I certainly am. As I get older, I realize just how precious life is…so I am reluctant to waste it!
That said, I continue on like I was in my 20’s-I still ski, hike, go to the beach, etc.
My middle-aged contemporaries seem happy to hang around, drinking beer and watching football on TV-which bores the shit out of me. I want to be out and active-enjoying the outdoors.
I also can’t stand the way that my associstes keep telling me to “act my age”-I do what I damn please.
Are you reluctant to give up the stuff you liked in your 20’s-30’s?
Oh, hell yes.
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I have really limited my fiction reading - simply not enough time to invest in big Lit books where the pay-off is in question (I’m looking at you Jonathan Franzen)
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I don’t see movies in theaters anymore
But I still play guitar in a mid-life crisis band and geek out about guitar gear, etc. So definitely still immature in my way, but I have no extra time to indulge in anything other than my highest-priority interests. And I have come to be surprised regarding which interests make the cut. I mean - reading is central to my life, so if anyone had said I wouldn’t be reading as much fiction and instead move to non-fiction and magazines, I would’ve laughed as recently as a few years ago…
The trick or treat thread had me thinking about this. My daughter loves trick or treating. Halloween is the only Holiday we celebrate and she revels in it so much. She is 11 and has developed physically, so there may be some who thinks she is getting too old to go. Not me, though. I have noticed that my daughter is very aware of her childhood and seems to cling to it in a way that I find interesting. She wants to ‘stay a kid’ and I am perfectly happy to let her do so. I am giving her all the knowledge I should be giving her to have her mature normally and healthily (I hope) but I am all about her savoring the childhood.
For myself, I am certainly immature in many ways. I am goofy and silly and most everything I do or believe I would consider ‘non-traditional’* as far as this society is concerned, and in most cases, my way of doing things would be judged ‘immature’ but I just can’t muster it up to care. I pay my bills, I work hard; I can’t be spending time worrying about being immature.
*I know, I know. Every snowflake thinks they are ‘non-traditional’.
Camping, canoeing, kayaking are our things. Late night bike rides, just because we want to. Paintball! I love chasing my husband through the woods and shooting at him - what an awesome game. Hacky-sack, though he hates it, I love it. Concerts where we stick out like sore thumbs - we try to organize concert caravans to get a group of people going, but its not always successful. Our favorite couple friends are in their 20’s.
Granted, we are still fairly young, but I see it slipping in friends of our age. I’m upper 30’s, he hit 40 this yr, so still a ways to go, and I hope we keep the spirit alive!
I guess I never thought of those activities as ‘things of youth’- for instance, my 70 year old dad still skis, runs, sails, goes swimming in the pool and ocean, rollerblades, etc. I do those things too in my 40’s and plan to keep doing them 'til I can’t anymore. I think it’s not so much ‘giving up the things of youth’ as it is a difference between a person with an active lifestyle and a sedentary one.
I’m not going down without making an effort. Although I’m a member, the Senior Citizen’s Center bores me to tears.
My husband and I still watch our weight, hike, camp, ride motorcycles and spend hot summer days at the beach. We wear youthful clothing (and some old fart favorites as well.)
Last Saturday night we visited the local haunted house and could have been grandparents, or even greats, to everyone in line. Wandering around in the spooky, dark old house we turned around when we heard some kids behind us acting up and scared the bejeebers out of them. “Hah! Thought we were your parents didn’t you?” my husband said.
I wondered about the expression “things of youth” also. They only belong to youth when you can’t do them anymore. And then you enjoy watching others do them.
Sometimes that happens. Two little girls walked by my house in the summer with hula hoops, if that’s what you still call them. “Oh, I can do that!” I said. Wrong. Total fail. And now I know - hula hoops are things of youth.
“When I became a man, I set aside childish things, including the fear of being thought childish” --C. S. Lewis
I think that about sums it up. If you’re still doing all of those things, well, then, they’re obviously not “things of youth” after all.
I’m still young (mid-20s) but I’m going to try my best to not give up on being active when I do get older. I’ve seen too many seniors that stopped trying and their health suffered for it. I figured “things of youth” would be things like cartoons, climbing trees, running around being generally carefree. I don’t intend to give them up either; they’re fun!
Ok, I’m only 29, but this year I:
-Learned to ride a unicycle
-Bought a skateboard and started riding it, because I got tired of seeing “the kids” have so much fun on them
-Took my kid to the trampoline park and proved to myself I can still do a backflip
No man in my family has ever grown up, and I damn well do not plan on being the first.
You don’t stop skiing because you get old.
You get old because you stop skiing.
The thread title and the OP didn’t quite mesh for me. I don’t necessarily see skiing, hiking, and beach-going as the “Things of Youth” or drinking beer and watching football to be exclusively old people’s pursuits.
Anyway, I try to stay as active as I can, but I do have certain physical limitations I didn’t always have. I’ll probably never ski again, for example, but then I wasn’t all that fond of skiing to begin with.
I do, however, love roller-coasters, watching cartoons, fart jokes, and I have a 6-foot tall fiberglass kangaroo prominently displayed in my house. I also like drinking beer and watching football, so I guess you can draw your own conclusions.
(I am 47 years old, by the way.)
I’m 49, gave up skateboarding.
and full contact fighting 3 years ago.
That’s about it.
Yeah, the hiking and stuff isn’t probably considered immature by most people. But I can’t pass up a good rollercoaster. Sometimes itt’s about a dozen skinny kids, and then a big black woman in the front car with her boobs smooshed scarily beneath the safety bar, and I think, ‘hmm…folks are probably staring.’ Funny thing is, my best friend looks very young for her age. People sometimes mistake her for a teenager. So I’m the only one getting the stares while she gets to do all the goofy stuff we do without judgement.
I grew up playing video games and I haven’t given them up, if that counts.
I love your name.
I still like cartoons/anime, Harry Potter, and collecting Hello Kitty items (I’m planning a trip to Japan next year, and my kid and I are definitely making a stop at Sanrio Puroland). I make time each year to go to at least two anime conventions, and enjoy cosplaying (dressing as anime characters) as well. I also play Barbies with my daughter and watch Disney Channel and “iCarly” with her - because it won’t be long before she’s “too cool” to be seen hanging out with Mom and doing “mom-and-me” stuff. People tell me I’m immature because of my hobbies, but I point out that I hold down a job, am raising my daughter, and pay my bills, and these hobbies are to me what dropping everything and going to Vegas to drink and gamble are to others.
I have often said I would never want to go thru my high school years or my early twenties. I have (or is it would) gladly give up considering the world to be ending if I got a zit or thinking that I was the first to discover cosmic insights or sweating over a book report.
Dad stopped roller blading in his 60’s because he finally broke his arm.
I do think theres a point where denial of what you can still safely do can become a problem though. To generalise, you can still do 90% or so physically, but trying to keep at 100% is where you can come a cropper.
As in I can still run, go to the gym, dive etc, but I dont try to be quite as adventurous as I used to. Getting older can include realising that immortality isnt quite such a guaranteed thing as I used to think it was in my teens/20’s.
Otara
I hate aging basically for the little things my body does.
My HUGE gripe is not being able to read without reading glasses. OK yeah I still can, but each year it gets a little bit worse. My eyes are otherwise great, or so the eye doc said, “Just getting old, you need the glasses for reading.”
Or having to take a daily dose of fiber or having to get enough sleep. I remember when I was 25 I could go to bed at 5am and wake up at 7am and go to work. Oh I’d be tired, but who cared. Now if I don’t get hours I ACTUALLY HURT. I mean I physically ache. LOL
But I don’t yearn for things of old. The only thing I hate about this modern world is cell phones 
Yep, still dating high school girls. Er, wait…