When does a person's youth end?

Question

I'm almost 25, and I'm afraid that I wont be able to experience my youth. For most of my life, I didn't have money, a job, and I was always busy with school. I didn't get to go to parties, socialize, and had a really hard time meeting people. I'll be 25 in September.

Answer 1

Y'know, when I was a kid, I didn't worry about missing out on my youth.  Perhaps you think I was too busy being young.  Perhaps you think that those days are over for me.  After all, I'm in my 40's now.  

But, before you decide that those days are over for me, I should tell you something.  These days, when I say "when I was a kid", I'm talking about when I was around your age.

Funny thing is, when I was your age, I'd already been talking about "when I was a kid".  At your age, my "when I was a kid" mean my teens.  In my teens, my "when I was a kid" meant something even earlier.  If I make it to 60 or 80, I'll probably be saying "when I was a kid" about the life I'm leading right now.

Our culture tends to idolize youth.  Ah, to be carefree and innocent and able to make mistakes without consequences.  The problem with idolizing youth is that we easily forget that we never really were carefree or innocent or able to make mistakes without consequences.  Sure, they were different worries, different losses of innocence, different kinds of consequences.  You're not facing exactly the same challenges now that you faced when you were fifteen, or when you were five.

And you're not facing exactly the same challenges now that you will when you get to be fifty.

Do I know when a person's youth ends?  No, I don't.  Neither does anyone else.

I have a friend who is in her late 60's.  Occasionally, she messes up and calls me "kiddo".  Occasionally, I've messed up and called her "kiddo" as well.  I'm pretty sure she has more youth in her than I have in me.  Doesn't seem like the "when" matters very much.

I think you're really worried about having missed some magic moment that you can't reclaim.  Something silly and simple, perhaps, like regretting that you missed your high school prom.

Well, ok, if you missed your high school prom, you're right about part of it.  You don't get another chance to be the pimply-faced seventeen-year-old geek wearing a badly-fitted tux and dancing with the wrong girl in the high school gym.

But, if it's something you want, if the magic is important to you, then forget about the gym and being seventeen years old and pimply and wearing a bad tux.  For the rest of your life, there is still time to grab the wrong girl and dance.

Answer 2

The second you meet the perfect guy/girl.

But for right go have a good time your still young!

Answer 3

the nano-second the guy says "you may kiss the bride"...