Terminalcoffee discussion

Many people tell me that 20 is the age everybody wants to return to. Do you agree?
What would you do if you were 20 again. Would you change something? Would you make the same decisions and choices?......????

"When I was seventeen
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We'd hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen

When I was twenty-one
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for city girls
Who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair
And it came undone
When I was twenty-one

When I was thirty-five
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for blue-blooded girls
Of independent means
Wed ride in limousines
Their chauffeurs would drive
When I was thirty-five

But now the days grow short
I'm in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
>from fine old kegs
>from the brim to the dregs
And it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year

It was a mess of good years"

No I don't want to return to 20 at all! What a messed up time.

I'm happy with where I am agewise... and would not want to return to any of my previous years.

An excellent question, Knarik.

I return to when I was 20 every so often. The good thing about looking back is that I can select the good parts, and ignore the unpleasant aspects of being 20.

The best part of being 20 was that everything was so new, and so limitless. Most of the important decisions of life were still to be made. I knew great joy, while having my heart broken a time or two.

If I knew then what I know now ....

But then that wouldn't be natural, would it?

I would love to be 20 at the same time as you, Knarik. That I know for sure.

Why on earth would anyone want to be 20 again? 20 year olds are idiots. The only way I would do it is if I could keep my 46 year old brain, with all my memories and life experience intact.

Mary wrote: "Why on earth would anyone want to be 20 again? 20 year olds are idiots. The only way I would do it is if I could keep my 46 year old brain, with all my memories and life experience intact. "


This needs a disclaimer. :)

I was NOT an idiot at 20. I had to grow up real fast at 19. Dad had a serious medical condition and guess who took care of him and had to learn about VA/government politics and budgetting and juggling school and work and responsibility very early... I desperately wanted idiot 20 year old experiences at that age.

I hear you, Heidi bear.

I'll be twenty in March. Not looking forward to it.

Aw Matt. C'mon, dude. Embrace it!

Matt, 20 is great... and it all gets better with each year, friend. You'll be great! Trust me on this. :)

I'd definitely not like to go back to twenty. I feel like in most ways this is the best time of my life. I know who I am, I' more confident, etc. While there were definitely times I had fun around age twenty, I think the whole idea that high school/college is supposed to be the best time of one's life is misguided and, well, negates the (hopefully) next sixty years or so of one's life. Learn what you can while you're twenty, and build on it so life gets even better after, you know?

i remember feeling old, and not in a good way, when i was twenty.

I would never really want o go back in time. I may want to change things I did along the way, but all that happened made me who I am today, and I can live with that.

janine wrote: "i remember feeling old, and not in a good way, when i was twenty. "

Yeah, well Janine, for me there's not a lot of difference between 20 and 24. But that's just my perspective, huh?

i would do so many things diff if i were 20 again. yup. i would do it

What really matters is what you do now, Kevin.

Larry wrote: "janine wrote: "i remember feeling old, and not in a good way, when i was twenty. "

Yeah, well Janine, for me there's not a lot of difference between 20 and 24. But that's just my perspective, huh?

"

when you're 24 four years is still a very long time. i feel younger now; i might be aging backwards.

I understand, Janine. I feel younger every day, too -- except my body doesn't always agree. Now where did I leave those reading glasses ...?

mostly i learned more about the world, culture and people after 35 and i would like to be 20 again to have more time to do much more i should have done then. of course i also would hope not to step in the same potholes that i twisted my ankles in over the years.

Twenty was a fun year - the year I was living in Granada, Spain.

I'd like to return to when I was 23-24. I made some horrific decisions that year, and I wish often to go back and do things differently.

I think I've made more horrific decisions in my days than good ones. One of them was when I was 20. But ... here I am. Still me and pretty happy with that.

And I have two lovely daughters (and a grandson!) that came from that particular horrific decision.

I hate these hypothetical questions. If anything, I'd go back to my 20-year-old self and slap the living fuck out of him and tell him to get his shit together.

Then again, if my 20-year-old self did get his shit together, things might be way different than what they are now.

I think by definition 20-year-olds don't have their shit together. That's what makes that time so ...

Some of the 20 year olds with whom I work seem to have their shit together, and I don't know how to deal with them. What kind of alien 20 year old walks around with a calendar and writes down appointments? They scare me.

Well they may be organized but it's still a fact that the brain hasn't finished developing. Sorry 20 yr olds! Not an adult yet!

I would definitely go back to 20 years old. For a little while. That was just the perfect age where I was carefree, and realized it.

I've heard that about this generation of teens, too Bun.

if i were 20 again i would want to be 18

At 25, I'm not that far from 20, but it feels like an eternity. Like Heidi, I never got to be an idiot 20 year old, but naturally, I have learned a great deal, grown more into myself and who I will become. I would go back to being 20 again as long as I could take my 25 year old brain with me. Not because I was stupid, but because life experiences shape you.

Not even 20 yet...why am I on this thread??

The whole universe is yet in front of you, Bunny.

LARRY!!!!

**gives big bunny hug**

Most 20 year olds think they are grown up (a few are, very few) but aren't. I wasn't grown up, but I was married and working full time. I wouldn't want to go back to being 20. Now--48--is so much better.
If I did get thrown back to 20 somehow and I knew half of what I know now--I would run like hell and never look back.

I would not return to 20 - I cringe at the thought of my 20-year-old self. But I would go back to my late twenties or my very early thirties. Much more enjoyable, much less crap, and I had a reasonable handle on things. Not perfect by any means, and I'd love to go back and fix some things, but at least not so clueless as at 20.

I agree Youndyc--20 is too young, still a kid, but people expect adultness, and we expect of ourselves. It's a very difficult time.

Back to college? No thanks.

It would be weird to be 20 again, mostly because my daughter is now 23.

I know what you mean Phil. My daughter is 17 and I look at her and I think about my own image of myself at that age and at 20-adult and mature, which I wasn't. I know she thinks she is too, and she is mature for a 17 year old. But she isn't adult and she won't be when she's 20, either. The older she gets, the more I understand the difference between a 20 year old and what I thought I was at 20. There's just such a huge gap.