This is a thread for ILXors in their 30's!!! yo yo yo breakdancing etc...

I sin in three ways

- coffee table, while i sit on couch (lower back fucked)

- as laptop, legs crossed with ikea padded rest, while on bed (legs destroyed)

- kitchen table (neck in ribbons)

I employ a rotation system to ensure that i will essentially be unable to move at all by say july this year

I have a laptop lap desk, and also have a standing desk. I highly recommend standing desks, btw.

post / username thread

catching up on the thread, thanks to Stevie for illuminating me on Thirtysomething. i watched that clip and it was intelligible to me as a TV version of like an 80s Movie For Adults, but also very alien. sort of like the Seinfeld world/characters for me, once i reached their age and realized how much my life did not look like theirs.

also, boxedjoy, so sorry to hear all that. super rough, man.... glad you've come out the other side and are doing ok despite this fucked up world we're living through.

I think of my 20s as a gap decade where I just persevered. I may be living through a pandemic and recently made redundant but it still feels easier than life did ten years ago.

Different circumstances, but yes, this is very much how I feel as well. I've ended up throwing a lot of that decade down the oubliette. Not much that's useful.

One thing is that people who met me when I was a 21-y/o mess and that I'm still friends with now at 34...there's only a few left, but those are friends for life.

Well, I've been on the other side of 34 for a minute now. A thought that weirds me out: I moved to my current city and neighborhood six years ago, when I was 28. In six more years, I'll be 40! I am also a member of the Sore Back Club and I believe this is due to picking up and breaking open enormous wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano at my old job in my 20s.

Something I wanted to post last time but couldn't find the words to express in that moment: I'd say the biggest change for me at this age, compared to when I was younger, is that I'm less concerned about accomplishing "great" things creatively, and more concerned about just being a kinder, more generous person.

^^^ this, one million percent

I've become infinitely more interested in writing and art as community practices and not some lone- genius shit, it's SO HARD to get rid of that mindset, in one's twenties in particular.

I admit my twenties were composed of a totally bizarre and unlikely set of experiences and circumstances, in many ways, and I'm glad for the perspective they brought me—

Tbf community is a luxury for many, although there's no question that solitary writing is usually framed as haunted by the ghost of Romantic genius or some other nonsense.

? not sure i understand your comment re: community.

Not everyone is part of a community that gives a shit about what they do.

Sure, but I don't think the word "luxury" is the right one to describe the phenomenon of which you're speaking.

Oh it absolutely is, once you've experienced its dearth (see: the 'Belonging' thread).

I recently found one of my high school yearbooks, crazy to go through that and see how young everyone looked. It's weird because I do on occasion have dreams in which these people show up, but in my dreams they look like they're in their mid-30s (but still in high school, having flunked 20 straight years apparently), not as they actually were

― frogbs, Monday, February 22, 2021 4:24 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I did not finish high school and pretty regularly have this dream where I am still in high school having flunked 20 straight years, it's the worst.

Hi all, how is everyone going

I am feeling alternately great and grateful and like a petulant child! What else is new!

All good thanks, I have a week off work

turned 38 a couple of weeks ago, feeling v sanguine abt it

started working out again, let's see how long it lasts this time. managed about three months straight last year until I got COVID and couldn't exercise for more than 10 mins without getting breathless. glad that stage seems to have passed though - now slowly getting back into 30 min routines

Good luck Roz x

Late 30's have greeted me with: acid reflux, dry skin, dry eyes. Could be way worse, mostly just forces me into taking care of myself. My coca cola addiction continues unabated tho.

40th birthday coming up in two years - I remember my uncle for his 40th (or maybe 50th?) receiving a VHS featuring ppl from his life talking about him plus footage of his childhood and etc, and thinking "man, I want that for me too". Not really the kind of thing you can ask for without sounding like a total egomaniac tho lol.

Roz, I’m also 38. Good luck with the exercise routine, if it serves as inspiration, I’m in better shape now than I was ten years ago.

I'm going to be 39 this year and should probably do the same. I've always been one of those people with a metabolism that kept me at roughly the same weight for decades despite eating whatever garbage I want (with no exercise beyond walking to and from the train), but I put on weight during the pandemic and it's still there. Not an issue at this time, but seems like the sort of thing that could snowball if I let it slide.

xposts thanks nxd, table

blatherskite, I’m in the same position as you - never exercised much at all until putting on weight during the lockdown which, along with back pain as a result of working from home, forced me to make some radical lifestyle changes. still struggle with finding motivation to exercise but I’ve cut out a lot of sugar and snacks from my diet which has helped.

About 12 years ago I found out that I really loved climbing, and stuck with it over the years— climbing a few days a week and bicycling to and from work while note imbibing too much alcohol keeps me in my good zone

I share that only because finding a physical activity that you like to do seems key, to me

After my manager shared a picture of herself in 2007 and joked that we could think about where we were at that time (I was 20), I realized that I barely have any pictures of myself from my university years (I searched and found like 5-10 in my archives). There are a few trips with friends where I was clearly avoiding cameras, and trips on my own where I was snapping pictures of anything but myself, so there's a 5-year black-out from the last family pictures to my first relationship in 2010.

Otherwise, reading the conversation in the ILXORs in their 50s thread made me realize how good of an idea it was to marry in 2019 and have a kid in 2022, it's definitely a much better position to watch the world burn and start having grey hair.

It's similar for me, but for technical reasons: any CD-Rs or memory cards containing digital photos from 2002-2011 vanished between apartment moves at least a decade ago, and I've long forgotten any early Photobucket or Flickr accounts I registered for when those debuted. Not that I took a lot of photos anyway, and smart phones came long too late to develop a selfie or reflexive photo-taking habit. Still, it was odd when my partner asked what I was like in high school, and I realized I didn't have a single photo to show her.

That's a good point, the way of archiving photos has changed massively. I'm still attached to hard disks, even print pictures to put them in albums, while the cloud gives me whiffs of data being potentially wiped out (all very irrational).

Another thing related to the above that I have caught myself doing a bit more recently is to actively try to remember and visualize specific moments of my childhood / youth. I'm looking for flashes, or to remember how I felt, all from the concern that it's becoming hazy.

There might be few posters in their 30s left around here, but no reason that aging is reduced to colonoscopies and other picturesque experiences at the doctor :) For that matter, I haven't seen my doctor the whole year, it's good to be back to a state of prolonged healthiness.

Still have one year left! I legit believed I was turning 40 next year until very recently. Managed the same trick on my 29th as well! It's great, feel like I got a bonus year.

Is there a thread for ilxors in their 40's? A few days away and it's looking like my first order of business as a 40-year-old is gonna be scheduling a prostate exam 😳
Had a blood panel last week, A1C is 5.4 and cholestrol is off the charts. That was a real surprise.
When I had a worrying chest scan 9 months ago, the Yijing gave me the image of plugging a leaky old boat and suggested that I wouldn't be able to relax my vigilance anytime soon. oh, right- this isn't just about my lungs. Welcome to the new normal, get used to it. Gotta be much more careful from now on, and don't slip up.
In light of this, all that "age us just a number" stuff feels like a crock. Sucks not being young anymore LOL

This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

"forties" spelled out, got it. TY

see ya, thread for ilxors in their 30's

You can always come back as an elder dispensing unsolicited wisdom.

i'll leave that to the wise.