I’m 56. It was an unpleasant moment when, around 40, I realized that I couldn’t just eat whatever I want and not have to worry about my weight. My metabolism definitely shifted, and I have to be a lot more mindful of my diet and exercise. I also sometimes ache when I get up in the morning, depending on the position of my arms and legs while I slept. I’ve had some other health issues in recent years that have, from time to time, made me very uncomfortable or have to seek medical help. And my first colonoscopy was no picnic. Boy howdy.
As my grandfather liked to say, “Growing hold is hell!”
I guess what has surprised me the most is that young men now take me much more seriously. When I was a young woman young men seemed to pay no heed to me except as potential for dating/bed partner. Now, when I talk to them they actually seem to hear what I say. I guess they’re seeing more as “mom” than “potential girlfriend”. It’s kind of a relief, actually.
The other thing is the prospect of being the last one standing in the family - my parents are gone, one of my sisters, the remaining two are older and less healthy than I am, two of three nephews are deceased… I expected to outlive my parents and possibly my siblings, I did not expect to outlive half the following generation, too.
I’m not sure it was ‘unexpected’, because I never understood why I should be treated like that in the first place, but when I started looking old and derelict, women stopped being proactively rude to me.
This and this! Yes! I also miss running and jumping, which I can’t do any longer, but I don’t miss them very much. But my memory! Dang! That’s kinda vital! I have to maintain a big wall-calendar with all my important dates – birthdays, dentist, etc. – and update and review it religiously.
I think the mental decline took me most surprise. I don’t feel much dumber than 20 years ago, but when I look back at things I wrote a month or a year ago it seems indistinct from an NFL linebacker with decades of brain injury.
I’m 51. The biggest surprise so far was that my body kind of gave up alcohol without asking me. I always was a lightweight, but really enjoyed a drink when I had one. Now mostly alcohol gives me a headache and fatigue to the point that I’ve become conditioned to avoid it. This was a slow change, probably started in my early 40s. I kind of miss the quick path to pleasure that a drink offered, but I suppose this problem is better than the opposite.
My left knee kind of fell apart at age 48. This was not a huge surprise because my knees had been aching for years, but it is sad to have gone from someone who even in my early 40s would dash up stairs and scramble up rocks and balance on logs to someone who can’t do any of those things and has to be much more deliberate and measured about movement. I’ve actually had a great recovery from the initial decomposition but I’m not the same as before. One day I might have a knee replacement, but I’ve been told to put it off as long as possible.
My sex drive skyrocketed after 40 though this may have less to do with age and more to do with my kids getting old enough for me to get enough sleep regularly.
I have also been surprised that the future has arrived and seems slightly less terrible than any dystopian imagining of my youthful sci-fi consumption, but also far more ridiculous. Basically the science fiction visionary has proved to be Mike Judge in creating Idiocracy and that is too bad. I figured by now I would be living in a nuclear wasteland, so this is…better…probably??
Fortunately, with the ways things are going in the world, I doubt I’ll live much past 40 or so There’s not exactly much of a future left to look forward to!
I saw them in concert in 1989. Leading up to the concert one of the radio stations created some alternate lyrics: “People try to p p put us down/Talkin’ 'bout my medication!”
What I miss a lot about getting old is losing chunks of my singing voice. Growing up, I always sang with the radio or someone playing a guitar or even a capella in the shower. Now I’ve lost range, I get a “dry voice” thing or vocal fry or I’m shifting octaves in mid-song, etc.
Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone? I got compliments so I guess I was good. I just enjoyed singing for its own sake, whether anybody was around to hear it or not, and I assumed I’d be able to do so forever.
There’s not exactly much of a future left to look forward to!
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