That’s another thing about getting old. Strange sounds come out of places that never made a sound before. And the smells … you kids don’t even want to know.
Cramps in my feet and lower legs, I’m in agony many nights. Don’t know if it’s getting old or something else? Those ear hairs I pull out. Watching TV I take a good grip and yank. Getting up or sitting down I enjoy having a good “Eh-yeee-aaaaaah”, it’s a sign of my worldliness.
The not trusting farts is precarious.
That the years would start flickering past like some kind of demented kinetoscope.
That’s just begging for spontaneous superficial thrombosis.
For me the failing memory is depresing. But even worse is that you can’t talk about it without someone asking what sort of stuff you’ve forgotten. I really have to work on that to decide if they’re being stupid or if I am. And the shit you wish you could forget? Nu-uh. That’s gonna be the last to go.
I’m only nearing 50 and I already hate all the God damn falling.
I trip and fall at least twice a month and it’s getting harder and harder to get back up. I don’t remember ever falling in my teens and twenties and now I’m on the fucking ground way more than is acceptable.
I notice less heat sensitivity also. I can spend all day out in 100 plus temps now, as a youngster I would have been suffereing.
Bowel incontinence. I’m familiar with urinary incontinence, but bowel incontinence was a new one to me until an older friend told me about her struggles. Then the other day, I was flipping through a magazine and I saw an ad for a tampon-like thing designed to be stuck up the butt. I wanted to laugh and cry.
One thing that hits me regularly- how LONG ago many of my most vivid memories are.
I catch myself saying, “We went to Hawaii a few years ago,” and then realizing “It wasn’t a FEW years ago, it was 14 years ago!”
Or “I went to an Oilers game at the Astrodome a few years ago,” then realizing the Oilers have been gone from Houston for 17 years, and the Astrodome is pretty much unused.
Allergies and post nasal drip. I never had them when I was younger.
Macular degeneration, glaucoma, and cataracts. All at once.
Wow, this is depressing!
Maybe I’m not quite old enough yet for the really bad stuff (although the ear hair is here), but losing a third of my weight made lots of things better. I even took up inline skating after having been on skates maybe three times in as many decades, and I find that I’m getting better pretty quickly. I do fall once in a while, but no trouble getting up.
One thing I did notice when going to grad school as I was pushing 40 was that I have no trouble absorbing information within my field, but learning truly new things, such as a new language, seems a good deal harder than 20 years ago.
I went to an unfamiliar building at work to get my security badge renewed, and an hour later it took ten minutes to find my car.
I miss my mind.
Regards,
Shodan
Eye floaters. Gah, I hate those. One of you kids should invent a way to screen them out of your eye fluid or laser zap them somehow.
Grunts whenever I get up. I have to actively try not to make a noise.
Hearing loss already by 56.
Yeah, the emergence of stray ear and nasal hairs is bad enough, but the ultimate cruelty is the inability to see them since your near vision is deteriorating.
Supposedly this younger generation (people under 40) will have serious problems with that because we spent so much time listening to MP3 players on high volume. I had my hearing tested and I am about 10-15 years older in the ears than I should be with my ability to hear high frequency sounds. Its going to be a problem when we all turn 50 and many of us can’t hear high frequencies.
I just hope all the music doesn’t cause tinnitus. I’ve had it temporarily and didn’t like it, I wouldn’t want it constantly.
Just kicking the idea around…maybe a little tazing would give her a clear idea of the humor of the situation? 
I guess I have to threadshit, because this is the best time of my life.
Cops don’t hassle me like when I was a teenager, punks don’t see me as a threat to their fragile male egos, and I don’t respond to assholes and road-ragers as if my fragile male ego is at stake.
When I turned 50, it was as if some slow-release anti anxiety med went off in my system. I just don’t give a shit about stupid shit.
I’m not pleased by what I see in the mirror, but then when was I ever?
I don’t look at a young women and say “if only I was 20 years younger,” because 20 years ago I was just as invisible to them as I am now. And anyway, I’m only attracted to women my own age: and when they shoot me down, I genuinely feel “it’s your loss, not mine.” I never did that when I was younger.
A doctor has told me I have a back as bad as a 75-year old, which bodes not well for my longevity; my left eye’s oil gland is irreparably lost so vision is like reading a newspaper through a shower curtain. My hearing makes me a useless old poop in noisy rooms or with people with deep voices. And all I can say to that is “well, so what? That just proves what an inadequate container was my body for my magnificent self.”
Menopause is still kicking my ass. Weight gain, hot flashes, night sweats and such. But the worse thing for me is short term memory. I can be told something and within minutes have to really think hard or have it repeated to me because I CAN’T REMEMBER. Sometimes I wonder if something else is going on with me other than just aging. On the positive I love that I have more of an “I don’t give a shit” attitude than I ever had when I was younger.
Ear hair. Also, I’ve been a hairy guy all of my life, and I also notice that I’m starting to get fuzz, hair, extending from my eyebrows, also, working in from my hairline on the side. Not enough to make me look like a werewolf, but, enough to make me look old and unkempt.
Hearing…my hearing has always been above normal. But, the guys where I work kept saying ‘Whose alarm is that?’ at the same time each day. I held my watch up to my ear, and I could finally hear it.
Makes me wonder if all of that silent passing of gas is only an illusion.
And, with Slithy Tove, above, the cops give me a whole lot more slack in re traffic offenses. When I was a teenager, I got a ticket for breathing, when I was 53, about 4 years ago, I committed 5 ticketable offenses within about a 2 block area, and the officer gave me a warning.
Other way around for me - I utterly loathe hot humid weather now (and it doesn’t even have to be that hot, or that humid.) It makes me sweaty and deeply unhappy. On the other hand, I’m probably more cold-tolerant now than I ever was.
Tinnitus, check.
Chin hairs. I check every morning for chin hairs that sproing out over night.
Glasses suck.
Bad back I’ve had since my 30’s certainly hasn’t gotten any better.
Short term memory sucks, too.
Nose hair, and I’m a woman! :eek:
But, I also look on the bright side - no chronic conditions requiring medications, I’m still pretty thin and fit, and now that I’ve gotten used to the wrinkles and beginning jowls and accepted that fact that yep, I look my age (56), I find that I actually don’t care that much about how others think I look. A couple of years ago I even stopped dying my hair and it’s all grey now. Sometimes I wonder if I’m “letting myself go” or if I’m just realistically putting less investment into trying to look attractive and cute. I’m happy with comfortable, clean, and appropriately dressed for the occasion, nowadays!
Looks like iI have about 12 more years of giving a shit:( But that alone would make up for being fat and bald.