What were your favorite years of your life?

Now.

I have had a few good years

2002 - First apartment, out of school, fun and freedom

2005-2006 - Moved to a new place and made tons of new friends and partied super hard

2016 - Moved again, bought a home, changed careers and got in great shape

2018 - We expanded our family and life was pretty blissful

2021 - Covid restrictions were lifted and life started to feel fun again

2025 - Lots of travel and new adventures, reached my career goal

1996-2006

Ugh. I hate this thread already.

1970s, I was a teenager didn’t have to support myself and hadn’t a care in the wold.

"2009-2013. Felt so live like anything could happen." -OP

First few years of retirement, dear?

1984-86 First BF.

1972-1980s. Life was just fun without striving.

1996-1999

I was broke but still had fun.

Now.

I hate nostalgia for one's own past

OP - I think we need for you to better define your query. My assumption is that our answers should reflect years we believed positively in world events giving us hope for our personal futures. Specific years having to do with future history. The years you mention immediately make me think of Barack Obama, how his election seemed a huge step for civil rights, and that most of us had no clue we could revert back to electing a racist, illiterate, hateful criminal to run our country. Or ruin our country,

Am I incorrect?

I’ve generally liked every phase of life, but I agree that the Obama years, in retrospect, feel particularly bright. Without overly romanticizing them, they feel almost like a dream now. I remember using the phrase “winning the future,” and it really did feel like it. A major backslide felt impossible. Whoops.

1996 to 2016. Finally making enough money for bf to retire young-ish at 53, secure in my career, family obligations ended, got my Masters, bought the house we live in now, survived AIDS, Iraq, two Bushes, Y2K, and 9/11, rejoiced in the Obamas and saw the world.

Trump, illness, and retirement brought the best years of my life so far to an end. I’m an optimist. I’ve lived this long so I could hang on for another ten years and enjoy them. Things will change. I hope the better angels of our nature prevail, but I wonder.

1968-75 - easy-going childhood in a fun era.

1984-93 - living on my own in Cincinnati just having a fun time.

Clinton and Obama years were pretty good - Biden's 4 years were good - gave us a chance to catch our breath.

No seriously - it seems like Republican led years were not the best years of my life.

Those same years, OP. 2009 to 2013. Fell in love, stayed in love, moved to Brooklyn, got married. There was such a sense of adventure and of the world being more benevolent than not.

Still in love and still married, but life — and the world — has turned more difficult, on several levels.

R11 well I hadn't thought about it but yes, I suppose those were the beginning Obama years. It was just a great time in my life. I was in a college town, completing my degree. Things felt good and connected.

[quote] I was in a college town, completing my degree.

OP - that's the crucial line that should have been in your original post. It's the explanation need. Thank you.