What are best and worst parts about getting older

Boom. As I grow older I get new health problems every decade. 'tis ‘fun’ so far and I can’t wait to see what the next 40 odd years throw at me healthwise.

So the health decline is the worst part. Not just your own, but the decline of your loved ones. You watch parents who were once strong and seemed invulnerable become weak and fragile. That sucks.

Also the fact that things are much more mundane kindof sucks. Time passes fast and now it is almost christmas again. We have a work christmas party soon, it seems like the last party was last month but it was last year. Things blur into each other and it feels like there is a transparent plastic film separating me from the rest of the world. I don’t feel things as intensely as I did when I was younger, and I guess this is normal. Your identity isn’t in flux and external events don’t shape/affect your core personality nearly as much.

On the plus side there are a variety of benefits I have noticed as I age:

My sex drive is down. I personally love this. I did so many embarrassing things in my 20s trying to meet women. I remember when Louis CK did a bit about seeing a hot girl on a date with someone and not being interested in her. ‘I’ll just go home and jerk off to you later, probably have a better time [than your date]’.

On the subject of Louis CK, humor is better as you get older. I would never understand the humor or Bill Burr, Louis CK, Doug Stanhope, etc. as a teenager. Humor is much easier to find now than when I was younger. I guess you need life experience to appreciate humor. You appreciate many different shades and types of humor because you’ve had more life experience.

Plus things don’t scare me as much. That is a nice benefit.

My mental health has improved. Less insecurity and neuroticism.

Personal relationships are more meaningful.

You appreciate family more, partly because you know they won’t be around forever.

You appreciate little things more (like watching netflix after working all day, or drinking after working all week)

Kids add a new layer of meaning to life and help rekindle feelings of joy around special events like birthdays and holidays.

I’m sure there are others.

Its not all bad. If they could fix this whole health decline and make adult life less boring and mundane getting older would be pretty nice.

After a certain age, everything either dries up or leaks.

The bad part are health problems and getting closer to death.

There are no good parts.

The best part: You finally know exactly how you would live your life, if you could go back in time and be young again.

No, wait, that’s the worst part.

The good parts;

Morning sex is awesome

Not having to be somewhere at any given time is awesome

Being free to go where ever you want everyday is awesome

Taking care of your grandkids is awesome

The bad parts:

Taking care of parents with dementia sucks

Dealing with siblings about parental units care sucks

Being responsible for parental units bills suck

Trying to reassure parental units with dementia that assisted living is better than living in their own homes is in their best interests sucks, especially when siblings say they will care for said parents when they have no intention to do so.

The worst part: I have zero interest in meeting a man and having sex.

The best part: I have zero interest in meeting a man and having sex.

I’m already getting wrinkly and saggy, but at least I’m doing it in private.

First, don’t worry about the wrinkly and saggy part. I guarantee there are plenty of men who don’t care.

As for the other part I have noticed the longer I go without sex the easier it is to not miss sex. Then, by hook or crook, I get lucky and it all comes crashing home to me that I have forgotten how awesome it is and have been missing out on something great.

C’est la vie.

Bad: just don’t have the energy nor the ability to recover I used to have, and things like staying up all night are not adventures, just disasters. Body is slowly crumbling. I’m a good bit uglier.

Good: So many things that once gave me great emotional pain are now reduced to vague, familiar irritations. From the death of personal dreams to ecological tragedies. I used to try so terribly hard and care so horribly much. I perfectly understand why, but I no longer feel the need to do much that I don’t enjoy, or get upset about things I can’t fix. The future is a lot more like now than it used to be. I never used to be grateful because I always knew it could be so much better. Now, I realize that it probably can’t, so may as well be grateful.

I love how you put all this. Wonderfully said.

Bad: I devote far more time to hair removal than I used to.

Good: I do what I want when I want the way I want, and I truly don’t care how anyone else feels about it.

Ditto on the sex comments above. I’d like to add that as you and your partner both age, sex becomes more mundane, and it’s a good thing. It’s actually nice not to have all the emotional stress tied into it as when we were young. It becomes a thing we joke about, and (almost) have to put it on our Outlook calendars, lest we forget.

After I got my new pills, I proudly announced to mizPullin I was renaming our boat to “My Dixie Wrecked”. She rolled her eyes and suggested at my age I should name it the “Sea Alice” (and use little pairs of bathtubs for the quote marks).

Har dee Har Har…

When I think back on how deeply and how ferociously I FELT or EXPERIENCED or CARED and HOW MUCH I HAD TO EXPRESS IT THIS VERY SECOND it’s like I’m looking at a stranger. I must have been a handful. It would explain a lot. Thank god the internet didn’t exist at the time!

I used to a quite competitive – I HAD to be the best at my job, for example because, although I didn’t realize it, I desperately needed the validation. I would have literally laid down my life for my employers. Just thinking about it now exhausts me because I have maybe 1/100ths of the drive now. It’s not that I’m slow. I don’t care as much anymore because I’ve already proven myself.

The worst part is funerals – which seem to increase over the years.

The best part is finally knowing how to relax. Just totally kick back and relax.

You approach a zen state whereby you don’t care any more and are willing to gun down a mass of major politicians as payback; however, the need to take a bathroom break every half mile slows down your getaway.

Ditto on the zen state - I just don’t care. I! DON’T! CARE!

Now, the difficulty with this is that other people do, and especially at work with younger management type people, this can become a “performance issue”. Mgr: “So, I’m not seeing the level of engagement…”

How can you say the bad part is getting closer to death and not include that the good part is, you know, not dying?

Me, the best part of getting older is just that. Every age brings something interesting and new, and a new maturity. I feel like in my thirties I finally “got it”, and now that I am nearing 40 I am looking forward to that feeling.

The bad parts are definitely not recovering as quickly from injuries, and always feeling tired. Also the cynicism, which only grows every year.

As to the sex, I remember being in college and an older friend of mine telling me she doesn’t need a man because she had a vibrator. It blew my mind. I loved sex! While I still love having sex, I have to admit I’m getting her now. My vibrator is so much less demanding and less messy.

Last year I decided to keep the (artificial) Christmas tree trimmed, and tucked away in a corner. This year all I had to do was scoot it over to the window and plug it in. It’s just not worth installing all the lights and ornaments, now that Christmas is happening so often.

Something must be wrong with me, I’m 53 and my sex drive is through the roof. Although I’m blessed with a wonderful wife who has a pretty healthy interest in sex, I think my constant interest in doing it with her must be a bit off putting at times. I try to keep it cool.

I agree with the zen comments above. I like having a bit of perspective on the ups and downs. I also love being able to say “Let’s not do Thanksgiving (or Christmas) this year” and just not care about the rest of the world engaging in the crazy.

I loved having little kids and even teenagers, but I’m also pretty happy they’ve grown up and moved out. I have some time back to do things, or not do things, on my own schedule.

I don’t like losing my hair, and having a hard time losing weight. Other than that, I’m pretty healthy, so far at least.

As you age, you get treated with a bit more respect. In my 50s I can dress like a slob and people still call me “sir.” In my 20s, I was just a slob.

Are we related? Does your sister insist this yet she lives 3000 miles away, while parent is here?

This. Want to complain loudly within my hearing about something I did you didn’t like? Go for it. I’ll ignore you all day long.

I truly envy you this feeling. My good about aging is I am free to say NO when family tries entangling me in their bullshit.

It would be helpful if people would give their approximate ages, so we’d know just what stage of ‘older’ they’re talking about.

I’m 60, and there’s a lot of good stuff.

I’m happy with my life, overall - my wife, my son, my job, and so forth.
I’m good at my job, but don’t feel I have to prove myself.
After decades of very complicated relationships with my parents, I’ve been pretty much at peace with them for years now.
A lot of the small stuff bothers me a lot less than it used to.
I may not be in the best shape of my adult life, but I’m not all that far off it either.
Having come to parenthood unusually late in life, I’ve got a lot to look forward to as the Firebug grows up.
The sex drive is kinda minimal nowadays, which I’m okay with.

The bad stuff:

Parents and in-laws are still alive, but are either in terrible shape physically, or are senile, or both, depending on which one. Watching their worlds diminish is a sad thing.

Which makes me appreciate them more! I mean now that I have the emotional maturity to not put up with their bullshit, our interactions are far more pleasant. I give and take exactly as much as all parties are willing.

I like the self confidence maturity has brought. I no longer have any shame in saying me and my SO are spending Thanksgiving (or any holiday) together and no one else; that’s my choice and frankly I am probably happier than many people who feel sorry for me.

I’m 39 btw.

RTFirefly reminds me of one of the bad things of my life: most of the elder generation is dying off. Out of the five people in my mother’s family, only 2 remain - the two middle children. Out of the 8 on my dad’s side, we have lost 3. It’s frightening, like one of the protective veneers of my life is slowly being stripped away. :frowning: