Poll: what's the worst part of getting old?

Yes...As Jerry told George, "That's okay--it'll all be over in another 40 or 50 years."

The feeling of time running out, and the self-imposed pressure of feeling you should be making the most of each moment.

Yes this, totally. I have started to feel regret that I never used to. "wait, I'm not done yet", wishing I'd planned on buying a house a lot sooner (ie at all), regretting some of the timewasting relationships I was in, and basically, not wanting to die :/

The thing that annoys me the most is that anytime I'm sore or injured - from exercise, headache, accident, whatever - it both takes longer to recover and sets off a panic that it's some sort of horrible disease or ailment that I've avoided until now. Like I get sore from raking and other lame shit and feel that my sore shoulder equals impending heart attack.

It's weird to have so many people OTM-ing the loss of wonder - I can't ever imagine this happening. I'm probably more this way now at 37 than I was at 17 when I was a moron and didn't have disposable income and the internet. I'm constantly amazed at how many awesome things there are that I still have to learn about, and super excited that my job lets me just take random college courses for free. Plus now I have a TINY MAGICAL BOX that I can carry a hundred records on and use to communicate with everyone I know, can show me pictures and maps of anywhere in the world, and it's capable of answering any question that I have instantly.

Shakey OTM, a "best part of aging" companion poll would be good.

the thing about your sense of wonder is that it's something you don't exactly have to guard, but you do have to guard against the things that threaten it i.e. you have to not cultivate jadedness even though young cats are very keen to affect as jaded a posture as they can early on because it reads as worldly + plus when all yr peers are striking the jaded pose it's hard to not fit in; you have to stay hungry for new stuff even as you're realizing that slowing circuits are going to mean it takes more work as time progresses to really come to an understanding of the new stuff you're choosing to get into, but it's worth it to put in the extra work because you basically get to stay young forever if you do, etc. tbrr this is why when some of the young cats on ilm do their hatin'-on-stuff routine I think "you guys are seriously fucking yourselves up, strike that pose a while longer and see what it does for your feeling of newness down the line" and so on...which is v. "make that face & it'll stick that way" I know, but as far as I'm concerned is true -- if you spend your younger years cultivating an I'm-already-over-it persona, you may not enjoy the feeling you have when you actually legitimately feel over-it all the time and you miss the openness you intentionally killed.

this problem has afflicted a number of people I know is why I mention it.

Following up on that, aero -- my wife helped me come up with the list of poll options this morning, and I was updating her on this thread this afternoon when she, my daughter and I were out to eat. I mentioned that "losing one's sense of wonder" had come up, and without knowing what we were referring to, my daughter said "losing your sense of wonder isn't as much of a problem as feeling like you can't talk about your sense of wonder without getting mocked."

You have raised a wise daughter!! Awesome!!

It's weird to have so many people OTM-ing the loss of wonder

For me at least I OTMied it in the sense of the loss of wonder at the little everyday things. When you're a child EVERYTHING is amazing and new and awesome and as you grow up that inevitably goes away. You can still find the little everyday things awesome but it's different and doesn't usually inspire the pure giddy excitement that it does in kids.

I'm constantly amazed at how many awesome things there are that I still have to learn about.

I mean, this is true for me too. Absolutely. I'd sort of worry about people from whom it wasn't.

How "old" is old? My father passed away last year after a long illness but his biggest complaint until the last six months of his life were deteriorating vision and hearing. Frankly that is the part that scares me the most.

I guess it depends on how physically active you are. My dad was gardening, lifting weights and riding a bike until his last year.

The great fear is of some sort of degenerative illness, forcing an active mind to live in a sedentiary body.

Then again:

1) I was quite poorly between the ages of 24 to 28, and actually I didn't feel much like going clubbing/eating marv meals, etc. So, the mind adapts to circumstances...
2) A famous author had some sort of alzheimers (was it Doris Lessing?), her husband famously remarked that by the end she loved watching the Teletubbies. OK, that seems like horror, but it's still a happy body/mind...

It's that fear that makes people suicidal at the first instance of forgetting something that should be solid within memory (name of husband/wife/kids, that sort of thing)

Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.

Naah, they were always awful, it's just that you can't remember what they were like when you were 18 (for example)...

It's weird to have so many people OTM-ing the loss of wonder

It's not really a conscious thing, it's just the way it is. I'm always open to a new film or piece of music knocking me out, and now and again, that does happen. But when I think about how (to use the same two examples) Taxi Driver and Neil Young hit me when I was 17 or 18, it's just highly unlikely that anything will overwhelm me to the same degree again.

No but there are compensatory pleasures and other ways of being surprised by joy...and recognizing it when it comes.

Absolutely. Believe me, I absolutely hate jadedness. I've always told myself that if that ever creeps into my writing, I'll simply stop writing. It's the most tiresome thing in the world.

my immediate answers today are "my knees" and "the morning after eating Indian food."

so these nails youre talking about are toenails, right?

I absolutely must expand my vocabulary.

Worse hangovers!

when I think about how (to use the same two examples) Taxi Driver and Neil Young hit me when I was 17 or 18, it's just highly unlikely that anything will overwhelm me to the same degree again.

Nothing wrong with raising your standards

Is that because now you can afford to drink more? (xpost)

When I see this thread title I can't ward off "The best part of wakin up.... is Folger's in your cup!"

Like more and more years of my life are happening w no one to witness them except me, and I am an unreliable narrator

This is the problem with people thinking fiction is like life, in which all narrators are unreliable.

I enjoy doing things in which the absence of witnesses is a plus.

Speaking of which, one great thing about being older now is that all the stupid things I did when I was younger, and all the writing I did that would make me cringe now, is lost to history--vanished into thin air, or buried in local publications that no has anymore except me and a handful of people. No YouTube, no Facebook, no internet, no permanent record.

I voted the aging skin thing, but really it's just a placeholder as the most visible sign of physical deterioration. Body betrayal, and hate that just as I became more comfortable with myself in my head, the outside no longer matches up. Having kids a bit late too, and feeling each year I waited, as a year of their lives that I will miss. Not strictly true of course, but can't help the feeling

so these nails youre talking about are toenails, right?

I've seen it happen to fingernails too, occasionally.

About three of my toenails are grievous, but no one sees em.

another awesome thing about getting older: being entitled to refer to the youth as "young cats" lol

Well, actual childlike wonder is a bit impossible to sustain--it would be strange if we all commuted to work kneeling backwards on the subway bench so that we could stare out the window beaming idiotically with excitement--but maybe something halfway between childish enthusiasm and adult deadishness would be nice? Most adults just seem so resigned and beaten down by life.

Another loss is the heady emotionality of the teenage years. It didn't seem enjoyable at the time, but it would be nice to feel so intensely about everything again . . . maybe.

i have become prone to some really annoying emotionality, particularly crying, and as a man this is pretty embarrassing. fortunately, this has a not-too-broad range of typical triggers, such as observing my kids and freaking the fuck out over how fleeting their childhoods are, and fearing/knowing that my ability to have the role that i have with them is similarly brief.

when louden wainwright's "picture" hits your player and you just cry over your kids, that's too much. plus, it adds in the category of "increased tolerance for aging, balding male singer-songwriters."

new contender

Being closer to death wins every time, and the fact that it's not an option on this poll is telling of the age and/or awareness of the person who started it.

death is all around, guys

And if you're not afraid of that, there's little else worth being afraid of.

fear is the mind killer

death is all around, guys

*throws beret*

Well, exactly! We all deny death as a matter of getting through every day. SO why freak out about things that aren't DEATH? (Apart from certain things, like waterboarding.)

tbrr "watching friends and relatives dying ahead of you" seems to be edging out fear of personal death as the worst part of getting old

Being closer to death wins every time

This is where following American politics and projecting waht the 2060s will be like provides a silver lining.

Diminishing employability

Bad as growing old alone must be, growing old in a close, loving relationship isn't perfect either. You know one of you will almost certainly die first. That thought is scarier than death for me.

Varicose veins

Actually my main problem is that I've gotten so handsome the ladies just will NOT. leave me. alone.

^^^

You are both sleek and dashing, but the worm is about to turn.

The worst part about getting old: acquiring the arithmetic skills necessary to calculate how old your grandparents were when your parents finally reached their age, then subtracting how many years they (your parents) have left.

man death is so certain I don't even see the point in fearing it, it's like being afraid of the sun

^^^

acquiring the arithmetic skills necessary to calculate how old your grandparents were when your parents finally reached their age, then subtracting how many years they (your parents) have left.

eh my grandmother's about to turn 101 and my mother is 65 so that doesn't seem so bad.

by that math I have a whole other lifetime to live coming to me