What is something you would have liked to know and no one told you?
What is the reality about aging that people might not b aware of?
You become invisible to much of society.
As a guy I've come to accept that the days of people caring about me for my potential are long gone. Nowadays it's my skills and money that people care about, and in another decade or so it's only going to be the money
And if you/we don’t have money…
You become Australia biggest suicide demographic. Heartbreakingly. Society forgets and neglects you which then means you don't get the care you need to live a long natural life. You then have to face a future where your health issues are made worse from their neglect. Many elderly men see their future and take an exit. Not to ease their current suffering but to avoid it in the future. It's not good enough. You deserve better. From all of us.
So if anyone knows of an elderly man living alone near them. Pop over with a beer this weekend and spend a while with him. It will be rewarding for you both.
Wish I had gained skills, shoooooot.
Things like nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, or computer hacking skills?
I'm aways in awe of how everything is marketed to the younger generations when we're the ones with the money. Just don't get it.
We may have more money but we’re not the ones who are the largest consumers of most products 💳
And you have that money because you don't blow it on nonsense. Therefore, they don't waste their time advertising to you.
As a woman, I've found this to be quite a relief. The day I realized I could be nice to a man without him thinking I was hitting on him was one I felt like marking on my calendar as a permanent day of celebration.
Hard agree, being invisible is a super power that I wield daily.
Sexual harassment from men started when I was 11. I was 11, a child. I'm glad that I don't have to deal with that shit much anymore.
Same, I got harassed daily in the street from 8 to about 40. It was just part of my life, but man it used to get me down. I used to wonder what I was doing ‘wrong’. It was confusing because I didn’t think I was pretty.
It is SO nice being completely invisible, just a neutral presence.
Sadly the same, grown men were sleazy to me since I was a very little girl. At my current age, I feel like I’ve never been safer.
Yes it is freedom! Love being 6 all over again and not dealing with the crap!
That's so sad and disgusting, I am sorry you had to deal with that from so called men (who were clearly pedophiles)
I stopped coloring my hair in my early 40s and haven’t been hit on since. I love it.
You have made me change my mind about growing out my roots
I stopped around 50 and have never loved my hair more. I get far more compliments on my silver hair than I ever did with my ‘original natural color’ of dark brown.
Amen. Leave me alone.
I felt the same way. I had so many weirdos following me home to try and peek in my window, obscene phone calls from strangers, etc. Once I became invisible, there was a great relief that followed.
I rather miss that dance of potential interest. No matter what was happening in my life or my relationships, there was always that occasional reminder that I had a certain currency, a little bit of treasure that was recognized and wanted.
Sure, there were times that it was more aggravation than pleasure, but I rarely felt frightened or annoyed enough to want the magic to disappear. Just one woman's experience, obviously, but I doubt I'm the only one.
I felt similar to you but I learned that it wasn’t currency I had. It was dicks looking for a hole. If I was really “lucky” and became the long term chosen one I was stuck with a guy. I was engaged four times and went through with marriage twice. Because I’m a slow learner. Now I have male friends. They don’t hit on me and I don’t hit on them and my currency is my very own with no need for outside validation.
I was tall, blonde a pretty growing up. I've always chosen to be happy. I have aged well, and still get hit on regularly. My husband of 40+ years still thinks I'm hot, because I've taken care of myself and dress well.
The being invisible thing doesn't bother me as much as the aches and pains of growing old. Things take so much longer to recover and heal.
Friends die. Family members forget about you. I miss my Mom who has been gone for 4 years and had dementia. I worry I'm going to have it, too. The clock is ticking, even tho I'm in my early 60s, being called "Boomer" makes me want to do something violent to that person. ---sigh---
I guess eventually we all check out, to be forgotten, etc. I just wish the years didn't fly by so fast. There's are still so many things I want to do while I can. 🌞
I guess eventually we all check out, to be forgotten, etc. I just wish the years didn't fly by so fast. There's are still so many things I want to do while I can.
I'm in my early 50s and am already starting to feel this way. I see too many of my colleagues work until their mid to late 60s only to pass away suddenly, either while still working or shortly after retirement. I do not think I will wait past 58 or so before retiring. Money will certainly be tight but man, I have things I want to see and do before I run out of time (or health).
Then keep doing them. Early 60’s isn’t ancient,
Ugly people don’t have to wait for old age to experience this.
So true. Even to your loved ones, who never stop being visible to you.
This is something I think needs to be addressed, because I think it's a matter of what what type of invisibility people think about, when they say this.
I work in home health care and I hear this too. That aging makes one invisible. When I asked about it when it comes to women, it's usually because they are not "beautiful and young" anymore. I think that is sad, that is the currency that matters to be valuable and the most depressing part of the statement is that it is believed by the persons saying it.
I see a lot of people who have much to offer. Men and women who have wisdom and knowledge, stories and opinions and skills to share. But if they don't make them available to society, then they will become invisible if they think strength, beauty and being young is the only way to be valuable.
So true, but has advantages. I love the autonomy.
A bunch of old people sitting around complaining about their diseases and aches and pains is really a bunch of (formerly) young people sitting around saying what the f#ck is actually happening to me right now!!??
I’m not defending or supporting it. I try to keep my grousing to a minimum - there’s way better stuff to talk about. But I understand it now.
My friends and I never thought we'd become those old people talking about their ailments -yet here we are.
I remember an episode of Rocko’s Modern Life where Rocko and Heifer were temporarily old while all the old people on the cruise were turned young and it was really enlightening to me. They explored the fact that so many people are grumpy/flat out angry because they’re sick, their bodies don’t work, they hurt, more people they’ve known in life have died than are still alive, etc. It was a really deep episode when you think on it and, as a kid, it opened my eyes to the reality of what the elderly have gone through/are going through and why they might be grumpy.
If you live long enough, you will wake up someday and discover you have lost something that will never come back or get better. Live a little longer and this experience will repeat itself in another way.
Permanence is the big surprise of growing old.
Throughout our lives, we may suffer injuries, debilitating illnesses, insomnia, exhaustion, and the occasional knowledge that we don't feel and look our best for whatever reason. Through our 40s and early 50s, there is an underlying sense that most of these setbacks are temporary. You intrinsically know that whatever is wrong is likely reversible. In most cases, the health or appearance nuisance will resolve on its own.
Then, as we approach our 60s and onward, the new facts of our old lives begin to dawn. Gradually, and somewhat alarmingly, we recognize that these aches and pains, these limits on stamina, these permanent disabilities and these sagging faces are never going away.
From youth, we all know that we will be old one day. What we don't fully apprehend is that being old starts sooner and lasts a lot longer than the "one day" we vaguely imagined. It's the permanence of it, the sudden realization that there is no turning back, that hits you like a two-ton heavy thing.
"Starts sooner and last a lot longer" is the real surprise. Somehow "old" always seems 10 years older than whatever age I am now.
As a 60 year old, I remember my granparents comi g to family functions. I'll guess they were the age I am now. They always sat i. Chairs, non-participants in anything physical. I see me & my peers SO MUCH MORE active at this age. It's like we relish the challenge of defying the aging process.
You have summed up exactly how we and our friends feel- especially that last sentence. We aren’t going down without a fight!😂
Right. My grandfather sat in a chair all day at 60. I’m playing floor hockey and out swimming my grandson
They possibly worked physical jobs and wore themselves out. Life used to be harder.
I know guys that work trades who are wrecked by 50.
I will fight til the bitter end! I’m 68 and still sit “cross cross applesauce “ on the floor, with my grandsons. I just have to wait until everyone leaves the room, so I can claw my way to my feet. It ain’t pretty!!
Well, I think in general people are younger now, mentally and physically. Long time ago mothers looked like mothers. Now they all still look like college students.
My 60th birthday hurt me to my core. The realization that this is as good as it's going to be from here on out is scary.
My epiphany wasn't so much about how good things are/aren't. As a sports fan, I realized I just entered the 3rd period of my life. I'm not guaranteed the whole 20 minutes ( figuratively ), and it scares the shit outta me. I would love to feel all the pains, heart-ache, disappointment that life gives us. Please, God, just let me finish my last 20 minutes.
I hope you make it to extra innings but most people I've met at that age are like OK, I'm ready to be DONE now...
It's like realizing you're on a train racing toward a cliff and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.
I mean for what it's worth -- my mom has more mobility in her 70s than she did in her 60s! On the contrary, two of her toes quit working. Some stuff is temporary but the slow grinding down is inevitable.
Your mom has greater mobility, but she probably knows damned well that she'll never dance in a ballet, climb a mountain, start a wildy successful company, or win a Nobel prize.
This is the thing that's so difficult to convey to younger people. We live most of our lives with an underlying sense that we might. We are the protagonist of every dream, every fantasy, every possibility in life. It could happen, even if whatever it is isn't very likely. Then, somewhere in your fifties or sixties, you suddenly become aware that your lifetime of endless possibilities is gone.
I feel this way about finding a partner. I have so many failed relationships behind me. Every time one ends, I just start over and try to meet someone new. But I appear to be at the end of the road. There will be no life partner, not now. It’s over.
I just wanna say my grandmother found her life partner after 50 years of an abusive marriage. She was in her early 70s and had been divorced a few years when she began dating her boo. They're now in their mid to late 80s and are so wildly happy together.
I love that 😁
My grandmother met her second husband when they were both in their 70s 💖
Wouldn't it be weird if you woke up tomorrow and realized that you've been your own best partner all along? 🦋
I’m going to wake up in my bed tomorrow and I’m going to be alone in it. Just like this morning and yesterday.
I'm sorry. I'd come over and snuggle a bit at dawn, but I imagine you'd have me arrested for breaking, entering, and covers-hogging.
A good friend recently lost her husband. Well, okay, she didn't misplace him or anything; he up and died. She told me yesterday that she had a glimmer of humor a few days ago, wherein it occurred to her that she could stretch out diagonally now and hog the entire bed. Which, when you give it a moment's thought, is a pretty hopeful thing for a recent widow to express.
I don't know if that will cheer you up at all, but I've been thinking about it all day. 🥀
My wife is counting the hours until she can snow angel on the whole king bed, I just know it.
I mean, she'll be devastated etc I think, but still, I look forward to giving her that sweet sweet gift.
You're an angel already 💝
I'm in my early 40s and I feel like that "lifetime of endless possibilities" sailed away a long, long time ago. Realistically you know if you're going to be a professional ballet dancer or athlete before you're 18. I don't recognise this fantasy world you describe beyond the age of about 14.
It's not that I didn't know I wasn't doing any of those things. It's more the idea that, if I wanted to do whatever was necessary, I knew that I could.
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4d
Wise beyond your years!
I was in an adult ballet class and several of us started pointe, including a woman in her 70’s and one in her early 80’s. We had performance opportunities, so never say never!
I agree in as much that many possibilities disappear, but, not all possibilities disappear.
We have also learned that things you thought were certain, people you thought you really knew, have confounded your expectations, and that is extremely painful and isolating- when your realize you don’t have another 20, 30, or 40 years to get past the hurt. This is all it’s going to ever be.😓
That hits me right in the heart. It describes my current situation with my 2 adult daughters.
Agree. I was super fit, healthy, muscular, etc. at 40, all of a sudden, I was dx w/crohns. Changed my life for good. No going back to who I was, no cure.
Man, that sucks. I hope you've been able to manage it well enough to adjust and enjoy your life.
That’s nice of you to say thank you. I had done more than most people with military service, my fire service, my police service, and my medic service. But, I never got caught up in any of it. Family always came first (even if it cost me respect from my supervisors or a promotion) as such, I have younger and older family around me and we all love and take care of each other. Family should always come first (imo).
Ahh, I wish my oldest son could heed your wisdom! He was an army medic, two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. PTSD and the constant need for adrenaline have driven him like a perpetual engine ever since. Paramedic to flight medic to fire chief, and now he's running Maine's liaison body between EMS companies and the state. He just turned 40, seems to be settling down a bit, maybe? I don't know. He always has way too many irons in the fire.
So glad you're doing well and have a great sense of perspective! 💛
He’s doing what he loves. Just like I did. He’s good. Working a lot and staying busy keeps the ghosts away (I was in Gulf War). Hope it works out for him (and you).
Aging is just losing one thing after another until there’s nothing left then ya just give up and say let’s go already.
I’m trying to resurrect my butt.
I wish I'd turned my music down.
Yeah, I can't hear either.
If you can’t hear that’s not the worst… it’s the tinnitus
WHAT???
In my case it was playing drums in high school, but playing toms is one of the very few things I'd gladly do again if I had the opportunity.
Yeah. I just got fitted for hearing aids today. ☹️
You'll lose a lot of people over the years, some by choice, some by circumstance.
People are not taught much about perimenopause and menopause, and it can have a huge effect on your emotions, brain, body and life and that of your partner. You should learn about it before it happens.
Came here to say this. You hear about menopause and hot flashes - you never hear about peri and the 50 different symptoms - sleep issues, night sweats, anger, weight gain, dry nether regions, sex drive either non-existent or off the charts, hair loss, dry eyes, and a zillion more
I made some huge changes in life with peri because my interest and desire to put up with drama just dropped to zero. I ended a relationship and reshaped my work life. It's been great, but I didn't expect my whole approach to life to change so drastically with the arrival of perimenopause. Suddenly, my priority was more peace, quiet time, self care and not chasing a relationship that wasn't working at all costs.
I think my peri motto has become "That sounds like a you problem."
I was about ready to say the same thing, but you beat me to it. I was clueless when my body was changing. I always thought menopause was a few hot flashes and your cycles stopped. Was I wrong!!!
I don't even get hot flashes, but I seriously thought I was getting early onset dementia until my mom said "oh that's just perimenopause". Ugh
Menopause is literally a life changing experience.
So was menstruation but nobody cares. Month in and month out, bleeding for a week unless pregnant or super sick (and you have to be really, really sick for nature to give you a f!cking break)
And then say you do your part in carrying the species on, you go ahead and risk your life to have babies and all. You put in your 40 years of menstruation and such.
Nature thinks you haven’t suffered enough, because then you’ll have to endure the nightmare that is menopause
Womanhood is one long stretch of physical pain and misery
or super sick (and you have to be really, really sick for nature to give you a f!cking break)
On the flipside, after almost every major surgery I've had, my period has started! Why?? Now I'm trying to recover from open heart surgery and I have to do it while on my period?
The way it makes ADHD so much worse was a totally unpleasant surprise.
That’s how I got diagnosed with ADHD. It got so much worse.
I never knew I had ADHD or I developed a whopping case at menopause. Its no joke
Thank you for bringing this up. I'm a female PCP of a certain age, and I love when these patients come in, because I have the power to change their lives. When I transform them from depressed, sweaty, anxious individuals who sit and cry in my office, to vibrant, happy, smiling women with purpose, it's the most gratifying thing. Having been through it, I have the benefit of being able to tell them exactly what's wrong, and the power to fix it. Their gratitude sometimes is overwhelming. I love my job. Most of these women have been in and out of various doctor's offices and told there was nothing wrong with them, and they're just desperate.
Vaginal atrophy is a nifty little medical condition that women approaching menopause should study up on.
The only thing I knew about menopause before going through it was from an episode of The Golden Girls.
No freaking joke! I am in the midst of that hell and the fact that I come from a family that is a majority of women and I was never talk this about it. It’s just upsetting.
Gen X women are really doing a good job of changing this with social media.
You hear older generations of women talk about it being no big deal, but there was a huge change in the late 90s/ early 2000s. Women since the 1930s used to get estrogen therapy ( at one point around the 60s it was the most prescribed drug in America) and because of one flawed study now it's seen as dangerous and most doctors won't prescribe it anymore.
It really stings when your life experience is ignored. Like, “I’ve had the same thing happen to me twelve times and this fixed it. Learn from my mistakes.” “Sit down old person. What do you know about the real world.” Fine-go reinvent the wheel-see if I care. No wonder old people grumble.
I had some nasty little snip in another sub say, approximately, “Nobody gives a fuck about your experience, boomer.” Not even a boomer, but I am evidently an old, and my decades of experience in this particular niche topic were worthless. So that was a bit of a shock. I was so annoyed I unsubbed, because who needs that shit.
They don't tell you that one day you find out you can no longer change the living room furniture around without pulling a muscle, or needing days or weeks to recover. You learn how to pace yourself, or you suffer.
We're young for so long. Then, one day, we aren't.
It's easy to think aging will never happen to us, that all the old folks just didn't stop it, or try harder. They somehow let it take over and made them annoying to deal with.
When we're young, we think it'll be different for US, if it happens at all. We're different, smarter, more in touch with things.
HAH!
Old age comes to us all, if we're lucky. Not everyone gets to be old. I lost many classmates, friends, and family in their 40s and 50s.
They don't tell you that you spend so much of your life gaining knowledge, learning new skills, and enriching your life, only to spend the second half having it all chipped away from you, one thing at a time.
Phones calls with my stepfather consists of him telling me about his latest doctor's appointment, and about the things he can no longer do.
They also don't tell you that with as much as most of us hated having our picture taken when we're young, when we're old it makes us sad to see them. We realize how silly it was to put so much anguish over a simple picture....and how much we wish we looked like that again.
I saw a picture of myself last night. I was about 28 in the picture and remember thinking how fat I felt. I wasn't fat at all. I sure wish I looked anything like that again but I'm still not fat.
I wasted all my thin years thinking I was fat
Amen to all of that. I say if I knew then what I know now (about the way I looked), I would have said ..Girl you look damn good!
Young people and children are all so beautiful and they don’t know it.
Everyone has the potential to develop arthritis in every joint in their body. Take are of your joints while you're young!
At the young age of 23, I am living with rheumatoid arthritis. It sucks. Take care of your joints!
At 36, I’ve been told I already will need a shoulder replacement. 😞
How should one take care of them?
Low-impact exercise, strength training, stretching.
Yes! this! Plus eating properly and drinking plenty of water
And diet. I'm a little over 50% to my current weight loss goal because if I want any shot of aging gracefully, this is probably my last shot to get my body in the proper physical shape to do so. Vishnu knows I don't want to end up like one of those Jabbas who needs to borrow the store's electric scooter to go grocery shopping
After 4 surgeries to repair a back injury, my recovery went splendidly, and I was getting ready to celebrate and live my life to the fullest again. But then, arthritis took hold of my spine and put me back at square one.
Every technological development has a positive and negative side, and the adoption of something new that has a lot of great benefits is also a loss in some other ways.
You start watching younger people have to relearn lessons the hard way that you hoped people would have understood by learning history.
That it's never too late to have a happy childhood. 🙂
Any suggestions as to how?
Well, I just made meditation jars with clear glue, distilled water, and glitter, so that would be embracing your inner child.
Essentially, anything that embraces that. Run around all summer in bare feet, watch Disney movies, blow some bubbles. Make homemade scented playdough (purple Kool Aid smells like grape bubble gum!), make some slime, colour. Whatever makes your inner little person happy.
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4d
Your comment made me think of a song called Hey Little Me by Mother Moon that's about nurturing and coaxing out one's inner child. I find the best way to connect with your inner child is to ask yourself "what's something I wanted to do as a kid but was told I couldn't/didn't have the money for/it was too hard for me to do then" or something similar. Then go out and do that thing!
If that's buying a PILE of stuffed animals and jumping off your bed into it, do it! If it's curling up and watching Craig of the Creek or SpongeBob or Flintstones while drinking some chocky milk from a wine glass, do it! If it's making a monstrosity desert out of whatever is in your cabinets, do it! Nuggies or ice cream for dinner? DO IT! Don't let society's expectations of how an adult "should" act at your age, just do whatever the hell you want and indulge in "childish" things. I wish you the best, internet stranger!
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4d
A quick Google search shows TONS of stuffed dolphins! I bet you could find one similar to yours. I have a BUNCH of stuffies personally, I am going to have to downsize soon most likely 🥲
Oh oh oh I can help! I've been working on this for the better part of two decades. One big part is to talk to yourself, especially if you have negative internal speak. Say nice things to yourself, disrupt that negative voice that's already instilled. Like, you want to address that part of you that never felt like it grew up, the little kid still inside you, and redo that relationship into something kinder, gentler, whatever you needed and didn't get. Except you're both the parent and the child at the same time.
It's really weird at first and I know I'm not explaining it get well. But one day it kinda just turns around. And from there, you start listening to the stuff that sounds fun and instead of 'oh that'd be awkward' or other reasons you wouldn't do it... Do it anyhow!! I raise guppies, I polish rocks, I go to nerdy conventions, I play games I want to without caring what I 'should' do as an adult. I taugh myself to draw, I read books based on what I want, not what I should. It's nice and I've become a lot happier as a person and weirdly the older I get and the better at this I become, the younger I feel
That there can be a growing contentment and increased satisfaction with life as it is. Life’s impermanence gets clearer and so does its meaninglessness. As that happens the drama and struggle drains from me. Do I hurt? Yes. Can I do less physically? Yes. Do I wish I weren’t old? No
True! This is my experience exactly!
Vaginal Atrophy. That one kind wonderful symptom that never got mentioned during the vigorous shrugging that was most women's education about menopause.
And the word Atrophy is not in there by mistake.
There's nothing healthy about forcing yourself to tolerate horrible people. Stop being the chaser, fixer, fawner, enabler...
When you "keep the peace" there actually isn't peace. There's endless heartburn, stress, arguments, etc. The horrible people get to have a social life and supply, while everyone else is constantly vigilant and worried about being their next victim. We "kept the peace" with my MIL and her flying monkeys for far too long. It might havd torn our marriage apart if we hadn't finally started having healthy boundaries.
Live your life for you because you're the only one who can live your life.
Focus on a healthy mind and body instead of worrying about what anybody else might think.
There's nothing healthy about forcing yourself to tolerate horrible people. Stop being the chaser, fixer, fawner, enabler...
I learned this way too late in life. No one loses out more in this scenario than you.
As you get older, things hurt, and they either get better, or they don't. (As told to me by an older neighbor who has since passed away).
RIP Russ
This is true. When I turned 60, things started to ache. Sleeping wrong on my neck, pulling a shoulder muscle taking off my bra (I couldn’t move my arm for 3 days), weird new muscle spasms, twisting your knee funny, new medical problems, and the list goes on. I’m just glad I was healthy enough to take care of both my parents before they passed. May Russ RIP.
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5d
My Dad was told at 62 he was a walking heart attack. He changed his habits. He walked several miles a day. Are healthy food. Lowered his BP with medication.Read advanced math just for fun.
However, completely unknown to him,his prostate had enlarged to press on the blood supply to his kidneys. At 5 percent kidney function,he went on dialysis.
He died at 84 while driving. His heart gave out. I was by his side. He never made a sound.
What a legend.
He deserved those extra twenty two years.
I bet that ended up being a scary car ride.
Falls. Nobody ever talks about falls as a leading cause of death right behind the usual suspects like heart problems or cancer.
Attended a church with a lot of old people and one Sunday our pastor mentioned that one of the elderly congregants had just fallen for the second time in 6 months. The audible gasp from the pews was telling, those old ladies knew what was coming next.
I would vote this 1000 times up if I could. Falls. Falls that when you were in your twenties or thirties you just get up and brush it off. When you hit a certain age with falls you start breaking bones. And having surgery for those broken bones. and having weeks of healing for the surgery. But it can be so much worse. You fall. You break a hip. You are confined to a bed for weeks and you develop pneumonia. And you die. All from a fall. I worked in nursing homes this happened a lot.
You have charities for cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other co-morbidities but nothing for falls. Nobody really talks about this.
I had a fall about ten years ago while out trail running that gave me a concussion. Changed my personality. Falls are scary weird.
For women specifically..
The hair on your head will thin.
It will seemingly migrate to obnoxious places on your cheeks, chin and neck but be 10x thicker than any other hair on your body.
The hair under your arms and on your legs will thin considerably.
The hair in your pubic area will seem like it's thinning but it's secretly migrating a little further down your thighs.
You skin will start to look thinner, especially on your hands and arms.
You will need to change your entire beauty routine - almost overnight. I mean the makeup you use, moisturizers, wrinkle creams, everything.
At some time, typically between 40 and 50, you will begin to feel like you're losing your mind. This is apparently "normal" and is called perimenopause. You will have a combination of random symptoms that every doctor will tell you is unrelated and yet manage to make your life a living hell. Some symptoms include hot flashes, night sweats, weight gain, mood swings, anxiety, depression, fatigue, no sex drive, headaches and brain fog. Yes, brain fog is the clinical term. You will most likely stop sleeping - either from night sweats, anxiety, aches and pains and/or more. Doctors will tell you there's nothing wrong with you and either send you for a million different tests or flat out not understand what is happening with your body and gaslight the hell out of you.
The simple fact that you are aging will be stigmatized.
Wrinkles and gray hair are beautiful.
“Just 20 percent of ob-gyn residency programs provide any kind of menopause training. Mostly, the courses are elective. And nearly 80 percent of medical residents admit that they feel ‘barely comfortable’ discussing or treating menopause.”
Women's healthcare, amirite? /s
Many biochemicals in the human body start to be less efficiently synthesized or utilized as we age. This also applies to some minerals and vitamins, like zinc, selenium, magnesium, coq10, etc.
So supplementation, which might have been overkill at a younger age, is essential to avoid things like chronic pain, sarcopenia, and diseases that often appear as we age.
I just turned 70. The image in my head of old people at 70 is nothing like how i feel. I don’t feel old. Also, there is a tipping point - all the things you think you might do someday, one day you realize you will never be doing them. Finally lasts sneak up. I didn’t know my last camping trip was my last one ever. I just know now i cant do it any more.
It's not the golden years, it's the grieving years. As I get older (now 72), more and more of my loved ones die. More often than not, I am in one of the various stages of grief.
I am a fan of a well-known motivational speaker, and I like to listen to his sermons, but one of the things that he frequently says is, “your best days are ahead of you.”
That’s a harder sell now that I’m on the downside of 60. I think I will have many beautiful days in my future, but I miss the vitality of youth.
Every day, I do yoga and stretching, and walking and mild workouts just to maintain a modicum of balance and mobility.
Most mornings when I wake up, I have to struggle to get out of bed and walk to the kitchen without moaning and groaning like an old person. Every morning, I affirm that I am strong and capable and full of energy.
But my body is slowing down, and I can’t seem to stop it.
bones and muscles take way longer to heal
Your eyesight goes bad around 40
Like clockwork!! My dad warned me and I blew it off, but sometime after my 40th birthday but before my 41st, it began.
Life becomes a series of heartbreaking losses. There is nothing you can do to stop them. They happen year in, year out. Parents, siblings, cousins, friends, coworkers, pets. People you are close to and care about. One after the other at a seemingly accelerated rate.
The time that exists in between these loses is where you have to live your life.
Enjoy the in-betweens.
I yearn for a full body transplant.
As I've aged I have noticed a drop in energy level. I used to be able to do physical work, like yard work or painting, for 10-12 hours straight. Now I have to break it down into two or three 4-hour days to do the same amount of work.
I'm currently sitting with a broken ulnar from a fall and gumming my food because I had 6 teeth pulled in preparation for implants.
Normally I'm pedaling my bike 150 mi/week and going to the gym.
Glass empty or full? Implants are available and I can get them. The arm will heal. I don't have cancer or heart disease or really anything else. My children and grandchildren are doing well.
I'll count all of that as a gift while acknowledging that having teeth pulled is painful.
Make your health your hobby. Keep on keepin on.
It’s hard being the last survivor of your family.
You don't realize you are aging. In your mind you are still 27, even when you suddenly realize you are actually 55.
Clearing stuff
You feel like you only have your own stuff, then somebody passes away and you have to navigate your way through clearing someone else's stuff. Then it happens again and you realise your kids will have to do it to your stuff one day.
This is true. After having gone through clearing out my parents' stuff, I go into "decluttering mode" a couple of times a year within my own house. I don't want the final clearing of my stuff to be overwhelming on whoever it falls on.
Muscles will atrophy.
You think you're near-invincible, even elastic, as you progress in age. Nope! You still need to stretch and exercise somewhat regularly. And as a reminder, your heart is a muscle. A healthy heart has strong health-related benefits, from blood pressure to dental health. (Yes, your teeth benefit from a healthy heart.)
Time will move faster than you can imagine. There is little to nothing in society for you that is cool or fun. You will still feel young, feel like you always did, but young people don't want to talk to you - you will be looked at in disdain if you try to be friendly with younger people. You will become irrelevant at work, not because of anything other than young people not wanting to associate with you (Unless you are in a power position). Young people judge you on nothing other than you are older than them. Being in a room with people that are 10-20 years younger than you is like being on Mars. It is very difficult to have a good time, and your odds of having a summer romance are slim. The feeling of being at the end of the road is unnerving. You will eventually lose everything that you love...
There's a reason why people get cranky as they age. The senses and energy diminish as pain enters.
And yes, you do become invisible, but as an introvert and someone who was always stared at, I find that a blessing.
I’m 67 and my reality has been that aging has gone better than I thought it would. The panic and terrible fear of death I suffered when younger is gone (thanks to a lot of work in therapy, perhaps). I’m in pretty good health. I exercise, play music, cook, read, and write.
Everything is not perfect and I know enough folks older than me to know that things could take a turn for the worse at any time but I’m digging where I am now.
That you actually have quite a bit of control over how fast you age both physically and mentally.
There are many things you do to slow down the process, in some cases quite a bit.
Most shit doesn't matter and the shit that does matter doesn't matter as much as you think it does.
How fast your muscles can atrophy and weaken if you don't exercise regularly. Most noticeable is the lost strength in my legs. I've begun doing squats again.
Age Discrimination
This is not some earth-shaking revelation, but I was extremely surprised to discover one day, not even that long ago, that I had certain favourite household products and no other would do. I’d wait for a specific brand of paper towels or tissues to go on sale because the other brands were just wrong in some way — too thin, too rough, too flimsy. And it’s not because I got old and crotchety and picky, or at least not only because of that: it’s because, having heedlessly bought any old brand that was on sale for years, I came to realize that there really were differences, and I really did prefer one over the others, and it was worth getting the one thing I really liked.
So finally I understood why my grandparents and parents would stockpile a particular product when it went on sale, and why they’d get annoyed if I bought the wrong one. Not all dish detergents are created equal!
It hurts like hell!
Being able to take care of your parents at end of life is a true blessing. But the older I get, the more I’m amazed at how strong my mother was.
When they say history repeats itself I didn’t realize that would mean I literally have to watch it happening in my lifetime. I always thought it was more of a long term effect. Nope. Everything seems to swing back and forth about every 20 years or so. Although watching GenZ having revelations of things everyone older has already known has been enlightening. You’d think they wouldn’t be so surprised by everything with how ubiquitous the internet is now. RHCP’s Californication was NOT predicting the future btw. Those things were happening when it was written.
I wish I'd known that the death of peers and near-peers can start earlier than you expect. Since I was 48, there have been one or two each year. I greet each NYE by wondering who it will be this year.
I wish someone had told me how paranoid you get as you near retirement. Maybe this is unique to those of us who are eligible for a pension based on age + years of service, but I had friends and family who were state retirees and they never mentioned how the closer you get, the more willing you are to put up with any old crap. If my boss had told me to scrub the restrooms with a toothbrush I probably would've done it.
Then there's the sheer number of ignorant assumptions people make:
- Not only are we not tech-ignorant, but we were in on the ground floor and many of us can actually write code. We also know how to curate our social media and turn off the alerts on our phones when we don't wish to be bothered, which are two things younger people seem totally baffled by, judging by their complaints about toxic social media and being "always on." No one can reach me if I don't want them to, and I immediately drop people or groups that annoy me.
- If you were good at languages in your youth, you'll probably still be good at them as you get older. I finally learned Latin at 55 and have toyed a bit with Old English and Chinese, unable to decide if I want to tackle another dead language or a living one.
- Much of your fitness as you age is up to you. Obviously this doesn't apply if you have a chronic illness or have been severely injured, whether recently or in the past. But people have completed the Appalachian Trail and the Ironman triathlon in their 80s. My grandfather was still shearing his own sheep when he was in his 80s. For those not in the know, this involves forcing a 200-300lb sheep to the ground and going at it while the sheep tries to fight you. I have a friend who will be 70 next year who works offshore and just learned how to surf.
- And finally, if we're alone due to circumstance, we're not necessarily lonely. A person can feel lonely in a crowded room, and feel whole and content while being in an empty house. This is based on personality and expectations, not age.
Falling can be a death sentence.
Time goes super fast.
Its harder to recover after working out. You can’t do as much at the gym and have to make sure you dont hurt yourself. One wrong move and off to physical therapy you go!
I work in a retirement home and so many are not prepared for the amount of losses you have to deal with- not only beloved partners/ family/friends. That life can change fast when health problems arise. That you can slowly lose control /your independence over seemingly minor things but those things add up. (Like the idea of trying to take a shit with someone standing in the bathroom with you?) There are so many little losses. The biggest favour people can do for themselves is to stay active(keep up with strength and balance exercises)/and eat well and maintain a normal weight. Keep on top of your mental health. One thing that I woke up to when my father died a few years ago- the time to be present is now. With his death I woke up. (I was in a perimenopausal blah phase with how I thought about my marriage) I worked on that and totally turned my attitude around and make the most of each moment.
You never feel your age. For example, I'm 43 and I still sometimes look for the adult in the room... I feel 24-25, specifically. My father, who is 71, says that this feeling never does go away fully. It's wild to me that our brains work like this.
It’s not a steady gradual progression. That’s what caught me off guard. One week you feel young and the following week you’re asking yourself what the hell happened.
You will never again be as young as you are now.
Everything hurts. Even if you were active in sports well into middle age, arthritis sucks.
I wish someone had told me how difficult it is to find good medical providers that listen, care, and have a brain.
If you have one that does, please treasure them.
That middle age is as drastic and life changing as puberty, and the sputtering of the hormones closing down can make a person as ornery as a middle school delinquent.
How much you need to anticipate the need to urinate (yes I know).
You lose friends and family members. You start wondering how long you really want to live if you’re just going to outlive so many people that you love.
There is time to investigate new interests, some of which you never knew you had in the hustle bustle of work and raising a family. For example, I’ve become quite a WWII naval historian and am learning to play piano. As it turns out, I’m not bad at either. I’ve also developed a deep interest in raising orchids. Even that one seems out of left field to me. Before retirement I had a number of interests that I thought I’d spend time with, but I didn’t understand how having so much free time would lead me into new subjects.
Ladies: You get to age gradually with the men of your cohort, until you hit perimenopause, and then it comes quite suddenly and all at once. By the time you hit menopause, you are an entirely different person, inside and out. In fact, you might not feel entirely human anymore. It is a largely negative experience -- you lose a lot. So, if you're young, start mentally preparing yourself now to make it as positive and tolerable as possible. Shit's no joke.
You lose your filter. You say what’s on your mind, and you don’t care all that much what people think of you. you quit doing things that you don’t want to do. For example, I always used to host Thanksgiving and Christmas at considerable financial expense and hard work. One day, I just decided that I’m done and someone else can host or people can make other plans. It’s very freeing.
It's not going to be this way forever. Family and friends won't be here forever. You have to learn to do everything yourself because if you don't go first the person who does whatever it is will and you'll have to take care of it.
It’s a privilege denied to many
Almost everything you said you'd never do or say as an older person, you will definitely do or say. Such as catching up with someone and going over who has died in the time you didn't see each other/complaining how things used to be better /hating certain new technology that seems to be to complicated etc.
Also... There will be things that seem important now but that will not matter later. Being mortified because you accidentally farted in public will look like a laughable matter you have to use a potty chair on a full ward of people after a surgery 🤷♀️
I have always been driven to do things and was almost stupid at times in how much I worked. Now that I have retired, I am trying to tone this down a bit.
But last month I built a garden wall, carrying bricks and mortar uphill to do so. It was tough work but I loved it. Until I finished and then realised I was so exhausted and so chronically tired that it took about 3 weeks to recover.
Learn to slow down.
Keep yourself in shape throughout your life. I'm 53 and have gotten BACK into shape and it's changed my life by dropping 60lbs. I realized I was probably next when I saw all the heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, COPD, etc that my contemporaries were going through
It occurred to me the other day that I don’t have to worry about someone thinking I’m not pretty. No one’s looking. It’s ok if I’m not hot, I’m 61. I still dress trendy and stylish and keep my hair looking good, but I think my wrinkles make it pretty obvious I’m not in competition with all the other girls now. It’s kind of not a bad feeling. And if I can keep a waist and a butt, I’m doing better than some! There’s that old lady giveaway, the Fupa and the flat butt. I’m trying hard ! Yeah, maybe it’s shallow but who cares. When you feel good about yourself, it shows.
Tomorrow is never promised YOLO
It’s inevitable and you can’t stop it.
Oh, and you hurt in weird places for seemingly no reason.
Those little injuries come back at you. I used to hurt my thumbs skiing a lot. I didn't mind much, and got to kind of like the feeling of having had a good day out on the slopes. Now, though, I have chronic thumb pain.
Sun damage is similar. Use sunscreen. Floss every day, take care of yourself in little ways -- it adds up when you don't.
You won't know the last time you do something mundane until long after you have done it. The last time you drive a car, open a fridge, put on socks, shave. This might be the last time you scroll Reddit.
The health care system in America is for profit, has productivity targets, and wants to bleed us for every last penny they can. It's about how much they can profit, not making us well.
We are no longer patients. We are customers.
You may already know about age-related hearing loss. You may not know that you can lose your sense of balance as you age.
When my father developed dementia, my mother started saying, "But he was physically active all his life! Tennis! Bicycling!" Yes, and?
That a lot of men lose their sex drive. Whether it’s due to inability or lowered desire, not sure.
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