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

reduced energy levels is a weird winner to me. i don't care about that, i didn't have much energy when i was younger either!

I have grey hair in my goatee and it is really, really distressing

I might shave the whole thing off despite my wife's objections

A friend and I - who are both still under 40 and therefore young!!! - recently & independently both noticed feeling tired after concerted or prolonged mental effort. I suppose it's no different from feeling knackered after a decent bout of exercise, which isn't something you notice so much when you're younger, but it's a curious thing to suddenly be aware of.

lol djp i'm almost a decade younger than you and i have mad gray hairs in my sideburns. which i don't even mind at all because graying feels a lot less lame than having a receding hairline.

p. sure the worst part is going to be dealing with the decline of my parents tho

Yeah. It's hard emotionally because I love them and it sucks to see them start to fail in small but fundamental ways. But also practically speaking, I'm an only child and my parents live in a place that I never, ever want to live again and have made it abundantly clear that they will not submit to residential nursing care, nor will they move to Chicago to live with me. When I'ved asked what solution they propose, they respond, "Just take me out back and shoot me!" but that's not likely to happen.

i love the grey in my temples a) bc i still have tons of hair so who cares what color it is and b) i get to tell ppl the story of Rabbi Elazar Ben Azaria who said "i am like a man of 70" and the story goes that he was actually like 18 and a great scholar but no one respected him bc of his age so god made his hair go grey early so that ppl would respect his opinions.

lol djp i'm almost a decade younger than you and i have mad gray hairs in my sideburns. which i don't even mind at all because graying feels a lot less lame than having a receding hairline.

I think I'm just mad because neither of my parents started going noticeably grey until they were well into their 50s

Although now that I think about it, my dad sported a boss 70s mustache up until I was about 7 or 8 and he was 40-41, after which he started going clean-shaven; maybe his facial hair started greying then too and I was just too young to notice

I am not super concerned about thinning hair/receding hairlines because I basically have shaved my head for the past 20 years and I know I look good bald

DJP I've never seen you in the flesh but you're painting a pretty badass picture of yourself

as Seinfeld taught us baldness only looks good as a choice xp

My lolcoworkers were in the car on the way back from lunch one day and one mentioned his son asked what getting old is like and his answer was "It hurts."

So yeah, aches and pains and not bouncing back quite as quickly as you did in youth.

Graying is superficial. I have scarcely a gray hair in my head and I would trade it for not being winded after going up 2 flights of stairs.

OK, not really.

I really need to restart a gym routine and I am fucking terrified to do so because I can't bear the thought of 6 weeks of gym aches before my body begins to adjust to the new reality

I keep having neat white/gray hairs but I see them in the rearview mirror as driving to work and accidentally pulling them out thinking that I have a cat hair stuck in mine.

you know you can dye your beard

p. sure the worst part is going to be dealing with the decline of my parents tho

― mookieproof, Thursday, August 9, 2012 7:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel a lot younger than I am which is some weird sort of disconnect or something. Last week though 3 separate people on the same day expressed shock at finding out how old I am so maybe I'd still doing OK looks wise. If I really start to think about it it does freak me out but most days I still think I'm 18 so whatever. Was supposed to go dancing tonight but am sick. BOOOO. I was really excited for the dancing.

I try not to put much stock in age ideas because some people seem like they're perpetually in their early 20s because:
1. They look like they're 40 as soon as they hit 22
2. They continue to wear cargo shorts and baseball caps and act like drunken 22 year olds from that age until after 40

Not to say anyone here falls into that, but it leads people to think anyone who doesn't look prematurely aged is young, or anyone who doesn't act like a moron is old, sometimes.

someone in my office just looked at me like i was taking the piss when i told them my age; so I'm feeling pretty good about it. i thank tomatoes. that said, i bet i just wake up one day looking like i've aged about 10 years and it's downhill from there.

i thought grey hair was one of the best things about ageing. i like it. silver hair. white hair.

http://img2.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/n/r/nrl6ye3le9iyyil.jpg http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/a-c/cnn.981006_bb.jpg

Grey/silver hair is the 100 percent single best thing of these options.

Bacharach still looked pretty youthful at 70, but it's hard to pull off at 84.

p. sure the worst part is going to be dealing with the decline of my parents tho

― mookieproof, Thursday, August 9, 2012 7:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― (✿◠‿◠) (ENBB), Friday, August 10, 2012 9:06 AM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

I still feel more or less good 90% of the time. Not as good as when I was 27, but that was 10 years ago. I think the external physical shell is holding up fairly well and I take care of the internal stuff by eating well and exercising regularly. It's the emotional stuff that's hard for me. Friends disappearing into parenthood, my parents approaching the age where they need to start worrying about their decline, stuff like that.

Also having fewer things in common with my oldest and closest friends totally sucks.

still refuse to believe LL isn't actually 27

Also having fewer things in common with my oldest and closest friends totally sucks.

― nicest bitch of poster (La Lechera), Friday, 10 August 2012 16:04 (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes it's strange. suddenly everyone "knows what they like/likes what they know", which basically means they're not up for trying out different things, which boils down to "i'm just gonna stay in because i don't like the sound of (whatever it is you suggest)"

Don't have kids, kids.

you know you can dye your beard

I am never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER going to dye me beard unless it's some ridiculous comedy color like magenta or khaki

khaki beard = the one! but you might end up looking like mossman.

I'm kind of guilty of that! But I think a good portion of it is that I went to see a number of bands years ago, but mostly because it was all I knew to do and I knew I'd see friends there. These days, I don't care as much about seeing those people and have other things I'd rather spend my time on. Also, bands are too loud and the youth that are there to see them are obnoxious (hehe).

I was definitely guilty of the "why won't they book good bands" complaint recently, but I am not sure whether it's because I'm old and don't like the same new stuff, or because the booking is genuinely lame. I think it's partially the latter.

Youth at shows are obnoxious. I was quiet and contemplative at shows in my youth.

I actually have liked about 90% of the things about growing old :(

good bands want money. promoting makes pretty much zero money.

The first three or four decades of old age are the worst. Fifty to ninety is what I call "the impairment scenario": you're the same old you, but every day a little the worse for wear. But after ninety you enter "the estrangement scenario".

It's a whole new world. Imagine you're into fashion when you're young. From fifty to ninety you find it increasingly difficult to cut a dash because your hair thins out, your neck hangs loose, your belly goes pear-shaped; everything is the same but worse. But in your nineties there's a re-calibration, a renaissance. You find a really amazing pink tartan cover for your kidney dialysis machine. Tuberculosis, you realise as you admire yourself in the mirror, has made you stick thin. Those suits you had made up in Singapore in 1962 have come right back into fashion. It looks even better when you wear the jacket as trousers, even if you did it accidentally the first time.

Imagine you're into contemporary art when you're young. You're the sort who doesn't read the text on the gallery wall because it destroys the mystery, the freshness. Well, once your brain starts to go and you can't remember yesterday, everything is mysterious, new and fresh! Your son comes to visit: what an interesting new friend! You used to love Sherlock Holmes, but knew all the episodes backwards. Well, dig out that Talking Book, friend, because Conan Doyle has given them all new endings! And middles! And beginnings!

You used to pay lip service to Nietzsche's line about living dangerously. "Live every day as if it were your last", you said, while assiduously avoiding all actual risk. But now you're over 100, every day really could be your last.

The estrangement phase is edgy! Exciting! New! Fresh! God, I envy you for having it ahead of you! If I could live it all over again, I would. And, you know what? I can! Because I've forgotten all about it!

Today everything is upside down! It's because I've fallen out of my wheelchair in the disabled toilet and the alarm cord is out of reach, but I haven't realised that yet. I just think the cubicle had very avant-garde make-over. Christ, I love life! Live fast, die old!

Don't have kids, kids.

have kids or don't - that discussion has been done to death - but i must say having kids makes getting old more bearable ime

Grampsy my house applauds your post and salutes you, sir

Mutual Grampsy appreciation society

but having kids makes you look older, fer sure. xxpost

sorry, but downer time.

worst part of getting old(er).

finding out just how fucking endemic cancer is, despite all the medical magic of the modern world.

you hit 40+ and all of a sudden your life is full of people with cancer stories.

survival. death. chemo. surgery.

within 2 years my whole world has been swallowed up by cancer, and i just want it to fuck off.

please.

"please don't confront me with my failures/I have not forgotten them" (motherfucker)

^^^

for some people the worst part of getting old is going to be having to admit that Jackson Browne has yr number

And had it at age 16. Yow.

So long as it turns out Jack Johnson doesn't I'm good.

I wonder which one of the ILX women will be the first one to go through menopause. I suspect it will be me; my period has lightened considerably in the last few months, and the day of the month it falls on is starting to shift around.

^ask me in about 3 months.

but having kids makes you look older, fer sure. xxpost

― kate78, Saturday, August 11, 2012 3:18 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is absolutley true. I see it most obvoiously in fb friends from HS who had kids in their early 20s. They look so much older now than the people I know who haven't had kids or had them later. I mean it makes sense. Parenting, for all it's joys and great points, is surely a very stressful and tiring thing.

i really really am not sure i want kids. like ever. i don't hate children - some of them are alright, delightful even, but I did spend a good deal of my late childhood/teenage years with screaming kids (my brothers and sisters) around me. I know the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations, cos I was there every step of the way and I just don't know if I could do it again (plus the added responsibility of it being, y'know, my kid).

feeling lately like having (teenage) kids takes years off yr life #tradeoffs

eh, people who don't have kids don't live any longer, they just look less weary while living