I always figured I’d need glasses since my parents and all my grandparents wore them, but I didn’t consider how much I wouldn’t be able to see without them. In the shower, I have to be careful about scrubbing because that “dirt” might just be a liver spot or a mole or a bug bite, but it’s not really clear.
Street signs have apparently gotten smaller - I used to be able to read them from blocks away - now they’re only clear a couple of carlengths away, and only if I’m sitting still.
Even faces, even when I’ve got clean glasses on, I sometimes stare trying to figure out if it’s a person I know or if it just *looks *like a person I know. I promise, I’m not being rude - I’m just trying to see you!
And I’m with those of you about pop culture figures - at most, I can tell you if a name is a singer or an actor, but even then, I make no promises. And I don’t generally know what songs are popular because I, too, have either NPR or a local news station on in my car. And we watch the news every night, altho we’re still hip enough to get most of our real news from Jon Stewart. And I find myself much more interested in scientific programs or historic documentaries. But unlike my grandmother, I never got into soaps, so there’s that.
Yeah, I was going to say that. I’m not even old - only just into the second half of my 30s, but it’s kind of weird that sex is just no longer at the forefront of my mind all the time. Maybe part of it is sheer exhaustion, with working long hours, long commuting and having a baby to deal with, but I sometimes think my wife and I have become a cliché of “old people” when we fall into bed and click the light off and go straight to sleep. A couple of weeks ago my wife actually said to me: “You realise we’ve had sex three days in a row? What’s got into us?!”
Other than that, though, I don’t feel “grown up”. When I was a teenager, I assumed that older people somehow thought in a totally different way, because after all they did all this grown-up stuff. But you really don’t. Or maybe, like most of the ageing process, it’s just so gradual that you don’t even notice that you’ve actually developed an interest in gardening and DIY…
It’s much more difficult to wake up in the morning.
I used to be up and fully functional 2 seconds after the alarm clock had rung. Not so much nowadays.
Also, time goes by much more quickly.
When I was I a kid, years were so long that I could barely wrap my head around the concept. Now, a year is nothing.
On a related note, I visited my grandmother a few months ago. Like the rest of my family, she still lives in the town where I grew up. When I got to the station to catch the train home in the early evening, I started looking at various groups of students on the platform. Exactly 20 years ago, I was one of them, waiting for the train with a big bag filled with groceries and clean clothes after spending the weekend with my family, heading back to University. And at that time, there was perhaps a guy in his late 30’s looking at me and thinking the same thing. Now, that hypothetical guy would have been a student 20 years before me, i.e. …
… in 1972 :eek:.
There’s no way that the same number of years have elapsed between 1992 and 2012 as between 1972 and 1992. I mean, 1992 was a long time ago but I still remember it quite clearly whereas 1972 was prehistory, right? Come on, they had freaking hippies, then…
That’s what gets me. My 20th high-school reunion is coming up next year, and I don’t understand how it’s been twenty years. Granted, I didn’t do the marriage-kids-mortgage thing, and aside from some aches and pains and my ass getting fatter, I don’t feel much different. How was that twenty years ago?
The main thing I’ve noticed over the last few years is that I have developed a slow, simmering hatred for teenagers. I know I used to be one of you. I know I think I’m still cool. But please shut all the ups, because I’m trying to get things done, here.
YES! Once in a while, I’ll realize some random years passed comparison, like… Kurt Cobain is to today’s teenagers what Jim Morrison was to us. Some old dead dude who played some pretty cool music a long long time ago. :eek:
CRT televisions are to today’s kids what black and white televisions were to us. Sure, they’re still around, but no one sells them anymore, and you’re more likely to find a dusty one in your grandmother’s spare room than the living room.
When I show my daughter my old favorite movies from when I was her age, it’s the equivalent of my mom showing me movies from the 1950s! E.T. and *Annie *are my daughter’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Gigi!
OK, I’ll stop now…
My grandma blew my mind in the mid-eighties by claiming she didn’t know who Madonna was. I thought she was having me on. These days, I can easily see myself doing the same sort of thing… I would give you an example of someone famous I don’t know, but I can’t think of any.
Somewhat related: did you know that absolutely all of the celebrities you’ve revered in your life are going to die? Not only the ones you had a crush on, or the ones you bought all their albums, but also that one who was sort of funny in that movie you saw that one time. Yes, even them! Whoa.
Sorry, my mind’s still blown from the Madonna thing.
That’s exactly what I do, too. Well, not those specific examples of course but that’s the idea. As a matter of fact, it seems that I’ve been doing this more and more often lately. For instance, my eldest daughter is 6. Now, my earliest memories that I can date for sure are from 1980, when I was 6 myself so perhaps she will have vague memories of what’s happening now in 30 years’ time. That feels weird…
Amidst all this negativity, I’ll point out at least one positive about getting older:
My dad told me that the one benefit of aging was that, for each year older you got, you were able to appreciate a wider range of beautiful women. When you are twenty, you are only interested in looking at 18-25 year olds. When you are thirty, 18-35, and so forth. When you are 60, you can appreciate the beauty of women from eighteen (and, let’s be honest, even younger) right through to 70.
God forbid you ever actually try anything with anyone younger than the old “divide by two and add seven” rule, but for just appreciating the sheer wonder and beauty of the world around you, getting old(er) does have its compensations.
I have since found that Dad was perfectly correct.
Nearly all my trusted service providers have retired and I have a bunch of little kids taking care of me now.
But I need a nine-year-old to help me with my computer.
I’ve cleaned out the emotional baggage that used to slow me down and can pretty quickly get to saying “No” to people or asking for what I want/need.
Memories of the past are in sharp focus, nearly like little mind movies. Breakfast is a memory lost forever.
Time is as elastic as a rubber band.
All along the way there were mentors working behind the scenes and directly with me who had chosen to help me, different ones at different times, and I didn’t recognize it. Argh.
Worrying is a useless pastime.
I rarely hold a grudge because my memory is too short.
Not only do I love my children but I’m actually starting to like them.
Right? I saw on Reddit the other day some big whoop about the woman who posed for what is now the Columbia Pictures logo. Why are they making a big deal out of it, like this is some historic shit? It was 1993. Oh crap, that was 20 years ago. But the 70s is a long time ago – not the 90s. I mean, they played 70s music on the oldies station in the 90s. Are they playing 90s music on the oldies station now?! Because that’s impossible.
So anywho, it appears that pretty much anything that is fun will result in pain the next day.
Also, when old people say “What’s with the kids and…” they’re not purposely being cranks. They honestly don’t get it. I had an “Oh shit, am I old now?” moment when a yet another girl got on the train wearing a big animal hat. I’ve been seeing teenagers with these more often lately and I wondered to myself “What’s with the kids and those hats?” Then I immediately followed that thought with, “Oh shit.” I guess it’s the same thing that’s with kids and rap music and dancing, right? Ugh, I just felt like such a fart for sincerely holding that thought for the first time in my life. Even if I don’t like what the kids are doing (e.g. skinny jeans), it’s not some foreign concept that prompts me to ask what’s that all about.
I still haven’t come to grips with the idea of my boss being younger than I am someday. When that happens, I quit life.
Yeah, sites like reddit are masters at making folks feel old. They often post those “The Karate Kid is older now than Mr. Miyagi was in the movie!” posts and you just can’t believe it, man.
TV taught me that I was old, twice. First, when I was watching a drama series that involved both teenagers and parents, pretty sure it was My So-Called Life. The kids were up to something, and the parents gave them advice, which was of course given a rolleyes and disregarded. I found myself almost shouting at the TV: “You stupid teenagers, listen to your parents! They’ve been there, they know what they’re talking about!” Whereas a few years earlier, I’d be siding with the teenagers 100%.
And of course the second sign: realizing one night that all my favorite shows were on the Discovery Channel or the Smithsonian Channel. It just sorta snuck up on me; when I was a kid, my brother and I would make fun of my dad for watching nature shows on PBS all the time. “Oh, no, not puffins again!” And here I was enjoying a show about the history of national monuments, followed by a ripping jaunt through the National Postal Museum.
Macular degeneration, cataracts, and glaucoma. I just used to get new glasses every few years; now I have to go to an ophthalmologist to check out problems.
That your nice straight teeth when the braces came off don’t stay that way.
And I find myself much more interested in scientific programs or historic documentaries. But unlike my grandmother, I never got into soaps, so there’s that.
:D.