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

then my friend forbid me to drive home, and instead hauled me in her car and drove me to her house, and I puked in her car.

barfing is good for us, not taking any questions on that

But then she sighed, and said, "I don't even know why I'm still here. My husband died 25 years ago. Everyone I knew is dead. I can't go anywhere. I wake up every day and ask God why he still wants me here."

This is basically what my grandma is going through. She seems happy and never complains about anything but the fact that she's still alive seems kind of cruel. She can't walk, her hearing is shot, and she is unable to form any new memories. The thing that's pretty sad about it is that it feels like her live has kind of been erased in a sense. Her and Grandpa were actually kinda local celebrities in the health food business here. In fact that is our whole origin story of how we got here - my Grandpa used to work for General Mills and was starting to make a lot of noise about how by cutting costs they were also greatly reducing the nutritional value of their food, which made some of their labels & advertising misleading. They responded by sending him to the most remote location they had - Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Which is where we would grow up.

I think they were both fairly well-known around here, people knew (and mostly loved) the bakery they had, plus they were written about a lot in the paper. They also both wrote a number of books, boxes of which are still sitting in my garage. Grandpa was actually in the movie Super Size Me, though a lot of his scenes were cut. My Grandma give a lot of speeches in the 80's extolling the virtues of healthy food as it related to mental health. This wound up making her somewhat famous, to the point where she was on the TV circuit for a short while. She was, apparently, the first ever featured guest on the Richard Simmons show. When moving her out of her house a decade ago, my brother actually found the tape. She was actually on two episodes! They are everything I hoped for. Yes, she even gets in the leotard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK22E2wtN_4

I mention this because now, at the age of 92, she's not really much of anybody anymore. Nobody in the home knows who she was. They don't exactly give you the life stories of the residents. They call her "Barb" which is a little jarring to me because I don't remember anyone referring to her that way before. Obviously I don't expect these people to read up on who they have to take care of but it is depressing to think that someone with such a storied life is now living out her days surrounded by people who have no clue about any of it. I kind of wonder who's even going to show up at her funeral since she's outlived almost everyone she knew. The only people who see her anymore are family. So yes, I am kind of hoping she goes soon. There's nothing left for her here.

Since 2017 I've enjoyed a resurgence of energy and physical robustness I hadn't felt in 20 years, and the peak of COVID helped me focus on preserving it. I still feel good about how I look and about my powers as a writer and professor while feeling -- necessarily -- bedeviled by a sense of the ephemerality of it all (I don't think one can perform in the public sphere without hearing Time's winged chariot and this suspicion acting as a muse). It can't last and won't.

i don't have kids and i've lived in the same place for the last 17 years. i don't have many milestones in there to mark the passage of time. so when someone talks about, like, music from 2008 -- maybe gapdy or whatever -- it doesn't really feel that long ago to me

so then i have to translate it in my head: this is like someone in 1990 talking about records from 1975

(obviously this isn't the worst part of getting old but i don't love it)

I relate

In addition to that, I've been working from home since 2016 so days of the week and months of the year barely mean anything to me anymore.

See, I'm the same way, but I thought it was because I had kids.

My kids are all adults now, except the youngest, who is about to turn 13. I know it's a cliche, but I am astonished that it all happened so quickly.

A friend of mine is a 30-year-old paralegal who, when we're talking about music, I tease by saying things like "At least my senior song wasn't by Fall Out Boy or something!"

To which she reminds me that FOB was a band her older siblings might've listened to when she was 9.

my kids are adults and i think we all like music but there's no central narrative there we refer back to, music only comes up in conversation around stuff we like and it doesn't go much beyond that tbh

the good bit is when they turn me on to stuff i didn't know about, it's really rare i try and go the other way with that, only if it feels relevant to what we're discussing at the time

My 13-year-old's favorite artist is a guy who raps specific directions on how to dupe electromagnetic cards like the kind you get at Dave & Buster's.

I'm like, "This is worse than the guys who sang about suicide! MOst of us knew better than to try that stuff!"

a guy who raps specific directions on how to dupe electromagnetic cards

link?

My kids have turned me on to tons of stuff on YouTube, going all the way back to the Star Wars rap.

Music, not so much. One of my kids did turn me on to Thundercat.

there's too much stuff i'll probably like in the world and i'll never get round to all of it

is my general sharing likes reply

link?

FBI WARNING: This is some of the dumbest shit you'll see all day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdtJResj1A8

I just asked the boy what that guy's name was so I could find the video. He says PMD is NOT his favorite, he just thinks he's funny.

Just wanted to clear that all up.

haha

Damn, it's from 2022. I was ready to start making a campaign push for the ILM eoy poll.

Funny how time flies.

There's a whole scam rap sub-genre - how-to's on credit card fraud, instagram catfishing, how to get Vice to write an article about you.

how to get Vice to write an article about you.

Stopppppp it

i don’t know, i guess i think that such stuff is surely evidence that we live in a hell of sorts, but the question is: who is making it so that being the contemporary version of a yegg needs to exist at all?

basically: is crime real? aren’t all jobs scams? i tend to actually think so, but that’s just me.

Any online resources for wills, health care power of attorney, advance directives and that sort of thing that anyone here recommends? My wife and I have been rattled by a sudden death in the extended family and we need to get this shit sorted. Dying intestate seems like a very bad idea.

https://getyourshittogether.org/ from the author of What Matters Most.

WmC are you Georgia? I don't remember because worst part of getting old for me is adjusting to estrogen deprivation.

Not really something that's been listed, but it links to the underemployment thread, in that I can feel there is an increasing lack of security, coupled with a lack of energy to fight this because the body and mind are decaying, which isn't as much of a case when you are young.

I'd list it on the poll as "growing old poor".

i think thats where reduced energy levels cover a gamut of evils

i had too much candy, and instead of just feeling kinda bad, i got gout.

@quincie, I'm in Mississippi.

scampering alpaca, thanks for that link.

The reduced energy levels are getting quite obvious to me this year. Napping more often.

Any online resources for wills, health care power of attorney, advance directives and that sort of thing that anyone here recommends?

As an estate planning lawyer, I recommend you do not use an online resource. Spend the money to get an actual human lawyer who specializes in estate planning where you are. DIY wills are great for me, because I get to fix/litigate them after the fact, but they are not so good for the family.

😬

I've not cracked 40, and it's certainly part and parcel of the life I've led thus far, but the worst part is how many friends of mine have died. Found out about another today. Bummed.

No need for atty to do medical POA, just do this one with two witnesses to the signatures: https://www.umc.edu/news/Miscellaneous/2019/April/April%20CONSULT/UMMC_Advance_Healthcare_Directive.pdf

get durable financial atty at same time you do will

financial POA I mean

the worst part is how many friends of mine have died. Found out about another today. Bummed.

I hear you on this. I went a long portion of my life not having ever known too many, but now, it's like shit, everyone's dying these days.

Where you sit back and think of a funny memory, then go, "and at least two of those fellas are dead now."

the best part of getting old for me as an economically inactive individual receiving assistance is that I don't have to worry about my estate because it is so worthless it will all just end up in a yellow skip. After seeing how some of my family degenerated into a inheritance savages crabs-in-a-bucket fite to over a bought 3 bed council house before the poor cancer stricken auntie had even passed, having absolutely fuck all seems clean and good.

the worst part is how many friends of mine have died. Found out about another today. Bummed.

Yeah, my last post on this thread was about how hard it is losing people, and I've lost some more since then. Had one old friend just die in her mid-50s of a heart attack (almost certainly related to her severe long COVID, which she'd been dealing with for three years). Another friend, probably 10 years younger than me, took her life about six months ago. Facebook just reminded me of her birthday yesterday. I know it is literally inevitable, but it is still always very sad. Just today I walked past a little memorial downtown that I hadn't noticed, to a federal judge who died of cancer a few years ago. I actually knew and socialized with her and her husband, because I worked with him. There are actually memorial benches and markers around town for several of my friends, the landscape literally marked by loss.

Sorry for your loss, table.

(And yours, tipsy!)

Yeah, health care powers/directives are very standardized, but vary greatly from state to state. Financial powers of attorney often have specific execution requirements (witness, notary, etc.), and some require specific language if, for example, you want to make them durable (i.e., effective during your incapacity). These documents are a negligible cost component from my perspective, but are very important.

Where you sit back and think of a funny memory, then go, "and at least two of those fellas are dead now."

Last year lost an old buddy/roommate to fentanyl... A Gen Xer like myself, he grew up in a small coastal NorCal town (rhymes with 'spendecino') with three other skater/punker dudes that I knew personally through the scene. All four are gone now, and pretty sure drugs/booze was the cause of all four deaths. It ain't just Appalachia

after half of my friends died from AIDS between 1983-1996 in their 20s-40s, I don’t think I can ever be surprised about experiencing death again

Spend the money to get an actual human lawyer who specializes in estate planning where you are.

immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, September 5, 2023

agree with this completely.

As I get older, I can tell the weather is changing because I get these little cuts on my fingers and thumbs. They're tiny nicks, really, usually where the nail meets the skin at either edge of the digit. The thing is, they interfere with all sorts of finicky tasks (typing, tying a tie etc) and, as such, I'm constantly widening the cut or reopening them. They also seem to hurt an inordinate amount for what they are, the fuckers.

This year, the first cuts appeared in September ffs. Soon, I'm going to be one big open wound 3/4 of the year.