i am allowing myself, for some completely unknown reason, to get caught up in TOTALLY unproductive, negative, STUPID thoughts about my age and my place on the lifetime spectrum.
I can’t stand it in myself, and I keep doing it anyway. It’s like I just woke up this morning and found myself 43 years old and * just now * realized that my 20’s and 30’s (and teens, for that matter) are permanently and irrevocably over, I cannot get them back. I cannot get the time, the choices, the built-in health, or the longer days and years. And it’s making me crazy. I swore I wouldn’t be that way, I wouldn’t let it get to me, I know better than that, but it is.
I’m feeling invisible, marginal, like my life is over. My potential is wasted. My future is bleak. It’s too late for everything and I just don’t have anything to look forward to but getting older, achier and sadder. I look at young people and where I used to just shake my head and be glad I’m not that young and stupid anymore, now I’m doing what I NEVER wanted to do…envying them! Letting their youth get to me! Thinking how they don’t appreciate it, just like I didn’t. They’ll waste it…I wasted it. Think of every fucked up dumbass cliche you can about someone facing midlife and * I am it. *
On top of all of that, I FEEL fucking old. I’m so fat, I’m so out of shape, every part of me aches and is stiff. I walk and I swim and it helps a little, but I sure wasn’t this perisistently achy when I was 30. My neck, my legs, my waistline muscles! Please tell me I can DO something about it!
Help me! THIS SUCKS! I don’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling like this, how do I shake it? I want to be vibrant and alive and going for the gusto every goddamn day but I’m just not…
Hi Stoid, I have read a lot of your posts and you usually struck me as quite confident and just very sexy. I am “only” 39, so perhaps I shouldn’t post here, but just couldn’t help it. My mental image of you is of a slick, sophisticatd, svelte woman of the world whom any man would be fortunate to spend even a few fleeting moments with. And personally, with a very few exceptions, I think that women have to be over at least 35 years old to begin to be sexy. It’s the experience of the world and how an older woman typically knows exactly what she wants that does it for me.
I would like to help you, but at 39, looking 40 in the eye, newly single (again), broke and franticly looking for a job in this hellhole to pay the rent in three weeks all the while dealing with the way this country has had to change and the effects of 9/11 on friends, family and me AND keeping my kids level, I just ain’t got nothing left.
Let’s go drink ourselves silly and leer at younger men.
The scary thing about reading this thread is that I feel the same way(aches and all)…and I’m only 19! If you want some comfort, just think of what I’ll be like at 40, it’ll put your present situation to shame(ok, I feel even worse now, just shoot me).
/oldtimer
Dang kids! Get off my lawn!
/oldtimer
Umm…anyway, I always find that going out helps, even for a simple walk or drive, or sitting down and talking to someone(if I had someone). That’s about all the advice I can offer.
And remember, some of the greatest philosophers lived lifes that consisted of pain, misery and agony for years on end, so if you really can’t snap out of it, write a book, and you might have young twenty somethings starting revolutions in your name a hundred years from now!
I spent most of my life as an active alcoholic and drug abuser. Sure, there were some good times, some wild times, some truly great experiences I wouldn’t trade for anything.
But there are long stretches I don’t remember at all. There was time wasted in jails, emergency rooms, psych wards, rehabs, and halfway houses. There were wrecked cars and wrecked relationships. There were years in dead-end jobs…and months unemployed and homeless. I barely graduated college…with a GPA so shameful that it renders my degree worthless. I have zero credit. My liver thinks it’s 200 years old. I have bought and lost several music collections. I’m still in debt and I can’t even think about getting a driver’s license, much less a car, for another year. I own a computer, a radio, and a few changes of clothes. I haven’t been in a relationship for over a year and I don’t see any prospects any time soon.
I have a 16-year-old son I’ve never seen because he was given up for adoption at birth.
I’m 42 years old and I’m starting my life all over again…
without the energy, good looks, and bright-eyed ambition of an 18-year-old…and with 24 adult years’ worth of ugly baggage.
I’m not complaining. In fact, I feel quite fortunate and I’m extremely grateful. I just want you to know that it could be a lot worse.
oopsTN*Hippie. Well my post was a wee bit tongue in cheek, (though not all that much, admittedly), but yes - your post impresses me and makes me ashamed of myself!
Wow… I never suspected you guys would make me feel better by telling me how screwed up you are!
I’m not miserable in every particular, not at all. But this shit is dragging me down in my heart and my spirit. And it’s just such a fucking waste of my time and emotional energy. I AM 43. There is no magic that will make me 20 again, or even 42. If I feel I’ve wasted the years I’ve already had, it certainly doesn’t help to waste all the years I’ve got coming regretting it.
And I know this perfectly well in my mind.
My emotions just aren’t paying much attention.
But I do appreciate the commiseration…
Are my fellow 40plus-ers really as goddamn achy as I am? This can’t be the way it has to be, can it?
Oh, and ShibbOleth… how YOU doin’? (Thanks for the new sig!)
Ahhh Stoid, I turned 43 in July. It’s not so bad. We have some of the bad crap behind us, no puberty to face, no ackward first time I’ve ever had sex moments.
I don’t know about you but my kid is grown, I play with a doll now if I want to hold a baby. I can go out without a sitter, if the LIONsob and I get a wild hair and decide to go to the beach and stay there for a whole weekend we can.
My Aunts and Uncles are starting to think of me as a real grown up, I can say sex in front of my Mom.
I had my personal crisis at 37 - for some reason, it hit me hard that year. I’m 47 now, figuring if I take reasonable care of myself, I’ve still got 40 years to go. Yeah, I’m achy and I’ll never be a dancer and I have to shop in “Plus Size” sections of the store. But I don’t fret over what people think about me and I’ve perfected the art of ignoring those who aren’t worth my notice. I’ve had opportunities to do things and go places while other people lived their timid, never-leave-home lives. As for other people who are my age or older and look better - good for them… I’d still not change too many things about my life - after all, they made me who I am, and I pretty much like who I am.
Hang in there! Seems to me the only people who don’t have regrets are those who do nothing…
Stoid, honey, I’m 44 with 45 looming in January. Last fall, I had a big ole mid-life fit and decided to quit my soul-sucking, mind numbing, zombie inducing “good job”, cash in all my stock AND 401k (I know, I know) and go back to school. So here I am, old and graying and back in community college alongside kids (less than) half my age. But I don’t regret one minute of it! When I run into my ex-cow-orkers, I am horrified by their dead soulless eyes. I think to myself, “I never noticed that before. I must have been just like that!” I may be broke and struggling and I may have picked the worst time in recent history to give up a fairly well-paying job with benefits, but by gawd, I’m doing what I want!
I also recommend running down to your local bookstore and picking up a copy of Jill Connor Browne’s hilarious “Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love”. Believe me, it is the Bible for those of us over forty and (wanna-be) fabulous! I nearly laughed my (fat) ass off the first time I read it. It’s just as funny and inspirational on each re-read. She released the New Testament, “God Bless the Sweet Potato Queens” earlier this year.
FCM is right - “Seems to me the only people who don’t have regrets are those who do nothing…”
45 here. I still can’t believe that.
It’s not all over. My particular problem is gout, an affliction I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, but it’s controllable. I still cycle, swim, play racquetball, and ski. I started a new job last year, and had a slew of things published in new venues last year. Pepper Mill, whose age I Dare Not Name, started going back to school last year.
Plus, we have our four year old, MilliCal, who we have to keep up with. Associating withg the Young will kepp you young, if only in self-defence.
I’m 34, but may I post as proxy for Mr. S, who turns 46 today?
He’s got gray in his beard and plenty of aches. Some mornings he feels (and walks) like an 80-year-old man. Once in a great while he has to use a cane for a few days to assist his poor old knees and ankles. And did I mention that he was downsized from his job in February, essentially ending a 20-year career? No one will hire him in that industry – his skill area has been made obsolete by computers, and they can just hire a kid out of school for half his former wage.
But boy, is he a kid at heart. Even with the unemployment, he thinks this is one of the best times of his life. He’s been forced to seriously think about all those ideas for self-employment he’s been fiddling with for years. Who knows what kind of fun job he’ll have in five years? And besides all that, you should see the twinkle in his eyes. His favorite movies are about teens and 20-somethings – and not for the jiggle factor, but because he can still identify with the issues we all had at that age.
Age is just a state of mind, hon. It’s really true. Mr. S’s body may be 46, but in his head he’s about 23. Mind you, he’s the epitome of responsibility, but otherwise I don’t think he’ll ever grow up.
As long as you’re still alive, you still have a future. Somewhere out there are lists of people who started new adventures and careers when they were much more elderly than you. Grandma Moses comes to mind. So does my mother’s former co-worker. She had been your average frumpy middle-aged wifey type. Then she got divorced and remarried, and now she looks like a glamour girl and rides a motorcycle.
45 year old male checking in. Got the grey in my beard and the hairline to prove it, too!
Age is what you make of it. On one end of the spectrum, it’s just a number. You got so many numbers in your life, why try to keep track of this one? On the other end, it’s your whole identity, the sum total of all of you, and the anchor that drags you down into old age - if you let it. Where you fall on that spectrum is up to you.
My advice is to get with Arden Ranger or some other good friend, spend a friday night out with him/her, and commiserate in it, wallow in it, and get it out of your system. Take the whole weekend if you like. Then monday morning, go out and take the world by storm. Wear a miniskirt to work, or wear polyester if you want. Do it so that you can learn to tell the world to go suck a lemon. You’re 40-something now, you’ve earned the right to ignore what those people think!!
OK, if you’re sore or hung over on Monday, you can wait until Tuesday…
"The only thing worse than getting older is NOT getting older."
You do what you can. I can do most of the things I did when I was younger, just I pay for it the next day.
OK, one thing I can’t do at 42 nearly as well as at 22 is comb my hair…
Also, what about "You're only as old as the girls you feel." ? ** TP **is 27, and for the record, she came after me [sub] and I'm glad she did [/sub]
At 20 I could only surf for two hours. So a week ago, yes, I’m 45, I surfed for 6 hours straight, never touched the ground. At 60 I hope to do 7 hours.
At 40 there is a dip, yes, but you can get over it.
I wouldn’t blame your age Stoid because you got that way using your younger years, but you can get wise now & change those ways.
I hear you…sometimes it seems that life is only for the young! I am presently over 40, and have lost my job. Believe me, it is tough. On the other hand, consider the alternative (like being underground) and I think you will find life isn’t bad!
