Do I miss the unthinking closeness I had with certain friends when I was a teenager? Yes. Do I miss automatically being around my family for important events? You bet. Do I miss the feeling that the whole world was about to open up in front of me and the anticipation it brought? Sure. Do I miss being a teenager? Christ on a cracker, no.
My friends and I had an unthinking closeness that we have to actively work at now, but I was also routinely exposed to the unthinking cruelty of people who I came to realize were stupid and petty and small-minded. I’m not around many people like that any longer, and the ones I am around have pretty much no power to hurt me, because I see them and their actions far more clearly than I did as a teen. Now I have to juggle a larger, more spread-out family, both our jobs, and a much longer distance around the holidays and other special occasions, and that can be a lot of work. However, my circle of loved ones and ideas of what constitutes a celebration were pretty limited, and I like the ways they’ve grown. I like having the open world around me a lot better than waiting and watching and hoping for it, even though the anticipation was exciting.
I like my world and my life better than what my teenage self had, and I like the woman I am now a lot better than the girl I used to be. I was a right pain in the ass as a teenager, and while a lot of people would say that hasn’t changed, I at least try to keep it in check these days.
Like many of the other posters, I’m pretty happy with my life now. But if I had to go back I’d pick the summer I was 19. Cause that summer, I was the queen of the world.
I’m 14 years and about 230 days old, and I would definately want to go back. Specifically, to when I was 14 and 228 days. Last Thursday was definately a highlight of my life, and I would love to repeat it!
I’d want to pick and choose stuff. My junior year of high school and my first two years of college were some of the best of my life thus far. The rest ranged from boring to actively crappy.
As for the physical aspects, well, I think I’ve retained quite a bit of it, so having it longer I wouldn’t mind…
No. Hell no. I didn’t even go to prom (or any other school dance for that matter). Didn’t date. Didn’t drive until I was 18, which really, really sucks if you live out in the middle of nowhere and have no friends willing to give you a ride. And even my computer sucked.
Now… well, I’ve got a few good friends, still not dating, still not dancing. At least I’m getting a steady paycheck, I have a decent car, and I’ve got a decent computer with a cable modem connection. I’ll be making more than a few people jealous come my high-school reunion next year.
I really don’t miss my adolescence one bloody bit.
Over the past few years, I’ve become a mature, responsible adult. I’m in college learning to do something I’ve always wanted to do. I spend an insane amount of time doing stuff I love with people I love and want to spend insane amounts of time with.
Why would I trade that for insecurity, hypercompetitive classmates, bad skin, living with supercritical parents, and all the other joys of adolescence?
I would go back and I wouldn’t give it a second thought.
I was in a car accident and wound up paralyzed my senior year, so I spent most of the year in the hospital and then the rest of it just going for half days missing out on all the stupid high school stuff. No football games or hanging out with friends. So instead of the usual nostalgia I might have, I now also associate HS with being able to walk, so it’s a double whammy.
I got a ton of responsibility I never expected because of the paralysis. I thought I was just starting to figure life out and then I got one hell of a curve ball. All my perspectives got thrown out of whack and really screwed up any kind of plans I had for the future. I knew things would be different after HS and I figured that it would be an adjustment, and then everything changed more than I expected.
My parents were pretty lenient, though I was responsible and never really got in any trouble. After seeing what my sister got away with I now realize that I could have been more wild than I was.
I’m probably in better shape now than I was when I was a teen. I really miss not being more committed to anything when I was in HS and think I missed out there from being apathetic. I miss the competition of HS sports and wish that I would have been more driven at the time.
Then again, I remember an article from The Onion about a guy that was perpetually nostalgic for four years ago. I’d like to go back to HS, but I would just settle for the beginning of college.
Yeah, is this just an American thing or what? Because I remember talking in high school to an exchange student from Paraguay who found it ridiculous that we had to ask to go to the bathroom, and saw it as an example of American hypocrisy regarding the concept of freedom, and how Americans are rich but don’t get to have as much fun as he and his fellow Paraguayans. I’m not sure whether I agree with his theory as a whole, but I sure remember being pissed off at all the little things like that in high school that served to infantilize us teenagers. I’ve always thought that young Americans would grow up more responsible if they had more freedom to begin with. So no, while being in college has been fun, I wouldn’t go back to my high school years. I really hated knowing that I was capable of making certain decisions (like say, WHEN TO PISS) for myself, but was arbitrarily restricted from doing so by adults, many of whom were only nominally qualified to make their idiotic judgments on my behalf. Not to say that adulthood doesn’t have its share of jackasses on power trips, but it sure doesn’t to the extent that adolescence does.
And then there’s the whole deal with the social lives of teenagers. I really don’t think adults are any less petty, cliquish, or cruel than teenagers. They just have less time to waste on that crap, and (hopefully) more substantial ways to define their place in society.
Plus, I don’t want to live my life thinking that the best years have already passed. Even when I’m 90, I don’t want to think that way. So I guess I plan to live forever.
I was miserable in my teens. The usual teen angst was exacerbated by being overweight and the shortest boy in the whole school until I was a senior (when there was one freshman boy who was my height). I would only go back if I could have my 61-year-old mind. As it was, I was smart but lazy. I was one of the geeks, but not one who got a scholarship. Instead, as editor of the high school paper, I should have been on the executive board, but I couldn’t serve because my GPA was too low. If I had it to do over I would buckle down because I’d know how I ended up in this timeline, unaccomplished and basically poor. If I went back with no memory of now I’d probably do everything the same way. No point to that.
I wouldn’t exactly like to relive any of my life in terms of decades. There have bneen some highlights, but I’m pretty much just enduring it now.
I’m 60 now and only once have I missed being a teenager.
A couple of months ago I had a chance to see one of my best buds from high school for the first time in 30 years. She was still the same sassy and adorable friend of the heart that I have remembered.
I awoke the next morning wanting to go back to school and see her and the others again. Just for a day or so – as we were then.
I mean, yeah, I’d take my 17-year-old body back (provided it didn’t come with that horrible 80’s perm I had at the time), and I’d love to have my whole life in front of me again. But I don’t want my teenage mind or anxiety back.
I had a pretty average teenage existence with no major traumas: decent parents, good school, no bullying. I was just so damned insecure! I was constantly worrying about what people would think and whether everyone would like me. Plus, I never felt good about myself (even though, looking back, I realize I had a lot to be proud of).
I find that while my late 30’s body isn’t what it was at 17, I like it a lot better now than I did then. Those little wrinkles, while permanent, don’t bother me nearly as much as a (temporary) pimple did as a teenager. More importantly, I make decisions based on what would be best for me and make me happier–not based so much on peer pressure or what would seem more “cool.”
And I really like having my own money. Sure, I have my own bills. But I have a lot more spending money now than I did as a teenager and certainly more than I had in my early 20’s. I have the wherewithall to pursue my hobbies and interests. That makes me happy!
I for one most definitely do. I grew up in a smaller country town - class size about 200 people so we weren’t tiny, but definitely not large.
From 13-18 I roamed the town as if I owned it. I knew every back street and trail. I would bring my girlfriends to private beaches I knew of (we had 11 lakes in my small home-town in Minnesota)
I often find myself thinking about how carefree, and and precious life truly was at that moment. I always had something planned, something going on, I had more friends than I could count reaching out many cities throughout Minnesota. Not to sound conceded but I was very well known throughout the area never had a hard time finding a girl to be with. Life was sweet.
Then after graduation - reality hit in, I was no longer a big fish in a pound. I was a tadpole in the ocean… I realized that life didn’t revolve around my popularity. People went off to college and almost instantly - my phone quit ringing.
Since then I smartened up, I got my degree and a very good job making 6 figures at 24 years old which i moved many states away for.
Yet, I’m still not as happy as I was when I was that kid in the basement of my parents house causing havoc on the town with my friends I’ve had since we’re 10 years old.
I tell myself, it’ll change once you transition into parenthood… but will it? I’m very successful for my age, this should be the glory years right now? Not when i was 13-18?
I just tell myself I’m truly blessed, I believe I had one of the most amazing experiences growing up - awesome life-long friends, parties, stories to laugh about forever, plenty and plenty of women…
It’s still just so strange to look at how life changed all of my friends. We’re spread all over the country working just to live! I feel like there’s more to life then this. I want to live with the excitement and joy I had back then.
I was a teenager when Wally Cleaver was, and I certainly don’t miss being the me who was me then. But I miss the lifestyle. I also miss the opportunity to see and do things that are gone forever.
I didn’t find the teens all that wonderful, until I married at 17. Then I was treated as an adult and preferred that. We were adult enough to keep it together for 57 years now.
I was miserable and hopeless as a teenager; I’d never want to go back.
Really, a major reason I didn’t kill myself then was because I didn’t believe all the adults who told me how great I had it as a teenager and how much worse it was to be an adult; telling a miserable teenager that adult life is an endless hell of suffering and despair is not an argument against suicide, and that’s what they were telling me regardless of what they thought they were saying.