When did you first suspect you were/are getting old?

Not a thing yet. My inner child is stuck on 12, and he’s a warrior. I work at it to stay active.

When I heard on the radio that it was the 20th anniversary of the release of Stairway to Heaven on the way to a work event. When I exclaimed that I had the original album, one of the young men who worked for me quipped, “What’s an album?” Then I felt really old.

As I was leaping across the stage at an audition and was several leaps behind everyone else. I couldn’t understand why I was so much slower than the others. A matter of some 20 years difference figure in there somewhere.

@marinelife: NO. Seriously? You sure he wasn’t kidding? O_O

I’m not old at all… And I felt ancient when I learned from my first class (mostly college freshmen) on Friday that their earliest historical memory was September 11, 2001… And they were in third grade.

@bookish1 Wow! That puts time in perspective!

I feel old for a lot of little reasons.
—After a work injury, I have arthritis in my knees.
—I remember back when Michael Jackson was darker than a paper bag.
—I know who Michael Jackson is!
—I had a Sesame Street disco 8-track
—When I first learned computers, there were no mice or icons.

I could go on, but there isn’t any one thing that made me say, “Fuck! I’m old now!”.

When grey hair started to emerge on my head, I suspected I was getting old.

When my father died and I thought, “It’s just me now”, I knew I was old.

Pains in my knees makes me feel old.

When my son bought his first suit and had it tailor made for work functions he had to attend. He loved it so much he had two made. Then I realized he went from high school to adulthood at the blink of an eye. He hated the first suit I ever bought him for senior prom. He said the shoes where too stuffy. Now he loves dress shoes and dressing up. He use to call it a waste of money since he would never wear that stuff again and now he has no qualms buying quality suits.
I was glad but it made me feel old.

Started needing my readers to see the food while I eat dinner.

When I passed the age my father passed away at.

When I started using reading glasses, then when I finally got a real bifocal prescription. And when there more grey hairs than brown..everywhere. Shit hurts for no good reason. A good reason would be falls that happen occasionally. When someone starts explaining tech stuff and my eyes just glaze over after two minutes. Signal to noise ratio? th fuck?. I have a truck that is five years newer than I am. There’s no plastic in it anywhere, ‘cept the gear shift knob.
There are times when I concede there is a strong chance I’m doing something for the last time.
When I sat on my balls for the first time but I can’t remember where I was when it happened.

It’s the eyes, the body can still do pretty much what it always did, albeit more slowly! But they eyes, I’ve had bifocals for some time, now even they don’t seem to do the trick, there is that in between space that isn’t covered by close or distance lenses! Guess I need trifocals now!

Bifocals stink but what are you gonna do? I think tri’s would be too complicated because then there would be 2 dead spaces to try to ignore.

My first inkling I was getting old was when I realized I am invisible to women under age 30. It was confirmed when I realized I am invisible to women under 45.

the old one’s are better anyway

You’re as young as you feel and I feel great today! Old, well…. things need a good stretch in the mornings, I have a slightly wonky hip and a constant crick in my neck but I am still in-joying a happy brownie sunday and getting ready to have a friend for dinner and make decadent expresso ice cream and chocolate cookie sundaes. Fuck cholesterol ya gotta die of something. Might as well be happy brownies and ice cream.

I say slide out sideways wine in one hand and chocolate in the other. lol

@woodcutter You are correct. The old one’s are better.

way

I began to feel really old after I fell down twice in the same week. It was partly poor eyesight, but mainly due to loss of agility. I walk a lot more slowly now.

On the inside I still feel like I am in my 30s, but anytime I look in the mirror I can clearly see that I left the 30s behind years ago!

When I argued with an empty chair. ;-)

I don’t remember, now. I do recall that baseline EKG conversation, but I don’t think that made me feel old. It was more when my body started hurting after doing things that had never bothered it before. Like when I couldn’t dive any more, because my heels hurt after doing a few dives. Not that that stopped me. No, it took nearly knocking my head in on the board while doing a gainer to stop me from doing that trick. This will be the first or second summer that I haven’t even attempted a flip.

I’m 56 now. I’m on all kinds of old age meds for blood pressure, and cholesterol. My ankles swell. My muscles won’t stay strong unless I exercise vigorously every day, and if I do exercise vigorously, I am sore as hell.

I have floaties in my eyes and my vision is permanently impaired. I have torn ligaments in my shoulder that can’t be fixed. My stamina if for shit and so is my strength. And if you ever meet me in real life, I will deny this.

But the biggest thing was when I was getting my hair cut one day a decade or so ago. I looked down, and the barber had put all these gray hairs on the drop cloth. Why did he do that, I asked?

He knew better than to answer.

I felt middle age for a long, long time, but my parents only lived to their early 60’s and here I am almost out of my 60’s. My body is starting to slow down, and I have been slowly losing my hearing for the past 5 years or so.

I bought Silent Hill HD Collection for my PlayStation 3 last Friday. Essentially, it’s a port of both Silent Hill 2 and 3, survival horror games. They’re fun and creepy games, and while I already own them on PS2, I wanted to get this version so I could obtain the trophies for them. (PS3 games have trophies you can unlock by doing certain things and completing certain challenges)

So I pop in the game and well…I had to sit through almost an hour of downloading updates and then installing them before I could play. I expected this, every damn game you buy for the PS3 does that. But Jesus Christ…I remember back when all you had to do was pop that sucker in and press the on button; that was it. Now you always have to download a bunch of crap and wait for centuries to play something. What the hell do people with PS3’s but no internet connection do?? How can you even play anything if your PS3 asks you to download some update everytime you scratch your ass or take a sip of soda?? Maaaan.

Yeah you are old as dirt there hon. Let’s play some N64 Excite Bike.

No. I’d rather play the original one on NES.

When I was twenty-three.

At about twice that age, I noticed that some things were really starting to fall apart.

Now I wouldn’t mind being 46 again. Looks pretty good from here.

At this point I congratulate myself on the things that are still working well and pretty much make my peace with the rest.

Those cross stitch charts are getting a bit harder to read, for one…

A poem for @wundayatta

Thinning hairs upon my head
some cling to life and some are dead
she cut my fragile fronds so wrong
some too short and some too long

A mule and plow might be preferred
to trample ‘cross my wispy herd
What evil scissors did she wield
to kill my sparsely planted field

Silky stalks and tender shoots
torn from my scalp with dying roots
A seasons growth, without a trace
harvested above my face.

lol, @Coloma. Fortunately, thinning hair is not a problem for me. This is a notable gift of nature, although I’m sure others will appear as soon as they disappear. As the song says, “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”

When words such as these start to make you think, it’s another sign!

Here is some food for thought…We should place the elderly in prisons. They will get a shower a day, video surveillance in case of problems, three meals a day, access to a library, computer, TV, gym, doctors on-site, free medication if needed.
Put criminals in nursing homes. They have cold meals, lights off at 7pm, two showers a week, live in a smaller room and pay rent at $4,000 a month!!! It’s pretty sad that we treat prisoners better than the elderly…. copy and paste if you agree

On my honeymoon last year. My husband and I were getting a couples massage and facial when the guy working on me said the creme he was steaming into our muggs would “take ten years off”.~

@rooeytoo That’s a mighty cushy prison system you are describing there. But then, you Ozzies are a hell of a lot more civilized than us Yanks. You’re not going to be finding prisons that offer that kind of cushy life here in the US. In fact, it won’t even be as good as your description of the nursing home system, as exaggerated as that is.

@wundayatta – you mean jails no longer provide meals and medical care? Do prisoners have to buy their own meds? The only part I wondered about was the gym.

I don’t feel sorry for prisoners, if you do the crime, you gotta do the time.

By the way, that little snippet came from an American friend!

they get meals, but medical care is pretty dicey. I don’t think they have to buy their own meds, but they may not be prescribed the meds they need and even if they get the prescription, there is not much effort to make sure they get the meds. It is not uncommon for prisoners to die because of lack of access to their meds.

And they are not guaranteed access to exercise, either. When you’re in jail, nothing is guaranteed. You have no rights. At least, not in the US. Other countries are different.

@wundayatta Canadian prisons are supposed to be similar to US ones, but a little less hardcore. I’ll just respect the law and not find out though lol.

@wundayatta – I don’t get what you are trying to say, you feel sorry for prisoners and you want me to feel bad too??? Suppose that snippet said homeless instead of pensioners, would you feel better about it then? The victims of the prisoners do not get anything, no meals, no medical care, dicey or not. And they don’t have a gym or exercise, wow, poor things, maybe some chain gang work would take care of that need.

Many pensioners (and homeless) eat dog food because that is all they can afford, as was said, I am sure they would be happy for the prison meals, I bet they are not made up of dog food or people such as yourself would be horrified and have the ACLU on the case ASAP!

No, I’m not trying to get you to feel sorry for them. I saying that their lives are not nearly as nice as you think they are. If that makes you feel sorry, fine, but that’s not my goal.

When my kid pointed out that in 25 years I would be 50. Or the time I tried to explain 9/11 to my son and his friend.

When I sit cross legged, I have to exercise to get back to standing position. BUT I can still suck my big toe.

@shippy….TMI….lol….but how would you know that? and why would you do that?

@Shippy I could do that to, but why?

@wundayatta – there are too many who really are living a life that make me feel pity and remorse and wish I could do more to help. Criminals are not in that group, regardless of their quality of life. And as I said, just the fact that they are supplied clothing, shelter, food, medical and tv and clean water makes their lives preferable to many whose only crime is not being born in the right place.

@rooeytoo I’m not sure I am making myself clear. In the US, prisoners get minimal medical care—and in many cases, none at all. Many die in prison of easily preventable deaths because they don’t get care. Criminals in prisons don’t have very good lives, and I don’t see how you could say their lives are preferable to those of a free person, no matter how poor they might be. Well, I have a theory. I think prisons in Australia are probably a great deal more humane than those in the US.

I dont’ know much about Australian prisons or American ones really. I have never been in one, I have never engaged in criminal activity. But if you see the pics of the starving kids in 3rd world countries, it’s pretty damned sad.

I guess the bottom line is, if prisons are so terrible, then don’t commit crimes that will get you thrown in there. That is a choice, usually starvation or eating dog food or homelessness is not.

And your point is clear, according to you, they are not getting the best medical care, or best food, but there are non criminals on the outside not getting ANY! That is my point.

None of this has anything to do with getting old, so I am dropping out of the conversation but I still stand by the original quote.

@Adirondackwannabe The same reason you know you can suck yours?

@Shippy LMAO.

when I went into a card shop and saw my year of birth was on one of those CD’s you buy people for the year they were born or to mark an anniversary. It was the last one on there so I realised I had moved on to a stage where the company that makes them believe my mind is getting old and faded and that music will help to bring back those memories I have never had about being under 12 months old.

Also as an archaeologist I realised I was getting old when I excavated part of a building I remembered actually existing. (I would like to add I only remember it being there…I wasnt there when it was built over 100 years ago)

I just saw a photo of Cheech and Chong and they look like antiques. I was young when they were, uh oh!!!

@rooeytoo Yes, everything goes up in smoke sooner or later. lol

The first time a department store clerk called me ma’am. I was about 27.

OK, I realized just now that I’ve had diabetes for longer than some of my students have been alive! Haha.