This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

I didn't expect to get shoulder and back hair this late in the game.

ha was wondering what you meant in the 40s thread

what's up y'all

had a cardiologist call me at 7am to cancel my appointment (snow)

this morning the dentist said that my teeth with metal fillings will all eventually need crowns; seems legit, the youngest of those fillings is 40+ years old

i went to the dentist for lots of work this past year, first time since forever, and it was all space aged nano whatever shit and i think the dentist and his assistant were legit smirking at my one old iron ore filling from when i was a teenager, fifty years ago, in an eastern bloc nation

oh hi, I'm 54 now

peeing takes a long time

backache is a thing

(knocks on wood)

As hinted above, I have a cardiologist now! My primary doctor, who has pretty amazing raw skills -- like hearing -- apparently, thought he heard a murmur in my heartbeat last month. GREAT!

It turns out I have an "unconcerning" prolapse which is a "2" (not a 3 or a 4), so it just has to be checked every year from now on.

Aging is a motherfucker.

all the best morbs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murmur_(album)#/media/File:R.E.M._-_Murmur.jpg

i am two years older than william hartnell in this picture :D

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p01hg14p.jpg

(obviously i have regenerated several times: also did not grow up in poverty etc)

He got paid five times more per ep than Anneke Wills was, to make up for the poverty stricken childhood!

what a feelin'

mainly feeling it in my lower back today

Rapidly approaching Sammy Hagar milestone.

Minutemen?

Can you hear me, Dr. Mu

Imagine my surprise

Just realized that the “ordinary guy” in Pavement’s “Stereo” is maybe a reference to “Dr. Wu.” I still got it!

Oh wait

I just went through all the tests you are supposed to do when you get to 50, only 7 years late.

Anyway, all passed 100%, so hey!

I guess that lower back pain is gonna go in the "what do you expect at yr age?" cart.

Thanks for reminding me. I just did the same with one test, the biggest of all, remaining to be done in the next few months. If the news is bad I will speed post my remaining backlog of screennames.

I was Big C diagnosed about five months after turning 50, so maybe i didn't get the other tests.

(i'm mostly OK now, just medicated)

He got paid five times more per ep than Anneke Wills was, to make up for the poverty stricken childhood!

― calzino

for two months and then he got sacked. quintessential "being in your '50s" experience tbh

Definitely another bummer about being in your 50s. If you lose your job, you can't necessarily bounce back. You might never have a salaried position again.

Definitely another bummer about being in your 50s. If you lose your job, you can't necessarily bounce back. You might never have a salaried position again.

HI DERE. Raise your hand if you have been rendered depressed, rudderless, and without direction because you've structured your life around a eight-hour, salaryman working schedule for so long that when you were inevitably disrupted out of your career you've become addicted to the anxiety and panic of not being able to focus. oops TMI

raises hand

in my case it took several years to work through the trauma of being ejected and to figure out other ways to live ... I won't trivialize the difficulties involved, but now the only thing I miss from my salaryman days is the income

i need the med coverage

As mentioned on the other thread, in January I was made redundant 7 days before I hit 50.
my skills are probably no longer in demand (manual software tester) due to an increased focus on automated testing, and to be honest, I think I have had enough of software/corporate culture.
The last few months I have been a stay at home dad, and will probably remain so while mk2 goes through his teenage trials and tribulations (3 more years).
The very idea of being the Office New Boy at the age of 50 fills me with dread, and I know it would bring on a lot of stress and anxiety.
I am in a 'fortunate' position in that due to life insurance, I have no mortgage and get a small occupational pension from BH so will not be made homeless or starve, but coming to terms with a very different financial outlook is still the big stumbling block.
That and daytime TV.
Thank goodness for 'Walter Presents .. '.

In other news : re lower back pain.
Having sat on my arse in an office for 30 years the last 2 years were very problematic re my back.
My solution : swimming.
I have started swimming 4 times a week (roughly 1km each time), and the change has been very noticeable.

Slightly overlapping with what I said on the Forties thread, but I was made redundant at 51, also due to having skills which are no longer in demand. My partner has always earned a lot more than me, so we were OK - but then he was made redundant last year, at 58. Thankfully his skills are still in demand, but he refuses to re-dose himself with the poison of corporate culture - so it's taking a while to sort things out, and we are having to be careful with money, for the first time since our twenties.

I cover my monthly outgoings with DJ-ing (a weekly gig and a monthly gig) and Discogs selling (I inherited a rare and valuable collection, and am being ruthless with my own). We also have a lodger, for the first time in nearly thirty years - a good friend, also in his fifties, going through a divorce and coming to terms with being on the gay side of bi. He hates his job and wants to change back to his old career, but it would involve a precarious salary drop, at least to begin with, which isn't great timing when you're getting divorced.

Despite this difficulties, my net life satisfaction level is still hugely in credit. I feel busy, fulfilled, and grateful for all I've got. But I can't deny the presence of a persistent low-level background hum, which says "You are uniquely unemployable. Everyone else can get jobs, but you haven't got what it takes." It's bullshit, but it's there.

Fuck those cry baby under 50s in that other thread. Here's to getting Saga Holiday ads and people ringing me to ask if I want to cash in my pension and/or release some equity from my home and to being told I can't increase my life insurance because YOU R 2 OLD.

Also I just put up a desk, not too shabby eh? I'll be paying for it tomorrow mind.

it doesn't start getting real until you can't remember your 40s

xp Incidentally my pension is not worth the paper it's printed on so who's laughing now Mr Random Cold Caller?

it gets really real when your pathetic gig income and Obamacare fast-track you to bankruptcy

what a feelin'

― the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Monday, July 2, 2018 8:55 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Right in my knees.

oh hi, I'm 54 now
peeing takes a long time

― WilliamC, Thursday, January 4, 2018 12:24 PM

Seven weeks shy of 56, but I found the secret: constant impotent rage keeps me young.

momus is almost 50

He’ll be 60 in February.

Fuck those cry baby under 50s in that other thread.

They're just coming to grips with their ultimate mortality, poor dears. Be kind to them.

I’m 55 and having a pretty good time.

I seem to have rediscovered my mojo this year: got serious about my job, holidayed in Japan, rekindled my interests in art and photography, good clothes (lost 40lb weight which helped), and the joy of short breaks by Eurostar.

eyoooooo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBlB8RAJEEc

Yeah, I got there this year lolsob

Yep, 50 now. No acknowledgment from any of my family or anyone other than people on Facebook.

Aw, Happy Birthday Christine! Welcome to the club!

(I actually got a video greeting of my favourite rock star singing happy birthday to me so I can't complain it was forgotten (but Covid put paid to the really super amazing plans I did have but hey))

Been there since July 25. Hate it.

lol u softies, it's been 4 years for me now and I had my first serious surgery in May

I've been there for quite a while now and it only gets, um, it only gets, um, never mind.

Wishing you the best, JCLC, hope you are feeling better soon. The other stuff is a lot to deal with at the same time. Try to be kind to yourself and trust you will make the best decision you can when you are in a better place.

A lot to say about this but I don't think any of it would be helpful.

Commiserating is helpful

honestly anybody reading my thoughts has helped me today, I don't share much of this stuff but here among people with whom I've shared discussions for so long I feel free to unburden myself a little and it helps.

I'm very sorry for your loss, and really can identify with what you wrote. I am often struck by the loss of the feeling I had even 10-15 years ago, that anything was possible. This is definitely a time of narrowing options--but not no options at all. So I hope you can find something that gives you more peace.

update on my health: it was pneumonia & bronchitis. I'm now on a big ol cocktail of meds and just now took pleasure in eating for the first time in a week. I am mad as hell because I'm trying so hard to get back up to my long runs, running is important to me and I've been on a 2-year-plus injury jag but JUST this month I finally seemed to have turned a corner, ran 5k three times week before last....and then last week I was knocked down by illness and I know that recovering from pneumonia is yet another fuckin "take it easy on yourself" situation but there's only so easy I can take it, I'm back to work on Friday and my job involved two hours a night of being pretty energetic. main feeling right now is gratitude for the visit and feeling pleased with myself for resolving "just get your ass to the clinic as soon as you wake up" because I was in "I can't live like this, can I?" territory, it's still bad but the drugs are working.

attention bronchitis & pneumonia: 🖕

I am very much in a "is this gonna be my forever life?" place as well. Part of it's frustration with my publisher, who has not responded for a couple of weeks now to my emails about my upcoming book, but another part of it is getting itchy with the endless treadmill of writing about music generally. I'm starting to think more seriously than I have in years about Writing About Something Else For A Change. Sending three poems to a local literary magazine (no response yet) helped a little, and looking at some fiction projects with an eye toward self-publishing them is helping, too, because putting three older books out there will push me to finish a fourth that's fully plotted but only about 1/4 written. If my current "full-time" job lurches toward greater stability (which it might, soon), I will be in a position to make some decisions.

get well soon jclc.

running will come back soon enough. were you the person who recommended "what i talk about when i talk about running" on ilx? seems like you probly coulda.

possibly? as I am of the age to be on this thread, I do tend to forget a buncha stuff