Tell me about getting old

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

The problem with aging is you have less time to recover from errors.

If you make a miscalculation when your 24 so what? You to the next ten years to start over and you know what, you’ll only be 34. Then if you screw up again, you can work on getting your act together and still have time to recover.

Once you get over 40 you have real issues. If you lose your home when you’re 44 getting a new one isn’t going to be easy. Do you think a lender is going to look at a 44 year old emerging from bankruptcy trying to get a 20 year mortgage with the same view as a 34 year old?

Healthwise there are a lot of irritating issues. Skin sags, your eyes tend to need reading glasses. This seem trivial until the first time you’re in a store and can’t read a label. You take longer to recover from an illness and you have to weigh things out.

For instance, let’s say you need a root canal. That’s $1,500 where I am. But that’s also a downpayment. Your average root canal will last roughly 10 years. (I’ve had some last much longer and some much shorter). But $1,500 is also a down payment on a new car.

Too often when you get threads you get unrealistic answers by well meaning people, that are overly negative or overly positive.

You cannot feel the same at 40 as you did when you were 20. It’s not true. Unless you were a blob that was comatose. For instance, when I was in my 20 and even 30s I could go to bed at 5am and get up at 7am and go to work. Oh sure I was tired but I got by.

Now if I don’t get eight hours I HURT. I mean a PHYSICALLY HURT.

Growing old is nice if you have financial security and have had a good life, otherwise, not so much.

The real issue is TIME. The thing you have is POTENTIAL. Young people have that.

As you age you learn to accept things, but acceptance doesn’t mean good.

Your perspective changes. For instance, my dad died at 50, my mum at 60. Realistically I am very healthy and that probably won’t happen to me. But it could. At 46, you start to think, Gee maybe I’ll only have 4 Christmas’s left.

I get a kick out of people who say “It’s never too late.” Too often in my life and in other perople’s lives, I’ve see it where in reality it is not only too late, but it’s later than you think.

This is why it’s important not to waste your youth. Do things you want. Get out and live life. This is it and you’re never gonna be young again. And if you fail so what? You have the time to start over.

42

I’m over 30 … by less than a month. So I don’t really feel too qualified to say much, yet, except that I felt strangely but thoroughly relieved at leaving my Twenties behind. Can’t articulate why, exactly. I thought I’d be all “OMG now I’m old and fat and saggy!” but maybe that will kick in later.

(re: Sex getting better - check. Double-check, in fact. :))

43

When I was 24 I quit drinking and started taking responsibility for my actions. I became a grownup.

My thirties were an amazing adventure. When I was 32 I got a traumatic brain injury in an automobile accident and spent the next five or six years recovering. When I was 39 I finally completed a college degree. In my thirties I learned to be patient.

When I was 42 I watched my first wife die. I came to the realization that my life was largely the result of some choice that I had made at sometime in my life and that I was responsible for my personal success/failure. I learned that most of the things that I had thought were important are not. In my forties I learned to be happy.

I am 47 now and have just completed my second college degree. I still have a lot of life to live.

At 24 you have a lot more life to live.

44

I will be 67 next week. I walk my dogs in the park every day. I play 8 to 10 hours of racquetball a week. I don’t feel old . I play against guys who are from 24 to 70 years old. I have plenty of energy . I always wondered if you would outgrow the sex drive. Then you could focus on other things better. Any day now. Any day.
By the way, I beat almost all of them in racquetball.

45

Obligatory linky: Pleasures of life after 40

A slightly checkered past becomes a plus
The length of a line at a movie becomes a factor as to if or when you see it.
You don’t even give that gift certificate for break dancing a second thought.
You can have friendships/loves that have lasted decades.
Your parents get smarter and smarter.
You can say, “Of course I can do that. I’ve done it before.”
Memories of pimple cream have long faded.
You can reassure yourself with “I’ve been through worse and came out just fine.”

You get to josh 20-somethings about feeling old at their age. :smiley:

46

I would say the flip side of that is when you are older, you have to deal with those mistakes for a much shorter period of time.:wink:

I would say life happens in stages. Up until you graduate from high school (about 18 ish) you are really defining yourself on a fundamental level. Sure people change as they get older, but it’s those early years when you are developing you morals and values and overall perspective on the world and your place in it.

After graduation, through college and into your 20s is basically you preparing yourself for adult life. Building your resume with degrees and work experience, learning to live on your own, maybe finding a wife and so on.

Sure you have plenty of time to make up for mistakes, but OTOH, you only have a limited window of oportunity in some cases. Then again, very few mistakes actually destroy a person’s life. They just change it a little.

47

Thanks everyone for the responses. They are definitely a big eye opener.

I think the main reason I fear getting old is because life to me right now is all about getting laid and the next party. I know it’s immature, and probably not the most meaningful thing in life, but it sure is fun. The older I get, the more I move away from this lifestyle and I simply fear I’ll be bored.

Other than that, I just know I’m going to miss all my older relatives and parents when they pass cause they’ve always been there. It’s going to be so tough to watch all of them go.

The upsides look good though, like having a wife, kids, and money to do all the things you want.

48

OK, so much for the Hallmark cards.
I’m 57. I wish I had died 10 years ago.
Every day is never-ending, pounding, stabbing, throbbing pain.
Due to some decisions I thought were good ones at the time, I will never be financially able to retire. I will work until the day I gratefully, finally, drop dead.
I look forward to a few TV shows, a few books and movies. Otherwise, only my pets (and occasionally my spouse, but pretty damn rarely) bring me any pleasure - I’m just talking about a smile or a warm feeling of contentment. Forget sex - it has been a very long time since any part of my body was capable of bringing me anything that takes that much movement.
Besides, there’s nothing about a crippled up body that is in any way arousing. Yuk.
I used to be very athletic. But then there were sports injuries that led to several opereations, mostly unsuccessful. I became severely arthritic in my late thirties. I can barely walk some days.
If you are lucky enough to become disabled, your life will get worse the longer it lasts.
So that’s what getting older is like for me, and I know more than a few people who feel pretty much the same.

49

Oddly enough, I haven’t been laid in over 6 years and have no wife or kids.

But I’m strangely happy.

The Newcastle helps.

50

Pssh, 24? You’re being ridiculous; you’ve still got plenty of time ahead of you. Ah, if I could only go back to your age. Youth is wasted on the young…

Alas, I just turned 25 yesterday. Damn, I’m getting old…

51

What makes you think you’ll live long enough to witness any of the above? I lived your present lifestyle until I was 45, with no regrets whatsoever, but lose focus just one time too many, and it’s you being planted. One day at a time, and be thankful for each one.

52

Well, if you don’t get your shit together, than you don’t have the money to let you shit not be together.

I’m 43. Like a lot of these “happy old farts” here, we are pretty financially secure - which is great. I have two wonderful kids and an awesome husband. Last summer I was in better shape than I’ve been in my life (I have to start running again). I’m pretty respected in my career, and at a point already that I’m looking forward to retirement. Which I’m well saved for. We travel. I watched my kid get two home runs last night. We have sex (once the kids are in bed and its quiet sex so we don’t wake them up - but we also send them to Grandma’s for the weekend - someday they’ll figure out that isn’t about them).

On the other hand I do have friends who got to their early twenties and didn’t get their shit together. They still treat their bodies like 24 year olds - so now they are fat and drink too much. They never got serious about a significant other with whom they could form a mature relationship - so now they are alone. They never bothered to get a real job - and now they are in dead end jobs with no financial security.

It takes time, effort and energy to get from 24 to 42 and end up in a better place. It isn’t a given. But its sure not a given that the place you will end up will be worse. I wouldn’t go back to 24 if I could.

53

Things I can’t do now that I could do when I was 24:

  • Read without glasses
  • Attract 23-year-old men
  • Have a period (sorry, gross maybe, but true)
  • Be really, really funny

Hmm. I think that’s about it. I exercise a lot more now than I did when I was 24 and am stronger and more fit than I was then, I think glasses make me look distinguished, and I am sooo not interested in 23-year-old men. As for the funny thing, I don’t know what happened, but I’m just not as funny as I used to be.

If we were to make a list about what I can do now that I couldn’t do when I was 24, it would be pages and pages long.

I’m 53, and the only thing that makes me feel old, besides the few wrinkles I see when I look in the mirror, is being around my twenty-something coworkers. And it’s because they make me feel so experienced and wise and mellow, not because they make me feel physically old.

54

When I was 24 I had already been married for 2 years to my childhood sweetheart and I had life all planned out. But life had it’s own plan and I had to learn to adapt and change.

When I was 34 I was the new father of 2 fine sons with my 2nd wife and things were going fine, but that too would change and catch me by surprise.

When I was 44 I had been a single father for 10 years and was also taking care of my mother. I was resigned to a boring life of duty. But life had other plans for me.

I will be 54 later this year. I am very happily married to a 40 year old woman with enough energy that I might never slow down. My sons are your age Scotty Mo, 25 and 23, with lives of their own. I still get out on the town to burn the midnight oil sometimes, usually with my sons and their friends. My wife and younger son just got back from a week in Vegas as part of a large group of extended softball family. We can still play hard if we want, we stay on the go all year long.

I do not feel old. And I’m sure some 70 year old would tell me that I am not. I am blessed with great health, I finally went to the doctor last year for the first appointment that wasn’t due to an injury and all that was needed was a weak blood pressure pill and see you in 6 months. That was my first routine check up ever.

My hair has grey in it, I sometimes groan when I rise from a chair, I don’t jump anymore and seldom run, and you my think I am old but I won’t think so for many more years.

The only real drawback is that I know a lot more dead people now than I did at 24.

I hope there are good things in store for you down the road. If you are lucky, as I have been, there will be unexpected and wonderful things on that long road.

55

I don’t think you can really talk about getting old until you’re into at least your late 40’s. Until then there’s not much difference, at least for me. After that, the most annoying thing is my vision. All of a sudden I have so many pairs of glasses it’s a big bother. Glasses for distance, for reading, for working on a computer, etc. And then many times the best option is no glasses! Other than that I find that age brings greater peace of mind and acceptance of things that cannot be changed. Part of this serenity comes from financial security. So, if I have a chance to tell my 24 year old version one thing it would be to invest wisely and sooner than I had done. Still, I didn’t totally missed the boat and don’t worry about money much. Besides vision, physically what happens is that your body does get more aches and pains that take a bit longer to go away. There are a lot of pluses to getting older if you continue to learn and keep your mind active. You will know more and the world will make more sense to you. It is also so rewarding to see your children succeed on their own. And that’s one thing that cannot happen unless you get older!

56

“I do not envy youth it’s heart, but only it’s head and stomach.” – Lord Peter Wimsey

I on the other hand, envy youth it’s bladder.

57

My early 20’s were spent in grinding poverty. Due to health issues I couldn’t afford to have taken care of I actually didn’t look very good and my stamina was crap. “Carefree” did not exist in my world - life was a grind of looking for work and figuring out how I was going to feed myself after paying the rent on a vermin-filled apartment.

Sure, I DID have more to look forward to - about the only way to be worse off would have been to be homeless. Which nearly happened.

So clearly, mileage varies. My early 20’s sucked.

They don’t have to. I am still the same weight I was in my senior year of high school. Yes, it takes self-discipline but you DON’T have to get fatter as you get older.

And, since I have since been able to take care of some health issues I usually look better now, in my 40’s, than I did in my early 20’s.

Can’t speak for men (with or without limp dicks) but I’m much more confident now than I was at your age. Happy? Well… in some ways much happier, even when stressed. Maybe it’s because I can better distinguish between the really important stuff and the fluff.

What, pray tell, do you want to do that you CAN’T do at 25 or 30? Seriously?

I didn’t earn my pilot’s license or sell any of my writing or be paid to perform as a musician until I was a decade older than you are now. Admittedly, I did go to Europe in my teens, but there’s really nothing stopping me from going back there any time I want (except for money, but I could swing it if it was really a priority).

So what do you feel you’re too old to do?

Get off your ass and make better memories.

Look, there are some people who stop living at 30. Or younger. I feel sorry for them. I know other people who keep doing new things and going new places into their 80’s and 90’s. I want to be that kind of old fart.

You get to choose which sort you want to be.

My 30’s were MUCH better than my 20’s. I got a decent paying job. I got out of debt. I learned to fly airplanes. I got paid for some of my writing. I joined a marching band.

You know, if I had made a list of everything I wanted to do in life I managed to do all of it by 35 - except go into space. So I had the “trauma” of making a NEW “bucket list”. Which I am happily working on here in my mid-40’s, despite an interruption of a new episode of poverty.

So… my advice is to keep moving and keep doing stuff. Keep trying new things. Travel a little bit. Keep meeting new people.

If there’s something you want to do figure out how to get it done and do it. It may take awhile, but I find the older I get the easier it is to take on long-term projects.

58

I’m 64.

I was recently reading about Donny Hathaway, who was a talented “soul” musician back in the 70s. At the age of 33, probably under the influence of drugs, he took his own life by jumping out of a 15th-floor hotel window.

Donny Hathaway and I were born on the same day.

I have to look back at myself at the age of 33, and wonder what if my life had ended then. I am amazed at how much I’ve experienced since then, and how much I’ve changed . . . the people I’ve come to know . . . the things I’ve done . . . the places I’ve seen. My 33-year-old self would have been amazed. I’m almost twice that age now, and can honestly say that I’ve lived more since that age than I had before.

Donny Hathaway never had that. At the age of 33, he decided that he’d lived enough, loved enough, learned enough, and didn’t need to continue living.

What a pity, and what a waste.

59

I’m 67. I exercise 5 days a week, and have just taken out most of my back lawn and replaced it with gravel that I wheel barrowed in from the street. I am financially secure (started saving and investing in my early thirties) and able to do almost everything that I want to do…dance, swim, hike, travel, hang out with friends, and so forth. I read the books I like, eat almost anything I want, and wear what makes me happy. I have several areas of interest, and am still involved in botanical education and conservation. And I read the SDMB most days and sometimes contribute.

I know that 67 might seem impossibly old to you. It certainly did when I was your age. But I don’t have acne. Age can bring lots of miseries, but it can also bring great satisfaction and peace of mind and soul. Age can remove the focus on self, and let one see and hear others better - at least that’s what has happened with me.

And BTW, my friend downstairs works just fine, thank you. And I find ladies of mature years to be quite attractive…fortunately they don’t mind my loss of hair and lessened hearing - they are more interested in other things. Our values have changed a bit since our teens and twenties, as will yours.

So enjoy the ride. Prepare for the future, but don’t fear it. Life is pretty nice in most ways at all ages, I’ve found.

60

Broomstick - basically messing up with two girls I really liked. I know I’ll find another but it just feels like they’ll always be something missing because of them. Or maybe I’ll forget about them? And other than that, would be not doing as good in school and wrestling as I should have.

You older folks who are happy, healthy and financially secure - I want to be just like you. I was honestly expecting more people to come in here telling me how much it sucks and to not waste what I got now. Instead I got just the opposite. Thank you for all the responses. You’ve changed my perspective very much.