Grad student
Teaching technical writing
Writing computer user manuals and nuclear station operating manuals
Playing rugby, canoeing, kayking and skiing
Year: 1987
Job: Electrical Engineer
Relationship: Newlywed
Income; roughly $38K
Social life: newlywed <snerk>
Health: Great
1996
Job - Teacher’s Assistant at a Day Care / Pre-School
Relationship - Trying to convince my boyfriend of 5 years that he was now my ex-boyfriend. A year later and a move 250 miles away finally clued him in. (We’re best friends now.)
Income - About $20K/year from the pre-school job, but I was also receiving about $13K/year in child support. My kids were 10 and 6.
Social Life - Great, if a weird mix. Clubbing in NYC, strip clubs in NJ, PTA meetings and Tupperware/birthday/whatever parties/play dates with other moms and/or kids from the Catholic school my kids were attending, not to mention church on Sundays and volunteering at the school, kids in karate twice a week, Monday Night Football with the local gang of friends at the pub. It was hectic, but we were having fun.
Health - Great. Exercised every other day even though I really didn’t need to, walked a lot, meditated. Probably could have used more sleep, but I survived.
Other - I was renting an apartment from my mother and not thrilled with that arrangement, liked my job but not the pay, was getting tired of the club scene, and even more tired of the ex-bf drama. The week of my 27th birthday I packed up my boys and our stuff and shipped out of central NJ to central PA for a fresh start on life.
Year: 2004
Job: Law student at the beginning of the year, attorney at the end.
Significant Relationship: Got married September of that year.
Income: Not much when the year started, but jumped up to $42,500 once I started my job.
Social Life: Mellow
Health: Good, but got crappy starting in January of 2005 and has never really been the same since.
26 in 1973.
Job: Letter Carrier for USPS
Significant relationship: Just finishing a long-term relationship with a coworker. A few months away from meeting my first wife.
Income: Somewhere around $18000US in 1973 dollars
Social life: Partying with coworkers and bandmates.
Health: Great [cue nostalgia. . .]
Other: A lot of backpacking with my brother. My best friend and I driving our MGBs in the mountains. Taking education classes at the local university with the thought of getting a credential. Heavy comic book collecting (*Amazing Fantasy *15, etc.). Competing as an individual piper and in a band at highland games around the area. Renting a one-bedroom apartment that was half of an old house, the kitchen being the old back porch.
Hey, Karyn, we’re the same age!
At age 26 in 11/86, I was:
Job: law school grad, passed bar, just started at same job I still have (with brief diversion in 90-91).
Relationship: Married in 8/85
Income: Mine, ~ $25K. Joint, ~ $60K. Bought first house in 12/06.
Social life: Fine. Wife and I had just moved up to Chicago area after law school. Shifted from the bar scene more to dinners with other couples.
Health: Fine other than drinking pretty heavily.
1st kid came along about 1.5 years later, in 1/88, when I was 27. That’s when things REALLY changed!
Yeah, but it sounds like you were a whole lot more mature than I was. You went to law school and I traveled around the west coast in in a big hippie bus smoking pot and doing acid. I turned out OK in the end but you never would have predicted it in 1986. I started to settle down when I turned 30.
That was a year of great change. I turned 26 in Jan of 2006.
Job: None. Then temp work as a low-level computer flunkie
Significant Relationship: Began a relationship that year that ended this past November
Income: None, and then $20/hr for between 15-30 hours a week
Social Life: Ok. Had a new relationship that was exciting, and always have friends around. Mid-year I moved into my current apartment with three friends, which has been an excellent experience.
Health: Physical, great! Mental, eh!
Other: I had recently hit rock-bottom financially in 2005. Almost had my car repossessed, had debt and no income; I got bailed out by family and friends that fall, and am still, slowly but surely, crawling my way back from an embarrassing and depressing time. 26 was exciting because I started to move back up.
Job: Office Manager
Relationship: Newly married.
Income: About 20K (this was in '94 and typical for the east Texas area and no college)
Social life: Busy and plentiful, playing softball at every conceivable gap in motion.
Health: Perfect
Living situation: Buying home.
Satisfaction level: Pretty good, except for dealing with his ex-wife and my mother.
Other: Had just started college and bought a new vehicle, which required me to take on a second job. Life was nice. If I’d only known what would happen within the next couple of years, I’d have cherished things even more.
I am 26 until May 2009…
Job: Just been promoted - deputy manager for well-reputed homelessness charity
Significant Relationship: So far, 3 flings and 1 short-lived relationship
Income: 31000(GBP)
Social Life: Too expensive for me to continue! I love all my friends to bits, they’re a very supportive bunch when the chips are down, and join in the laughter when the chips are up
Health: I am massively lazy so that affects it but otherwise good except random joint pain
Other: I am back at university studying a PgDip, should be qualified to practice as a counsellor at 28. I do not own a home or a car, but I do have a bicycle and an iPod. The most important thing is that I finally no longer borrow money from my parents!
At age 26…
Year: 1984
Job: None (homeless person on the streets of NY)
Significant Relationship: Definitely not
Income: zilch
Social Life: zilch
Health: Pretty decent. Damn good thing, too.
Job: Ph.D. student, teaching assistant
Significant Relationship: Married
Income: I dunno, maybe 20,000, including grants
Social Life: Pretty healthy. We liked giving dinner parties and I had enough free time to spend cooking multi-course dinners.
Health: Probably the best it’s ever been. We lived in an area with great hiking within a few minutes drive and I could take cheap aerobics classes right on campus.
At age 26…
Year: 1996
Job: Fund Raising for non-profit cultural institution
Family: Married (in 5th year), infant daughter
Income: something like $28,000
Social Life: Full – lots of happenings with the students, faculty, and spouses of my husband’s graduate program.
Health: pretty good in a postpartum way
Home: owned a condo a block from my office
1978
Job: Assistant manager at Spencer Gifts
Significant Relationship: Married to my first wife.
Income: Maybe about $11,000. Two incomes at the time, and that bought a lot more than it does today.
Social Life: Good
Health: Great
Other: Owned a car but not a house (yet). No pets. Hadn’t started writing for publication.
Job: Religious School English Teacher
Significant Relationship: Longing and frustration
Income: 12,500
Social Life: In my first apartment without a roommate, liberating but lonely
Health: Good
Other: Beginning a graduate program in counseling/making a career change
Me: 26 until January 14th.
Job: Stay at home mother.
Significant Relationship: I am married.
Income: household income hovers between 35000-40000
Social Life: Pretty good, considering I have a toddler.
Health: Very good in general. My kidneys are reacting to the stress of two pregnancies in two years by spitting out protein, but I’ve been told that this is manageable until delivery.
Other: Getting used to being at home full time has been a bit of a struggle. I’m bored. But getting a new car next year means that I will be able to go back part-time and have even more money. Mom moved in this year because she wanted to help me adjust to motherhood, and then she just decided to stay permanently. I am ecstatic. I adore my mother and this means she got away from the asshole she was dating. My husband has found two possible job opportunities after the first of the year that will give us more money and more security for the boys. We went to marriage counseling and our relationship has never been better. Overall summary: 26 was great, but a challenge, and 27 is looking to be even better.
Then
Job: Paralegal (in fact, just starting the job I hold today)
Significant Relationship: Married
Social Life: Just starting to re-establish itself
Health: Decent as far as I knew
Now
Job: Paralegal (still here almost seven years later)
Significant Relationship: Still married, approaching the ten year anniversary
Social Life: As healthy as I want it to be
Health: Probably about the same as it was back then, but I’m aware of a lot more issues now.
I was 26 in 1993. It wasn’t a good year.
Job: receptionist
Significant Relationship: I was nearly living with my rebound from breaking up with the ex-fiancé. He was very needy and controlling.
Income: 24,000/annual USD
Social Life: all my friends dumped me when I broke up with the ex-fiancé, I had no one to turn to.
Health: physically great, but was suffering from undiagnosed depression and self-medicating with pot. A lot of pot.
Things got better when by the time I was 28 and a lot better when I was 30.
… wondering what to have for dinner tonight.
Job: Paralegal
Significant Relationship: Just got engaged for the first (and hopefully last) time.
Income: Bah! $30k-ish.
Social Life: I rarely see my friends, but that’s 'cause I’m a homebody. Stupid relationship.
Health: I was a sickly child, so I’m probably healthier right now than at any point in my life.
Well, other than the hippie bus and west coast parts, sounds remarkably like my law school career! 
No, I was not the most serious law student ever. Your approach sound like a lot more fun!