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

Right then, as a 61 year old smoker and drinker who regularly gets mistaken for being in his forties, I think it’s time I shared my Beauty Secrets! I wash my face every morning and evening with Kiehls Facial Fuel face wash, and I moisturise every morning with Kiehls Facial Fuel moisturiser (important: NOT the version with SPF protection, as that does feel like goop). They are both excellent products that don’t feel gross to use (ugh, Nivea, vile stuff), and I’ve been using them for years. Not the cheapest, but even when money has been tight, I’ve stuck with them (sometimes as birthday/Xmas presents from relatives, as they are perfect for putting on wish lists).

kiehls is good shit. i forgot i had this burt's bees sensitive skin body lotion. i done been puttin it on ma face. feels good!

nivea is super gross. it's what my mom always used. i like jojoba / argan for my beard. some kind of coconut / shea thing is probably good for me as a moisturizer. looking at the ingredients on the burt's bees - seems like a lot of weird stuff in there? though it does feel good. i might have to do some "research" lol.

My partner uses Argan oil on his face, and is almost evangelical about it. Still sticking with my Kiehls though!

I used to melt together shea butter, coconut oil, and a little jojoba (and let it set) for a homemade moisturizer although it can be a little greasy. You can also buy shea butter on its own and use that. There are a lot of natural options.

I'm bald and my beard is more salt than pepper. No amount of Kiehls miracle elixir is going to work. Plus, 40 notes for 125ml!

I was gonna say, Kiehl's is nice stuff (still have a couple of sachets from a gift pack years ago) but it's around 7-8x more expensive than supermarket brands like Nivea.
Captain Save-a-Nivea here.

haha. yeah i'm not gonna shell out for kiehls tbh. argan is probably my favorite of these 'skin stuff' oils tbh - i think i'll try it.

If you have a Nordstrom near you, the July yearly sale has Kiehl’s at a 30% discount. The 33.8 oz size Facial Fuel, usually $64, was $40ish. Needing a dime size or less, that’ll last a year for me.

Sunny out today. Should have worn my hat like Elvis Telecom.

Each unshaded section of sidewalk is like The Devil’s Anvil.

my skin looks shockingly good for someone my age who used to smoke.

i'd like to know your routine. my skincare routine = wearing sunblock when i go to the beach and applying it improperly :(

one product i will stan for is Laneige lip mask, i've suffered from severely cracked and chapped lips my whole life until i started using this stuff 2x a day. i was a really bad case, it was painful and bloody, could never find anything that helped but this completely solved the problem. it's like $28 for a little jar which seems very expensive but it's lasted me almost a year.

today i would like to honor the birth anniversary of Dick Trickle, the patron saint of all of us with benign prostatic hyperplasia. shout outs to the cis men who have to sit down to pee.

Realizing none of this shit matters and you entire life was a pointless waste.

^ best part of getting old IMO

(So much less pressure)

I'm quite at peace with not amounting to anything and leaving a less than minimal trace when I die, that's what I call sweet obscurity to nick a quote from Georges Rouault (who wasn't really that obscure and probably meant in a different context but never mind!)

xxxp I kind of disagree with that, but more from the angle of realising that none of the shit your teachers/parents/elders said was important actually matters. Living your life is what matters, and if you do that then you haven't wasted your life, regardless of what other people say.

I have an intrusive thought sometimes of going up to a random grandpa saddened by his friends all dying around him by reminding him he's also outlived his enemies, and in my fantasy it plays out exactly like in this C&H strip:
https://mickaboo.org/sites/default/files/images/Calvin%20and%20Hobbes%202-19-88.gif

none of the shit your teachers/parents/elders said was important actually matters. Living your life is what matters

While I was 17 and a high school student I took the NMSQT. Some months later I got a letter in the mail telling me that I had qualified as a National Merit Scholarship Finalist (nb: oddly, this honor did not qualify me for any kind of scholarship whatsoever, but it sounded very impressive).

The letter also informed me that because I had such an elite intellect it was my destiny to become one of the leaders of my nation in some capacity. I read that and irately thought "who the fuck are these people to tell me what to do with my life? they don't know me and I don't know them." Then I tossed the letter in the wastebasket.

Realizing none of this shit matters and you entire life was a pointless waste.

Realizing none of this shit matters and you entire life was a pointless waste.

Does anyone ever really reach that realisation as a permanent state? I’m in the last year of my 50s and still wound up by life constantly: from the trivialities of IT outages at work through to the “how did I end up in this position?” self-reflections.

If none of it matters then there's nothing wasted, isn't it, eh?

I believe that nothing matters but I desire to make my journey to the end point suck as little as possible.

I’m slightly worried about these “philosophies”/outlooks. Not so much in terms of their validity - but how they inspire of justify how people act.

One variant I heard a lot about few years ago from fellow 50 somethings, including family members, was: “I’m just making the most of the time I’ve got left”. It’s a short step from that to “and that’s why I should put myself first and not help with aging parents/help with probate /selling of family house etc” No offence intended to any ilx posters - but family members have driven me slightly crazy with this.

That's definitely not a direction I would take these feelings.

Yesterday I saw an elderly woman in a wheelchair being pushed down the street. On her face was an expression of sheer terror.

My grandmother, who died at 103, told me not long before she died, "I feel like I've done everything in life I wanted to do." It has stayed with me as the place I would like to be at the end.

"shout outs to the cis men who have to sit down to pee"

i don't have to but i do! i have a very erratic stream. kinda like my brain. and its just me who is going to have to clean it up. plus, its peaceful sitting down. i watched a male comedian who says he likes it because now he's really into micro-deucing.

that comedian was funny. he said: "Remember, 100% of failure comes from trying."

my least fave thing about aging is the whole: "Where is the...the...tooth thing...the for the...*makes sawing motion*...for the teeth...you know...???" Maria: "Uh, dental floss...??" WORST charades partner ever.

Sometimes I think television can be profound (or at least make you think).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSxnBYPM72I

I’m in the last year of my 50s and still wound up by life constantly

62, still waiting for serenity now. I don't think it ever comes, or at least won't for me.

Realizing none of this shit matters and you entire life was a pointless waste.

― brotherlovesdub

brotherlovesdub, speaking as someone who is a well of infinite sadness with a lonely soul, do you think that you might possibly be suffering from depression?

that comedian was funny. he said: "Remember, 100% of failure comes from trying."

― scott seward

my ex used to say that. "well, you tried. and you know what the lesson of that is? Never Try."

your ex was Homer Simpson?(!)

While I was 17 and a high school student I took the NMSQT. Some months later I got a letter in the mail telling me that I had qualified as a National Merit Scholarship Finalist (nb: oddly, this honor did not qualify me for any kind of scholarship whatsoever, but it sounded very impressive).

The letter also informed me that because I had such an elite intellect it was my destiny to become one of the leaders of my nation in some capacity. I read that and irately thought "who the fuck are these people to tell me what to do with my life? they don't know me and I don't know them." Then I tossed the letter in the wastebasket.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

oh yeah that's a whole big thing. when i took my PSAT i got the same letter and where i grew up it was a Very Big Deal and it was impressed upon me that it was something to be taken Very Seriously. i actually got a semi-finalist letter... they only made you a finalist when they'd done a background check to make sure you weren't a communist or something. people in my school spent a lot of time trying to be national merit scholars.

so i did too. i had to live up to my reputation as a Clever Boy. see, you could become a national merit finalist by (a) not being a communist and (b) getting a good grade on the PSAT or NMSQT or whatever the equivalent in your region was, but to be a national merit _scholar_ you had to impress the people deciding it with your _character_. so i joined a high school club that did performative charity. after i sliced the palm of my hand open trying to do some meaningless bit of performative charity, i concluded that being a successful person wasn't particularly worth it.

but because i had a strong work ethic, i worked very, very hard at being a failure. i was very successful at it, by which i mean i failed completely at it and turned out to be a successful, accomplished person anyway. i accomplished this by dressing as a girl, which surprised me because i had been taught that this was the _single worst thing i could possibly do_ and would ruin my life forever.

the worst part of getting old is realizing that you failed puberty and you're going to have to re-take it. also the best part of growing old, though, so it evens out.

your ex was Homer Simpson?(!)

― Philip Nunez

no, homer simpson is a notorious joke thief and stole all of my ex's best material

One of my college-age kids got an invitation to some pay-for-play "national scholar" organization. They tried very hard to make it look like he was being offered some kind of prestigious honor. That kind of shit irritates me to no end.

My grandmother, who died at 103, told me not long before she died, "I feel like I've done everything in life I wanted to do." It has stayed with me as the place I would like to be at the end.

#winning

Best way to accomplish yr goals in life is to never have any.

Once in a while I can recognize a shadow of what life was like 20 years ago and that’s a good feeling

The increasing impossibility of getting through a single post on here longer than five words without a typo, dropped word, etc. (which I can't blame on a cell phone). I'm not sure how much of that is attributable to age, and how much is being too lazy to read over what I've typed. Or if there's any difference.

Still voting for friends/loved ones dying but the physical aches and pains have crept up this year

100 pct of my typos and post errors are due to the dumbass phone

(xpost) Needless to say, those two--and a thousand other things--are worse. But I find the typos exasperating and dispiriting.