I am too old for this...the 40 plus thread.

I thought it was one of those age-morphed photos of Ned.

Revive for those of us between them pesky kids and the over 50's.

You are probably wiser than many ILXors. Am I remembering correctly that you have kids? They must be growing up! I am looking forward to my kids being older and less dependent on me...

-- Sara R-C, Sunday, April 29, 2007 9:57 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

My kids are now 10 and 7. And are less dependent on me. But I am no wiser. If anything I'm getting more confused. Although perhaps my recognition of my confusion is a sign of wisdom?

I've already started thinking of myself as 40 even though I've technically got a year and a half left.

It's kinda nice. Being young sucked. Being middle aged is way better. Being old is going to be the best yet. I just wish I could make the menopause come early. I know there are drugs you can take to delay it, aren't there drugs you can take to bring it on?

I don't think being young has to suck. It's just that you need certain factors in alignment to make the best of it:

-supportive parents
- stimulating educational environment
- access to a social network

For some reason, despite my mother being mentally unstable, my parents took themselves off to Africa, and had five children without seeming to have any interest in children whatsoever.

I've already started thinking of myself as 40 even though I've technically got a year and a half left.

Funny that, I think of myself as 38 and a half, even though technically I'm 42.

Celebrities Hitting The Big 4 - 0 In 2008.

40 can be a very, very good time of life, if everything is going well for you, but it can also be a time of great discouragement, if you look at yourself and don't like what you see.

My best advice for the ILXors in their early 40s is not to lose sight of the person you most want to be (not necessarily the person you wanted to be when you were 20 and wished you could be a rich and famous whatever-it-was). Then do what it takes to move toward becoming that person. If you do not, you risk becoming an empty husk and a very sad person.

Also, in your 40s, your body should still respond fairly promptly to exercise and reward you for your efforts by adding strength, stamina and energy. If you slide through your 40s, don't expect to make up lost ground very easily in your 50s. It will be 3X harder then.

Celebrities Hitting The Big 4 - 0 In 2008.

i think a few of the people on that list may be lying about their age. no way is gillian anderson only 40!

Allow me to kill this thread by hitting it on the skull with a heavy, blunt piece of advice. Oh, wait... I already did.

Oh! I thought I replied to this. Eh. I must be getting senile. Is this what my 40s are gonna be like? Becoming even more forgetful?

ahahah aimless I loved your advice, classic words of wisdom.

I am afraid my 40's are going to involve more full-time work than the last decade did.

Also, in your 40s, your body should still respond fairly promptly to exercise and reward you for your efforts by adding strength, stamina and energy. If you slide through your 40s, don't expect to make up lost ground very easily in your 50s. It will be 3X harder then.

Yeah. You can still get bigger and stronger in at least your early 40s. I suspect things decline in your 50s though.

(Or getting results gets much harder, I should say).

I'm certainly getting bigger.

My best advice for the ILXors in their early 40s is not to lose sight of the person you most want to be (not necessarily the person you wanted to be when you were 20 and wished you could be a rich and famous whatever-it-was). Then do what it takes to move toward becoming that person. If you do not, you risk becoming an empty husk and a very sad person.

Also, in your 40s, your body should still respond fairly promptly to exercise and reward you for your efforts by adding strength, stamina and energy. If you slide through your 40s, don't expect to make up lost ground very easily in your 50s. It will be 3X harder then.

Thanks Aimless. I think I need to pin this to the fridge and meditate on it daily. I'm in danger of this very problem, I fear.

I am too old for this...the 40 plus thread.

vs.

This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

FITE!!!!!

No contest. I apologise for starting that other one.

Also, in your 40s, your body should still respond fairly promptly to exercise and reward you for your efforts by adding strength, stamina and energy. If you slide through your 40s, don't expect to make up lost ground very easily in your 50s. It will be 3X harder then.

This is the reason I'm exercising now. I mean at age 34, not right now this minute - although I suppose I'm exercising my fingers. Put it another way, I'm doing it because I'm lazy, and it'll be a lot harder if I wait until I'm 40 to start getting fit again.

No need for apologies! xp.

In a few years time so many of us will be in their 40s we will need both threads.

Ok, that last sentence didn;t really make sense but I think you see what I mean. Unless dementia is setting in.

Every time I do any kind of activity I read, often the next day, of someone conking out or at the very least suffering a stroke while doing that same activity, mowing the lawn, having sex, doing the hoovering. Is anything safe for the over 40s?

I don't want to sound like Debbie Gibson but a little more positivity on these threads wouldn't hurt.

(there's a reference for the over-40s if ever there were one...)

grey hairs really coming in now :-\

39 now and staring down the barrel of 40 in November, and I'm in pretty much the same place as I was when I was 30. Which is not necessarly the greatest place to be. On the whole I'm a bit more chilled out about the impending Significant Birthday than I was ten years ago... Which may be a sign of increasing maturity or just resignation to my fate.

you can always ask Mariella Frostrup for advice and be sure of a sympathetic response:

Sex, cigars, travel - his 40th birthday celebrations have gone on all year. But as his friends leave, the rest of his life is looking like a hangover from hell

People can give you a lot of helpful advice about passing the big 4 0 but in my opinion this shit sucks and fuck anybody who thinks otherwise.

Get out there and start celebrating the fact that you still have another 50 per cent of your life to come. And try replacing the 'we' in the penultimate sentence with an 'I'. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill....

There's a degree of self-pity about your plaintive cries that makes it hard to be sympathetic.

And yet Mariella on being 40 herself:

Reaching 40 didn't sneak up on me as I'd been promised. It hit me, head on, like the Eurostar at full speed. One minute I was in my early thirties, thinking that there was still so much to achieve. Next, I'm 40 and wondering why I'd wasted a decade trying so hard

(x-post)

39 now and staring down the barrel of 40 in November september.

i don't have any big hang-ups about it that i know of. could be because having two little kids keeps me too busy to think about much. 50 might be harder because i have a feeling i'm going to emerge from the fog of parenthood and be like, 'wait, i'm 50???'

44 here. coping. no kids for me, thanx. but i do have two wonderful teenage nieces; they buy me CDs (lol) and shit. it's awesome.

carpal tunnel syndrome
lower back pain
acid reflux
need bifocals

yeah lol my body is starting to fall to bits and twenty year-olds think I'm some kind of space monster. this is awesome!

it can only get funnier.

xp
need to stop kidnapping and dissecting them on your dining table then.

I'm not gonna play this stiff upper lip bullshit is all. Fuck getting old.