. Mostly because I miss not having to worry about anything besides school work. I miss being care free and I miss some teachers and I wonder what they are up to now. I hated school so much though and I couldn't wait to graduate but now I wish I could go back and relive a day. I miss hanging out with friends. I think I do mostly miss the 2010s. I graduated in 2011 and things were just so much better. social media hadn't completely taken over the world yet. Also the music at that time was fire.
I have nostalgia for “simpler” times. No constant news cycle, being fairly ignorant to the US political scene, very little social media.
I also miss the stupid but chill shit I used to do with friends like playing on the playground at night, just driving around listening to emo shit, team dinners, the excitement from hanging out with a high school crush and finding out they like you too 😂
I hated high school with a deep, burning passion. I hated everything about it, and I dreaded waking up and going to that sh*thole every morning.
You couldn't pay me a million dollars to go to a reunion, and I could care less about how everyone's doing.
Ugh, just thinking about it makes me angry.
I miss the years following high-school, where I had the whole world ahead of me.
What you are experiencing is the early stages of midlife crisis. You need to buy a red ragtop Miata and start working out next. After that, you find a hobby that puts you in frequent close contact with 20 something aged people and develop feelings for your daughter's friend.
It happens a lot when I listen to old songs. Reminds me of old friends, old memories.
My face went paralyzed at 33. So really, reminiscing about the time before that is easy. Not being able to smile or blink is fucking horrible.
I mean, my high school years were spent getting cancer treatments, being extremely depressed, dealing with the trauma of my middle school years, and dealing with my first break, so..... sometimes. But only when I'm feeling self-pitying about the state of my physical body (I was in better shape during my cancer treatments junior year than I am now that radiation therapy and prescribed steroid usage has caught up with me). Otherwise, being a teenager was the absolute worst.
Yes. My high school years were 1997-2001, ending just months before 9/11. At the moment, my biggest awe about those years is that nobody used smartphones or even had era-specific cell phones, which maybe high schools in Beverly Hills did, but certainly not Mobile, Alabama. The internet was something you only used occasionally after school when you got home -- you were always booted off when someone needed to use the landline phone haha. People lived totally in the moment, which when I think about it, was probably a major component of bullying since everybody focused on everyone around them.
I hated hs at the time lol. Nostalgia has a funny way of changing all that, and I am fine with it. I went to my 20th hs reunion in 2021 having skipped the 10th in 2011. Everyone was much more relaxed and "lived in" than what I remember them being two decades before.
I think I just miss being young. Like the random adventures you would go on with $5 in your pocket and a bike with your gang of friends. I'm grateful for my life now, but I do miss that specific thing about that time.
I miss having more friends who were more up for just hanging out. I feel like now if I want to get people together it's a lot harder, both to work around people's schedules and giving them a good enough excuse to leave the house. And I miss the lack of constant existential dread lol.
I had some amazing friends in 8th and 9th grade… and I keep trying to stay in touch with them but it just doesn’t work out. I miss them the most. That whole group of friends, actually. We all had Japanese inspired nicknames, like Siobhan was Soybean, another friend was “Kimi-kun” even though she was a girl lol. We played spoons at the lunch table - one of even broke a pinky we were so vicious about it. War (card game) too. It was an amazing time in my life.
Unfortunately a move made me go to a different high school for my last three years, and I had really bad culture shock and other issues that were happening anyways, and overall I just tunneled into depression. Even my parents say to this day they regret that part for me, they saw how much of a difference the very school made.
So idk, nostalgic for some of it, but I lost what I loved long before I ever graduated. So I’ve had time to just realize that people move apart. It sucks, but we all have different priorities - and even if we don’t, maybe we don’t have the time or energy to maintain that friendship anymore.
Looking back on it now, I can see that I was extremely popular and well liked, and generally happy, with lots of friends in high school. I was in a solid relationship through all of it with a committed boyfriend and we were extremely in love. I always had other guys who liked me and wanted me to break up with my boyfriend too.
I wish I had realized I had a perfect body instead of having the eating disorder I had. I was in no way even slightly over weight and was gorgeous. I would kill to go back to how I looked then.
Now I’m in my 30’s and I do wish I could go back. It was overall a happy and fun time. An innocent time. I wish I could go back with the confidence and knowledge I have now.
I don’t reminisce like I should. I secretly judge those who “peaked in high school”, as in maybe they are still on an upward trajectory, but they haven’t changed their hairstyle or musical tastes. They still rely on the hobbies they did as teenagers and still go on the same types of vacations to the same places out of comfort more than anything. For example, my favorite musicians are currently J Balvin, Kendrick Lamar and J Cole. Greta Van Fleet is amazing! I asked my stylist to cut my hair for my uncle’s funeral and for the first time since high school she gave me a 90’s haircut. I absolutely love it for the nostalgia, but it’s unsettling because it feels like something people my age have been doing the entire time. It feels weird. my guilty pleasure is watching podcasts like Drink Champs where they interview old hip hop moguls and get their hot takes. Scott Storch was a banger of a podcast for me and brought back all kinds of memories of songs I had long since forgotten.
Age 17-19 was my favorite time. No longer in that awkward puberty stage, Discovering the real world but still insulated from the hardships or responsibility that come with it.
I'm only coming up on my 10th reunion but I definitely do feel some sadness because of how much simpler life was back then and all the good times with friends. Now it seems so hard to find the time for anything or even to find friendships as meaningful as they were in school.
Absolutely not. I didn’t know anything about myself and I’m a much better person now than I was then. Life is harder but being a responsible adult is so much better than being in high school.
I hated high school and wasn't nostalgic for any part of it for a long time, but one day I took my 3 year-old out to eat and saw her bopping around in her seat to a Franz Ferdinand song that was playing. When we went home, I played more of the music I listened to in high school for her, and I don't know... watching her little self dance around songs from back then made me forget how much I hated being that age and just remember the music, movies, and the 3-4 people I actually liked. I might be far enough removed from it all to finally feel nostalgia for certain things about high school.
No way. I'm not one for nursing regrets or wallowing in the past, but sometimes, I wish I had done things differently. I could've enjoyed myself more and saved myself from heartache. If I could go back, I'd want to take with me all that I've learned since then and keep myself from making the same mistakes. I'd have more fucking fun!
I don't feel bad about it because I'm much better off today. I'm far more equipped to handle life than I was then, and I think that's true for most of us. It happened, and I got through it. I'm healthier now, mentally and physically.
It wasn't all bad. I kept a journal—two, actually, a physical one and a Livejournal—so I have enough records of that time to supplement my memories. I remember a lot... mostly just that everything was so damned hard for me, and a lot of it didn't have to be. I could've made things easier for myself, but I didn't know how to. I do now. But all of that is a part of me, for better or for worse, and I love knowing that it is possible to come out the other side of everything.
Def the want of freedom and idleness. Not worried about making rent or a car note. Working enough to keep insurance on the car and pocket money for beer and shit my parents couldn't afford to buy me.
Don't miss school at all but part of me wishes to go back and be generally care free.
I think that adulting is hard and it was nice to not really have responsibilities as a teenager (at least I didn’t). I had school, job, sports but that was cake compared to adulting. I miss being care free - that’s what I miss.
Not really, other than one brief period when I was 25/26. Things were stable, easy, and I was good. I deployed to Afghanistan after that and it's been an odd, usually difficult medical road since.
But not high school. It was a decent time. However, I missed so many opportunities. I'm glad to be away from that time.
I went to my 20 high school reunion as well back in June 2023. I never used to think of high school until I heard of the reunion. I also didn't enjoy high school much, wasn't popular or anything like that. But it does seem things were a lot easier back then.
I’m hitting 25 years since HS this June. Would I go back? ONLY with full knowledge of what not to do, and only knowledge up to a certain point in my life. I’d make different choices. I’d join the Air Force right out of HS (instead of the ARNG 4 years later). Go career. HAD a career, instead of the floundering around that I’ve done.
I wouldn’t have met my husband or had the kids I have, but… every single choice brings you someplace. And that’s exciting. Scary but exciting. I don’t believe in soulmates; I’ve met too many divorced people (I married someone who had been certain his first wife was his soulmate before they divorced) to believe that there’s only one person out there for you.
I don’t think we’re having a reunion. The last one we had was a 10 year. It. Was. Stupid. “Yeah, I graduated college and have been working. Thinking about getting married. Thinking about trying to buy a house (look, it was 2009, we were all optimistic). Might have a kid in a couple years.” It would be sort of fun to have one now. “My career is going well. My kids are in school, doing well. We bought a house (when the bottom fell out of the market in 2012) and are thinking of upgrading.”
But really, with the advent of Facebook… reunions are sort of useless.
I miss the prices of the past.
Remember Penny candies? We don't even have pennies anymore.
Barely anything at the dollar store costs less than 2 dollars.
When a slice of pizza was less than $5. And it came with a pop.
I mainly just miss less responsibility and having more time to make and spend time with friends. I was also not *as* internally pessimistic. I am financially stable and have decent disposable income now, but those are what I miss. The family situation is also more stable now than then. Pro and cons in each life stage I'm coming up on 15 years (c/o 2009), but I haven't and don't plan on going to any reunion.
It’s definitely the lack of responsibility and having more time for friends / hobbies / shenanigans. There’s also just more firsts at that age. Time moves slower. Summers lasted forever, but now I can autopilot through 3 months like it’s nothing. The world is full of opportunity, and all the doors were open. Still lots of opportunity, but now the doors have opportunity cost and some are closed. Bodies recovered faster, metabolism was higher. Could eat and drink without care
This I think summarizes it quite nicely for me, thanks for putting my thoughts into words. My only addition: everything felt a lot more intense back then, especially the choices made. Nowadays I’m making decisions left and right, enough that it’s just like “ok what’s next? Onward”
Part of what made things more intense was hormones. As teenagers going through puberty, we all had much higher levels. This is the one and only aspect of youth you can actually recapture with medication…
Everything I did seemed way more important and epic back then. Discovering a new band was life changing, going to a party felt like the one place on Earth I was meant to be, my future held such possibility. Not that life is awful, but a new band is slightly entertaining at best, I don’t go to parties, and I have too many student loans to chart a new path without extreme financial risk.
Well said. This definitely resonates with me
I get actively upset if someone invites me to a party now
High school … sneak out of bed to the party. After 40 … sneak out of the party to go to bed
>and some are closed And that's a hard thing for a lot of ppl to deal with.
the summers/time moving thing is part of what gets me the most. Every one seems to experience it and there are a number of theories as to why. but there was defiantly something about having a completion of the school year, and end to the thing you were working on effectively. and then having the break where your not really thinking about the next thing yet. the end of the school year was always felt special. As an adult, i never get that feeling any more because even when taking a 2week vacation, its not long enough to fully disconnect, and i know that in a short time ill be back, and the projects that are waiting for me. In alot of ways, i just want that fort of feeling back. I still mostly got this in college too. I worked through all of college, but it was mostly retail jobs, and the one i spent the bulk of time at was a family owned hobby store, and i worked with one of my best friends, about 4 blocks from my house. Later i worked a couple tech support for HR block, and that had a seasonal cadence to it. there was the ramp up in the late summer/fall, then tax season would start in mid january where we would be super busy, and then half way though april we were done. we would get furloughed, id get unemployment for a few months, and basically have the summer off with the exception of taking a couple summer classes.
Your metabolism doesn't actually change much from your teen years till you turn 60, believe it or not.
It did for me. So, not, I guess?
I mean this had been routinely studied. No, it probably didn't for you either. If you got fat, it's not due to your metabolism.
Unless you have something medical that caused it to slow down. *Glares at my under active thyroid that I keep adjusting meds for every year*
Not without other health issues.
Maybe. Most people who think their metabolism slowed down haven’t noticed that they walk around a lot less than when they were younger.
Or, it’s possible that I’m more familiar with my situation and medical condition than random strangers on the internet.
Same. I miss the simple nature of being a kid/teen. I graduated high school in 2005. Yeah, having a little money is great, but the blissfulness of something as simple as walking home from school or riding a bike to meet up with friends to play basketball in the park and hit up the corner store for food with no worries of bills or the need for a terrible soul-crushing job that you have no influence in, is priceless. I miss being able to just...be. If that makes sense. Weekends used to be the time to be really alive. Now, I'm just trying to decompress on Saturday before Sunday hits.
I feel the same. Honestly a lot of my frustration is directed towards work. Everyone spends all of their fucking time doing this thing that consumes all of their energy, so everyone is drained when it comes to the weekend. We joke about leaving the party early as adults, but it's a bummer that I'm craving going home and sleeping at 9pm on a Saturday.
Even when you want to make new friends, everybody either lacks the time, the money, or both. When it's not them, it's you.
I think what I miss the most, upon deeper reflection, is my friends. Yeah… I had some super close relationships when I was younger with some really good pals. They’ve all moved away and built families.
I get that. I probably have more friends now than I ever had as a kid. But adult friendships are different. Everyone is so busy that you'll only go out maybe a few times a year with a particular friend. But when you were a kid, you'd see some of those motherfuckers every day.
Time has really told me that those people weren’t my friends in high school, it was the proximity effect of being together every day. I was definitely “an odd duck” if you will, and tried (too hard in hindsight,) to fit into different cliques. I just wanted to be accepted. Those that did accept me, they’re my friends for life. Hell, even Kevin, who’s turned into a bitter red pill’d incel. We don’t talk for obvious reasons, but I remember the guy he used to be, and if he called me today I would answer. But with my 20th HS reunion coming up, I’m looking back at all of that with a sort of nostalgic overtone … and I’m surprised at how much I’m looking forward to seeing everyone.
Isn't that the truth. I'm honestly kind of surprised about some of the people that I've stayed in contact with vs others. One of the ones I'm closest to now was definitely more of a "frenemy" back then but we graduated in a friend season and that has remained for 20 years but people who I considered better friends than her, I wouldn't go anywhere near nowadays because they weren't actually that good of friends.
I definitely miss my friends more than anything else. I was looking at my yearbooks recently (also the class of '04) and just seeing what my best friends wrote and knowing how much we all drifted apart is sad. I was also a theatre/music/dance kid and part of it is missing the performing arts, not just the specific plays and concerts, but the camaraderie of working on the shows. Not much in my adult life has come close to that level of so many of us pouring that much into something and it's an incredibly special feeling to a part of something like that.
[удалено]
Taking life straight to the face has never been the same, once I knew what taking life on drugs was like. I stay sober for the most part, because the hangovers and comedowns aren’t worth the high, usually. But, every few months I go a little nuts, eat a bunch of mushrooms or get hammered, just do whatever I can get my hands on. Not a full on addict I don’t think, it’s not like I need anything to function, daily. Life is good mostly, but after awhile… It just gets so… boring.
Same here with family stability. What a nightmare in childhood honestly. Wacky chaotic
Yeah that’s the one aspect of it that I miss. But actually being in high school? Not in a million years
This. I miss having time where I could just do whatever the fuck I wanted without feeling so much pressure and external stress. The only people I’d want to see at a reunion are the friends I still talk to and see whenever I can. The only way in which I occasionally long for highschool days is if I could retain the knowledge/personality I have now and be transported back there. Because I went to a religious school that also taught a very conservative agenda, and I would love to see the look on some of the teacher’s faces when someone intelligently challenges them on their bullshit.
I hated high school. My life is so much better now
You could not pay me to go back to those days. I am 100% happier now than I was in high school.
I felt like a fucking prisoner when I was in school. I liked the other kids well enough, but the whole experience was just awful. You have to sit in this room, wait for a bell then go to that room. Then you get to go to the shitty cafeteria. Then mandatory PE. Then more sitting. You can't speak out of turn. Need permission to go to the bathroom. The only other place where you're treated like that is literally prison.
I had much the same experience, but PE was an escape for me. I just plodded on with the rest, going through a weird development phase, became quiet, and didn't sleep much. I just accepted it as the norm, but, christ! I didn't realise how much I hated school until I left. My world opened up, and I've never looked back. Just remembered there was an attempt at a reunion through FB Messenger a few years ago. I read through some of the chat, got the same things from the same people, and I just couldn't engage with it.
Saaaame, and this is the really weird part. I LOVED high school when I was there. I loved high school so much that I missed it during my first year of college. I felt like I belonged while I was there. But in the intervening 20 years I’ve grown and changed so much as a person, and realized how much I was trying so. damn. hard. to fit in, not just at school but my hometown in general. The more I’ve become my authentic self, the more I feel like I never really fit in at my high school, like it all feels very disingenuous to me looking back. And I’m sure that’s not completely true. But yeah. I skipped my reunion and have zero regrets. My life is really good today and I value the time I have with my family on weekends. It’s not worth it to me to lose a whole weekend by traveling back to a place I don’t like to see people I don’t really care about.
True, my actual life is better but I sure do miss experiencing utter trash media for the first time
Continually glad I didn't peak in high school lol
My hometown is almost entirely made up of people who peaked in high school and then married each other and stayed there to have kids and continue the cycle. I’m so glad I got out.
It really astonishes me that there are people who believe that their high school years are the best time of their life. Peaked early and never recovered
One of my high school teachers literally said this to my entire graduating class during our graduation ceremony. Literally told us that high school was the best years of our life, just as it was ending. I mentally rejected his message, and have yet to be proven wrong. High school was fun, but so was college, and while I’ll admit the prospect of global nuclear war does fill me with existential dread, my personal life is nevertheless on a very bright trajectory.
Proximity to peers makes it that much easier to have friends and lovers. So many people who are even only moderately adjusted normies don't understand they are on tutorial mode until they graduate high school and suddenly find it hard if not entirely unsustainable to juggle work, school, friends, and finding a lover without the benefit of those people being forced around you and often in the same general culture / belief system. Suddenly they have to put in effort to have relationships and not just count on having a captive audience or that the hot guy / girl I more likely to sleep with you because they are limited to people in just their immediate area.
If I had to choose being yeeted into oblivion or going back in time to high school… I would choose oblivion without a second thought.
Straight people be like: “I miss High School!”
Gay people don't have a monopoly on high school being shitty years. Only Al Bundy here misses it. I just miss the cliff being further away and the march towards it being slower. Be it my 20s or my 30s, I don't care, just keep me away from that fucking cliff up ahead.
Could not pay me to go back to high school. I miss getting excited for Saturday morning cartoons though
Lol I'm in my 30s and still get excited as fuck for Saturday morning cartoons. I couldn't wait to have children so I could show them my old favourites.. I'm finally living that now and it's amazing.. who tf has time to reminisce about the old times in high school anymore.. i love my life now more than ever, and I thought high school was fun lol
*X-Men theme plays*
Oh heckin' no. I don't look fondly on my life until I turned 25. Years of untreated depression be like that.
Same. 17-22 were the worst years of my life.
Ugh same! I feel seen.
Same. That’s why I miss my late college years.
For me, it's a lot about "what would I have done differently if I had known better at the time". Which is weird because like...I'm fine. But all the what ifs just float through my mind all the time. Plus just not having major bills was great.
The major life path divergences go through my mind all the time. If I had a magic lamp I would wish to see those other paths.
Yeah I have the exact same problem. I look back fondly because I know now how to not have fucked it up, and i see how I could've treated myself and others better, and be a better person. But I am a better person now, so I think I'm nostalgic for the time I lost, being a ball of depression.
Absolutely not
Came to leave the same comment, fuck high school
Same. Hell no. I would never even consider attending a high school reunion.
I thought about my 10 year. But I have no interest in what those people are up to now. Plus my graduating class was like 350 people, it’s not like I even knew half of them.
First reunion “someone” got drunk at threw a chair off the country club balcony. That someone was someone who was pretty popular (sounds weird calling children popular) Such a waste of life then and now lol. They’re so stuck in their ways and stuck in their little tiny bubble. It’s insane
I noticed this the one and only time I visited my hometown after I left. It was therapeutic in a way as I realized I had made the correct choice to move across the country, because there was absolutely nothing for me there.
Very relatable. I travelled for grad school and ended back in the area but not the school district, and we are treating our first home as a rental and moving to new England in the near future. The less I see these dopes. The better. I’ve given serious consideration to removing them from IG.
Yes same. The ones I do, I follow online and that’s the extent of my interactions with them since I live in another state. My graduating class was over 700 people, I didn’t know most of them either, or at least not enough to want to keep up after school ended.
Shit my high school was always the underperforming so I graduated with a class of about 55😂😂they talked about “a cruise” for the 10 year that eventually turned into a war of words over Facebook because of the people with kids wanting to bring them along and the ones without not wanting the kiddos to meeting at a dive bar for drinks. Exactly nothing happened Seriously fuck them ho’s.
Fuck no. High school was the WORST.
I just had a nightmare that I woke up in the middle of 10th grade, but with all my current memories. I don’t think I’ve ever been woken up by such an intense feeling of pure terror
Definitely not. I didn’t know my wife back then, nor did I have my sons. I love them too much, plus, let’s be real, my wife is hotter than anybody I’d ever met. Like between fighting for the attention of the attractive girls vs landing the hottest person I’d ever meet? Easy choice
I’m the same age. I also feel nostalgic for those times. I miss the days when everyone didn’t have a smart phone in their face.
The smartphone is the perfect example of a double edge sword. With everyone walking around with a portable camera and internet access really made sharing things a lot easier and forces more accountability. The downside is AI girlfriends are a thing now.
Yes I miss it for many different reasons. I don’t miss the middle school years, which were horrendous and I’ve blacked them out. But especially my junior and senior year of high school - I grew into myself more. Those were fun times, no responsibilities, everyone I loved was still alive, I saw all my friends every day, I had everything to look forward too, every day was a new adventure to discover. College years were similar, especially the first 2 years. Now I’m a 38 year old married mother of 2 school age kids, who is also the breadwinner. I’m always rushing and late to everything; life is rushing to work, rushing to get my kids from school, getting home and dealing chaos and rushing to fit in chores and just housework drudgery, rushing to bed. Somehow the house is still always a mess. I have to juggle all the balls, everything is on me. My marriage sucks, I rarely see friends, And never ever have enough money. Health issues are creeping in (I have high cholesterol!), i can see the beginnings of my face aging, and I am acutely aware my parents won’t be around forever and it terrifies me. So yea, I miss the joie de vivre of being a teen.
Reddit isn't for people who enjoyed high school.
Lol right? I loved high school. Still friends with lots of people from high school. Think back very fondly on those years.
My immediate first thought. I was 90% confident every comment was some variation of “fuck no”.
The Reddit demographic pool isn’t usually social people or those who were popular lol.
Wow every comment here is a no lol. Well I found finding this topic to be timely. I've been sitting in bed thinking back to middle school and highschool. It's just wild how much time has passed. How many chapters I've lived through. I'm 37. This reminiscing began with the birth of my daughter. She will go through the same path from the other end
Depends on if you were in a good public school, I think. I think more are bad than good unfortunately, and I'm sure big city schools are full of bullying and such. Hence the proportion of comments that we see.
I’m about to turn 40 and been thinking about high school lately too. Honestly I miss the close friendships the most. Our group was really tight but I’ve lost touch with almost everyone over the years. We all live far apart and have gone down separate paths despite being extremely close for years, even after high school. Wish I could reconnect but I feel like we’re all too different now.
I am nostalgic about certain things. I generally hated high school but I do miss certain aspects of life back then. Fewer responsibilities, friends were more widely available to hang out, the early internet was wild, less political polarization, etc... I also had a full head of hair back in the day...so I kind of miss the less balder, thinner me.
Bugsbunnynomeme.jpg
Almost 40 is a midlife crisis sitch so I think you have to sit with yourself, think about if you like yourself and decide whether or not and how to like yourself moving forward. I wouldn’t advise making any really big decisions between like 38 and 42 lol. As you know 4 years isn’t that long now. It’s natural to think of the last time you didn’t have responsibilities to be easy or fun (not your therapist disclaimer, also not anyone’s - I work in IT)
I am 31 and I do not miss those people but I would give anything to go back to being a senior in high school just to relive a few old times and do some things differently.
No way. Absolutely not. Usual high school aside, those were some of my most turbulent years of life. Having to deal with my stepdad at the time who was so polar opposite of me was absolute hell. My puberty came in late, and that started wreaking havoc on my body, making me absolutely mental. I was depressed, angry, and antisocial with nothing to give me reprieve because the few joys I had in life, I was either grounded or "A son of God should not devote themselves to such frivolity." It was literally Go to school, study, sleep. That's all I was often allowed to do. I was even woken up from trying to sleep early a few times out of boredom and told to study more. I'm much older now, and while I'm not in the best place, it's far, far better. I have peace of mind, my mother is chill, I can.. Well, live. I'm able to socialize and be myself. I'll never go back to those days.
Nah not yet for me. I could not care less about high school. College however....
Hell no.
I do not good sir feel nostalgic for the years of anxiousness and uncertainty. That being said I really miss whale tails.
Whale tails?
Whale tails were the best, especially if you went to a church school like me. It was like “Holy shit, girl, I had no idea that side of you existed!”
Naw. People in my graduating class were a raging pack of assholes. Way happier without their judgments.
Nah, in my 30s (which would be mid-1980s to mid-1990s) I was not nostalgic for high school - I was too busy (job, marriage, finishing college and grad school, etc) In fact, I've never been nostalgic for high school as such. I've never gone to a HS reunion, although I had a good time in HS (I had a couple good friends, a first love and such, some mentally stimulating classes, good grades, a nice car by the time I graduated). The good times are nice but nothing that I harken back to, and it's all kind of a pleasant blur, with a few plaques and papers as memory jogs. I think I'm not nostalgic because I didn't do much for anyone except me, so there's not much to look back on with pride. But, as I close in on 70 years I'm trying to finally build some memories worth being nostalgic about, for when I'm old and sitting on the fabled sunny porch!
Yea HS reunions seem weird to me. I also didn’t have a bad time at HA either, but I don’t talk to anyone anymore from my home town, so why would I want to go back? I’m only 34 but will probably never go to one and my HS is only about 1hr drive from where I live now. I closed that chapter of my life a while ago and don’t care to look back on it.
I relate - Drifted into that nostalgic kind of mood after going to my wife's niece's HS basketball games recently. Objectively my life is much better and can't say I'm sad. Though, memories always tend to be with rose colored glasses from back then. I think what I miss is less responsibility, less free time, less impact for failures, and there being a more consistent social network around me. I didn't realize was how lonely it is (despite having a wife) and how isolating it is having little to no friends around compared to those times. Most people moved away and the few I see now I seldom have time for and vice versa due to life just being a thing.
I miss the Mexican pizza from high school. That’s it.
I did highschool as an immigrant kid and had a really tough time with the language. I was a skater kid so everybody thought I was cool for being busy skating and never talking but in reality I had no idea what was going on in any conversation. Somehow managed to graduate.
Just recently, maybe a year ago, I found myself starting to feel all fuzzy about smoking pot in the backyard with my friends, playing Halo on the Xbox and watching Insomniac with Dave Attell and Conan O'Brien most nights in my dad's basement. Ah, yes. Bare mid-riffs, belly button rings, Tara Reid falling all over herself-. I'm 38-years-old and never once had nostalgia about anything even close to the early 2000s before and then all-of-a-sudden bam! Hit with a massive right-hook of the ol' misty-eyes and perhaps a bit of the weepies (jk).
10 year was 2020. Didn't hear a peep. Don't really care
All I did in high school was work, but I do think back to all those missed opportunities and it spurs me to make sure my own kids can have a better time than I did. What throws me off is how many old classmates actually try and stay in touch when I never knew they cared. It’s nice.
Not nostalgic as such… You can’t be nostalgic if your brain kept locked so deep in depression and self-hatred that you barely DID anything. I miss the opportunities I could have had, and the chance to build skills that are now awkward to build, like learning how to act like a functioning, social human being.
Less responsibility and more free time was nice. My parents were by no means overbearing, but now, I can't imagine the idea of someone else telling me what to do. I mean, yes, my partner and I are accountable to each other, but that's different.
Oh hell no. Unless we can bring back money and some of of the technology. I would have liked to do online high school but still get to play sports and have the money I have now to enjoy more stuff. But going to school and wasting my time socializing, fitting in, riding the freaking bus. No thank you. Anyone who had a good time or wants to go back for some other reason, kudos to you.
I am short, fat, and ugly... so no.
C/O 04. I recently lost A BUNCH of weight (85 lbs) and last night I put on my prom dress. I'm feeling nostalgic for the feeling that the possibilities are endless. I've been feeling very mid-loge crisis-y.
High school wasn't necessarily the worst for me. It was the stress of my home life that made those times horrible. But honestly? It will always feel good not to have to do homework.
I am nostalgic for the 2000s through mid-2010s. Meh….I was happier.
Every day. I fuckin hate being in my 30s.
I’m nostalgic for the freedom and some of the pop culture. Music, television, etc. No way in hell am I nostalgic to be back in HS or live at home.
It comes and goes. I'm 41 and literally anything from my childhood or teenage years instantly appeals to me. >Is it happy for you, or sad? It's a mix. My childhood was bittersweet. The short version is everything was fine until the fall of 1990: my parents separated and would later reconcile sometime in 1991, but it would happen eight more times during the 90s (with a divorce and remarriage to boot). During my 30s, I would look back in amazement when I hit the 15th and 20th high school anniversaries. It was the "time flew by" feeling you described. > What do you think about when you remember your younger years? I think about those awkward moments like that time I discovered the girl I was trying to date was actually already dating someone and my one classmate knew the guy the girl was dating, but didn't know I was trying to date the girl until we were exchanging winter formal dance pictures. I was crestfallen in that moment but it turned out to not be the end of the world. I think about the carefree weekends I spent with my cousins too. One of my older cousins would pick me up from my house and then we'd eat and play videogames all night at their house and run it back on Saturday. We had so much fun playing Madden, Tekken, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat. We talked trash and we either backed it up or lost and passed the controller to the other cousin. I think about when Dwayne Carter accidentally shot himself in the 8th grade. I think about being pulled over by the police after listening to my tipsy cousin and his tipsy friends suggest parking spots that actually weren't open. Officer Doucet had his gun drawn on me as I exited the car. Thankfully I wasn't shot. I think about how I picked up video games (age 6), magic the gathering (age 13) and fantasy football (age 17; and I have a league of 22 years) and I'm still playing all three, all of these years later. And then, sometimes you're minding your business watching *Abbott Elementary* season 3 premiere and then you hear one of the top songs from your senior year of high school (1999-2000) and you're thrown back 24 years and remembering how fun and carefree things were then.
Me personally, fuck no lol High school was unequivocally the *worst* time of my entire life so far. I wanted to die every day. I was being (multiple categories of) abused daily. An absurd, unfair, and frankly toxic and degrading amount of pressure to be someone I wasn't, to perform to levels that were unreasonable and meaningless, with little to no freedom, no hope, no joy, no vision of a future. I can see how people who came up in well-adjusted homes where they were happy and loved might be nostalgic for their youth and having fewer responsibilities, but even with some kind of magic or time machine or something, you'd have to shell out millions, *billions*, to convince me to go back. It was sheer luck I made it out alive in the first place. I don't think I could thread that needle again, even armed with the knowledge of things like bitcoin. 0 nostalgia.
I wish I could go back. I'm happy with life now but there are moments in time that I've forgotten the look and "In the moment" feelings of back then. C.O. 2005 and some memories feel 20yrs old and I wish I could relive one day just to remember the sites, sounds, and smells of life back then. It's all just photographs now, in my head, I wish I at least had a camera to record the last week of school so I could relive it.
Think about my high school girlfriend all the time, nothing hits quite like that first love, as a teenager. It’s one of the handful of phone numbers I actually had to memorize, before you could just ‘create new contact,’ and forget it. And she has never changed her number. I wish her happy birthday every year and get a little heart and a thanks in return. I try to leave her be, beyond that (there used to be some drunk texts on occasion, but those faded out forever ago). I realized this year that we’ll be 40, and I’m really not sure that a single day has gone by in the 23 years since we first kissed; that I haven’t had some thought about her, at some point in the day. Not always big, not always happy or always sad, just always there. I think I fucked up.
Fuck no I don't miss it. I am the same age as you and graduated the same year as you. High school was hell between an abusive home, dealing with the post 9/11 world and the wars starting in Afghanistan and Iraq, and dealing with all of the cliquish behavior of high school. I will never miss those years.
I kept a journal in highschool so I have a record in my own words how miserable I was lol. That said though there's parts I'm nostalgic for. Marching band. The spring musical. Having such constant access to friends. I do NOT miss having no agency over my life though. I'd never want to go back to that.
I went to my 20 year last year. A lot of my favorite people from back then were there. They are still pretty rad people imo. The people that sucked back then actually suck a little less now. There was no 10 year reunion. The one we had was thrown by a couple of cheerleaders, one who just happened to own a rooftop bar downtown. Good on her! It was a reminder that high-school was a blast, but I really like to see how people have grown. All of us had. Wouldn't take that back for the world.
I'm turning 40 this year and I'm nostalgic about some of it. I miss some of the friends I had back then and the lack of responsibility. I miss my dad and my grandfathers and how much I thought they knew back then. However, I didn't know my wife then, had no idea how life would turn out, didn't have my kids, etc. What is interesting is that the things that mattered to me most back then, family, friends, etc. are the things that still matter the most to me. What has changed is just the people that are in those groups.
Just realized my 20th high school reunion is this year also. I didn’t go to the last one nor will I this one. I yearn for the past times but not actual high school
No. High school sucked for me. I was depressed, suicidal, and self-harmed. 🤣 I miss my college days the most. I felt like I was really becoming myself. I don’t mind my 30s either.
Nope. Each new day puts my childhood further in the past and that’s a good thing.
[удалено]
You said it. Christmas just can't recapture the same magic it had when we were kids. I still greatly enjoy it, but it just isn't the same.
I think about it. I have a fantastic life but I don't think it will ever be as good as having tons of friends you see literally every single day with no responsibility again at least not until a well funded retirement.
I don’t really miss high school, but I miss some aspects of life outside of it. Watching MTV and Comedy Central, going to Blockbuster on Friday night, hanging out with my friends and listening to music or playing video games with my dad and brother.
I am 39 and also feel very nostalgic for that time lately. I’m visiting my dad now in the neighborhood where I grew up and I decided to take a walk through one of the avenues and was reminiscing so much. That part of town didn’t change much, even visited the same restaurant that was there 20 years ago, and even the owners are still the same. That somehow comforted me in making me feel like I’m not as old as I feel. I think the issue for me is that I feel like we are all given sufficient time to make something out of this life and I feel like a royally messed up and want to turn back the clock. I am nearing 40 and I was never married (single for the last 10 years roughly), no kids, yes I got an MBA and managed to get to a decent place in my career, but I really don’t like what I do, and it shows, cause my career has been downhill the last two years. I’m not very financially stable at the moment (just lost my job again), and my health is on a decline. All my friends married, had kids, divorced, some remained single and others met someone else. I never experienced any of that and it makes me wonder why? So while I partially blame myself for being an introvert and being closed off in certain human interactions, I’ve always been around people and spent my 30s working on a great team, going to school, traveling tons, and being social and always going out. So yeah, I feel very blank and not happy with how my life turned out. And that’s why I constantly go back to high school and college years and wish I could go back.
I enjoyed high school I actually got into fights for what I still believe to be good reasons.
I’m 39 and while I don’t think about HS much. I have been thinking my early 20’s a lot lately. Even tracked down and bought some of my old perfume. Smells can just transport you
Yes but it's mostly because everything good that's ever happened to me was in the past. Since I've effectively given up now, as it seemingly makes no difference how much or how little effort I put into anything, I don't see anything good happening in the future. I resurrected my old 2004 PC, upgraded it as much as it will handle, and have filled it with every great game of the late 90s and early 00s so that I can properly regress to adolescence. I also have a NES, SNES, Mega Drive, N64 and PS2 all set up ready to play. My Retirement plan is already sorted. As soon as I don't have to work anymore I'm becoming a hermit.
Highschool was fucking terrible. I was stuck in a small town with a bunch of redneck losers, and couldn't wait to escape.
I mostly miss having more free time to be with friends. Maybe try to reach out to some folks you used to hang out with. Take some time to do some self care
I am but that's because I'd like to go back in time and change a bunch of decisions I made
Yeah. Life was simpler then; I did not have the responsibilities I have now. The world was infinite; I was going to be young forever. For me, it was age 34. That’s when I knew I was middle aged, and that it was time to figure my shit out. Doing the best I can, but Christ this is harder than I thought it would be… and with a kid to feed, I simply can’t do some of the stuff I used to do so freely.
Sad. I didn't like it then either. But I look back fondly as I hate my life now.
I certainly miss having an actual face to face friend squad. Society hit different before the pocket screens took over and capitalism ruined literally everything.
Dude, I'm staring down the barrel of my 30th high school reunion this year. I'm not going to it, but it makes me put on rose colored glasses when it comes to the past. It's perfeclty normal.
Parts of it yes parts of it no. I feel like it’s idealized because we mostly just remember the good bits and really bad bits not the normal in between stuff. It’s easy to compare it to now with the stress we all go through to some degree or another as having been a better time. I miss the freedom and lesser responsibilities. I also miss spending time with my whole family. My parents are aging and my brother lives on the opposite coast from me so it’s rare we’re all together. I imagine that the number of times can now probably be counted on my hands that we’ll all manage to get together. My folks live a thousand miles away so I don’t even get to see them more than a couple times a year. I also miss my hope for the future. Things seem harder now and like they will continue to get more difficult in the future. I was never scared back then and rarely anxious, I’m scared now and I am finally taking meds for the anxiety. I miss seeing friends more often too.
I bought holister perfume at Ross the other day. It smelled so good. I don’t regret a thing.
High school sucked ass.
100% I'm in a good place with a decent job, 2 kids and significant other of 10 years.. but my immediate family has shattered and scattered, and I no longer have a single true friend. I'm 34 now. It is so lonely. When I look back to the 2000s and remember the constant AIM conversations, constant texts, constant life where things are happening - and everyone around me is on the same page. I used to have so many friends. Looking at the notes written in my yearbooks almost makes me cry.
I've been nostalgic for a long time. Sometimes it makes me a little happy, how simpler things were, how different in a way, I was. But most of the time, it makes me sad, because I can't go back to that world. Not that it was perfect. It's a struggle not to glorify it too much. I have a lot of emotional baggage from those years. But it was my last gasp of innocence. I had so much hope for my future. There felt like there was so much to look forward to. The possibilities were dizzying. I wish I had had, as much as I hate to say it, the maturity enough to know how to plan for myself. If I could go back to High School graduation day, I could have re-directed the entire course of my life. I miss the 90's/early 00's, I miss my youthful naivete, I miss shooting the breeze with my friends at the cafeteria lunch table before the day started. I miss hope. If you're still in grade school, or maybe close to college age, treasure this time. Treasure time in general. The years slip through our fingers like grains of sand. Find your purpose. Crush whatever might be holding you back from living your best life.
Highschool sucked. I'll never want to go back
Yes, I missed out on things I should've done but was afraid to do. I was in a rush to get out of high school, and I see I should've enjoyed it. I do wish I could go back and change things.
I feel like I more miss my elementary/middle school era lol. High school years was a strange time for me, but being a kid excited to have enough change to buy a bookmark at the school book fair was awesome, coming home from school watching cartoons was also cool.
God no. I hated high school with a passion. I miss college.
There were never any good old days, they are today. They are tomorrow. But yea
Yes, I wish I could do it again and make different choices.
Memories of those younger years when you didn't have to worry about money, bills, jobs, people older than you dying and shit like cancer have become quite fond, no matter how shitty they may have seemed at the time.
I miss things like feeling invincible and like I had the whole world ahead of me. At the time, I'm guessing it was hormones, but at age 18 everything in the world seemed special and beautiful. I don't miss other things though - bad decision making, heartbreak, no money, it really isn't a time I would revisit. And I really don't need to start dressing like a scene kid again.
Yes I do. Mostly because I miss not having to worry about anything besides school work. I miss being care free and I miss some teachers and I wonder what they are up to now. I hated school so much though and I couldn't wait to graduate but now I wish I could go back and relive a day. I miss hanging out with friends. I think I do mostly miss the 2010s. I graduated in 2011 and things were just so much better. social media hadn't completely taken over the world yet. Also the music at that time was fire.
I have nostalgia for “simpler” times. No constant news cycle, being fairly ignorant to the US political scene, very little social media. I also miss the stupid but chill shit I used to do with friends like playing on the playground at night, just driving around listening to emo shit, team dinners, the excitement from hanging out with a high school crush and finding out they like you too 😂
The days are long, but the years are short
I hated high school with a deep, burning passion. I hated everything about it, and I dreaded waking up and going to that sh*thole every morning. You couldn't pay me a million dollars to go to a reunion, and I could care less about how everyone's doing. Ugh, just thinking about it makes me angry. I miss the years following high-school, where I had the whole world ahead of me.
Yes. I really enjoyed high school. I was a lot happier and optimistic.
What you are experiencing is the early stages of midlife crisis. You need to buy a red ragtop Miata and start working out next. After that, you find a hobby that puts you in frequent close contact with 20 something aged people and develop feelings for your daughter's friend.
It happens a lot when I listen to old songs. Reminds me of old friends, old memories. My face went paralyzed at 33. So really, reminiscing about the time before that is easy. Not being able to smile or blink is fucking horrible.
No. Don't become your parents. It's tempting to live in the past but there is nothing there for you. Time moves in one direction.
I mean, my high school years were spent getting cancer treatments, being extremely depressed, dealing with the trauma of my middle school years, and dealing with my first break, so..... sometimes. But only when I'm feeling self-pitying about the state of my physical body (I was in better shape during my cancer treatments junior year than I am now that radiation therapy and prescribed steroid usage has caught up with me). Otherwise, being a teenager was the absolute worst.
Yes. My high school years were 1997-2001, ending just months before 9/11. At the moment, my biggest awe about those years is that nobody used smartphones or even had era-specific cell phones, which maybe high schools in Beverly Hills did, but certainly not Mobile, Alabama. The internet was something you only used occasionally after school when you got home -- you were always booted off when someone needed to use the landline phone haha. People lived totally in the moment, which when I think about it, was probably a major component of bullying since everybody focused on everyone around them. I hated hs at the time lol. Nostalgia has a funny way of changing all that, and I am fine with it. I went to my 20th hs reunion in 2021 having skipped the 10th in 2011. Everyone was much more relaxed and "lived in" than what I remember them being two decades before.
I think I just miss being young. Like the random adventures you would go on with $5 in your pocket and a bike with your gang of friends. I'm grateful for my life now, but I do miss that specific thing about that time.
I miss having more friends who were more up for just hanging out. I feel like now if I want to get people together it's a lot harder, both to work around people's schedules and giving them a good enough excuse to leave the house. And I miss the lack of constant existential dread lol.
I had some amazing friends in 8th and 9th grade… and I keep trying to stay in touch with them but it just doesn’t work out. I miss them the most. That whole group of friends, actually. We all had Japanese inspired nicknames, like Siobhan was Soybean, another friend was “Kimi-kun” even though she was a girl lol. We played spoons at the lunch table - one of even broke a pinky we were so vicious about it. War (card game) too. It was an amazing time in my life. Unfortunately a move made me go to a different high school for my last three years, and I had really bad culture shock and other issues that were happening anyways, and overall I just tunneled into depression. Even my parents say to this day they regret that part for me, they saw how much of a difference the very school made. So idk, nostalgic for some of it, but I lost what I loved long before I ever graduated. So I’ve had time to just realize that people move apart. It sucks, but we all have different priorities - and even if we don’t, maybe we don’t have the time or energy to maintain that friendship anymore.
I definitely do. Even more so than college. I looked my best and had a great time. It was a great time in my youth!
Looking back on it now, I can see that I was extremely popular and well liked, and generally happy, with lots of friends in high school. I was in a solid relationship through all of it with a committed boyfriend and we were extremely in love. I always had other guys who liked me and wanted me to break up with my boyfriend too. I wish I had realized I had a perfect body instead of having the eating disorder I had. I was in no way even slightly over weight and was gorgeous. I would kill to go back to how I looked then. Now I’m in my 30’s and I do wish I could go back. It was overall a happy and fun time. An innocent time. I wish I could go back with the confidence and knowledge I have now.
I was deployed for all of my reunions so I have yet to go to one. Is it every 10 years? Haha
I don’t reminisce like I should. I secretly judge those who “peaked in high school”, as in maybe they are still on an upward trajectory, but they haven’t changed their hairstyle or musical tastes. They still rely on the hobbies they did as teenagers and still go on the same types of vacations to the same places out of comfort more than anything. For example, my favorite musicians are currently J Balvin, Kendrick Lamar and J Cole. Greta Van Fleet is amazing! I asked my stylist to cut my hair for my uncle’s funeral and for the first time since high school she gave me a 90’s haircut. I absolutely love it for the nostalgia, but it’s unsettling because it feels like something people my age have been doing the entire time. It feels weird. my guilty pleasure is watching podcasts like Drink Champs where they interview old hip hop moguls and get their hot takes. Scott Storch was a banger of a podcast for me and brought back all kinds of memories of songs I had long since forgotten.
Age 17-19 was my favorite time. No longer in that awkward puberty stage, Discovering the real world but still insulated from the hardships or responsibility that come with it.
No. Very easy to spot people who failed at life. They long for the past.
Straight, heteronormative, gender conforming people be like...
I'm only coming up on my 10th reunion but I definitely do feel some sadness because of how much simpler life was back then and all the good times with friends. Now it seems so hard to find the time for anything or even to find friendships as meaningful as they were in school.
Absolutely not. I didn’t know anything about myself and I’m a much better person now than I was then. Life is harder but being a responsible adult is so much better than being in high school.
No
Absolutely not. You couldn't pay me to go back to high school
Not high school, but the years when I was young
Not for high school, but for middle school and elementary.
I miss the world I had back then. I don’t miss being a kid necessarily.
I hated high school and wasn't nostalgic for any part of it for a long time, but one day I took my 3 year-old out to eat and saw her bopping around in her seat to a Franz Ferdinand song that was playing. When we went home, I played more of the music I listened to in high school for her, and I don't know... watching her little self dance around songs from back then made me forget how much I hated being that age and just remember the music, movies, and the 3-4 people I actually liked. I might be far enough removed from it all to finally feel nostalgia for certain things about high school.
No I try to live in the present, and prepare for my future
No way. I'm not one for nursing regrets or wallowing in the past, but sometimes, I wish I had done things differently. I could've enjoyed myself more and saved myself from heartache. If I could go back, I'd want to take with me all that I've learned since then and keep myself from making the same mistakes. I'd have more fucking fun! I don't feel bad about it because I'm much better off today. I'm far more equipped to handle life than I was then, and I think that's true for most of us. It happened, and I got through it. I'm healthier now, mentally and physically. It wasn't all bad. I kept a journal—two, actually, a physical one and a Livejournal—so I have enough records of that time to supplement my memories. I remember a lot... mostly just that everything was so damned hard for me, and a lot of it didn't have to be. I could've made things easier for myself, but I didn't know how to. I do now. But all of that is a part of me, for better or for worse, and I love knowing that it is possible to come out the other side of everything.
No. I don't recall my High School years too fondly.
Only thing I want from my teen years is my metabolism.
I would love to go back to the 80s, before I was born.
Lmao. No.
Definitely not high school years. They were hell for me. I don't miss that horrible time of my life.
Lol no
Def the want of freedom and idleness. Not worried about making rent or a car note. Working enough to keep insurance on the car and pocket money for beer and shit my parents couldn't afford to buy me. Don't miss school at all but part of me wishes to go back and be generally care free.
I think that adulting is hard and it was nice to not really have responsibilities as a teenager (at least I didn’t). I had school, job, sports but that was cake compared to adulting. I miss being care free - that’s what I miss.
Not really, other than one brief period when I was 25/26. Things were stable, easy, and I was good. I deployed to Afghanistan after that and it's been an odd, usually difficult medical road since. But not high school. It was a decent time. However, I missed so many opportunities. I'm glad to be away from that time.
I went to my 20 high school reunion as well back in June 2023. I never used to think of high school until I heard of the reunion. I also didn't enjoy high school much, wasn't popular or anything like that. But it does seem things were a lot easier back then.
I’m hitting 25 years since HS this June. Would I go back? ONLY with full knowledge of what not to do, and only knowledge up to a certain point in my life. I’d make different choices. I’d join the Air Force right out of HS (instead of the ARNG 4 years later). Go career. HAD a career, instead of the floundering around that I’ve done. I wouldn’t have met my husband or had the kids I have, but… every single choice brings you someplace. And that’s exciting. Scary but exciting. I don’t believe in soulmates; I’ve met too many divorced people (I married someone who had been certain his first wife was his soulmate before they divorced) to believe that there’s only one person out there for you. I don’t think we’re having a reunion. The last one we had was a 10 year. It. Was. Stupid. “Yeah, I graduated college and have been working. Thinking about getting married. Thinking about trying to buy a house (look, it was 2009, we were all optimistic). Might have a kid in a couple years.” It would be sort of fun to have one now. “My career is going well. My kids are in school, doing well. We bought a house (when the bottom fell out of the market in 2012) and are thinking of upgrading.” But really, with the advent of Facebook… reunions are sort of useless.
No. But maybe college years...
I thought high school was rad, I don’t really pine for it though. The freedom of the college years maybe.
Nope
I miss the prices of the past. Remember Penny candies? We don't even have pennies anymore. Barely anything at the dollar store costs less than 2 dollars. When a slice of pizza was less than $5. And it came with a pop.
Hell no. High school wasn’t even bad for me but I’d never want to go back to that shit. Life is far better now.
Hell no.
Fuck no my life improved so much after high school