to be petrified at how quickly life goes by?

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my mum was 81 yesterday. I think she is coming to terms with the fact that she isnt going to be around a lot of years longer :( I think in her head she is still 60, its just the body that isnt playing ball :) She makes me laugh when she sees someone on telly or in the street (probably younger than she is) and calls them "that old dear" When my dad died at 70, i think she thought that was it, especially as her mum had died at the same age. She is still fit as a flea though and has all her marbles so fingers crossed.

thanks so much for starting this thread! I have just turned 30 and I feel the same, sometimes I am so fearful about the inevitability of it all, even if I watch a history program or something it sets me off.... all these people that have lived and died and what it all means

I was brought up a strict christian but no longer attend church and am not sure about my faith, my parents strongly believe in eternal life after death and my dad has literally been telling us he can't wait to die since we were little! All very odd, I think I still have a niggling fear that I am wrong and will go to hell when I die and will be responsible for the same happening to my children wow that's pretty heavy!

My grandma is 84 and it makes me so sad when she says she is not sure she will be here next Christmas, I don't know how people deal with death being so close.

I think there are definitely periods in your life when you're more aware of time passing than others. I'm 37 and don't have children, so I'm constantly aware of a big Countdown style clock just on the periphery of my vision, not sweeping away the minutes of my whole life, just the next three years or so. After that, if I haven't had children and don't seem likely to, I wonder if that sense of the weeks slipping by so quickly might feel less acute?

On the other hand, not having kids means there are fewer temporal milestones - I don't notice birthdays clocking up, or socks getting bigger, or Christmases coming round so much. So it's a bit of shock to find I'm 37, really, when in my head I'm still about 32.

How amazing that so many of us feel like this and people so rarely discuss it. Good thread.

No, YADNBU. It really depresses me, the thought of getting old and then ceasing to exist. In my head I'm still 16, it's just when I shake myself I realise I'm 23 and the last 7 years has flown by, it all seems too quick!

I do think there is a certain acceptance that comes with old age. They see their peers passing on and it becomes normal. My Mum is in her sixties and talks about it quite frankly, which upsets me a bit, but she says that when you get to her age it doesn't feel like such a big thing and you get used to the idea of it. I also wonder if elderly people who are ill, tired and in pain have had enough and accept it for that reason too.

I do lots of new stuff but yes, time does seem to be whizzing by. It is scary but I'm determined to make the most of it. I'm 41 so realistically my life is probably half over, which scares me a little but the thought of not being here one day doesn't terrify me as much as it did when I was younger.
I do think I have become more accepting of it as I've aged.

I don't think I worry about getting older so much as leaving my kids. Dear Lord I am welling up just thinking about it.

I do find it strange that the people I know now are the people I will probably always know. In my twenties life was so transient, moving about, new friends, new jobs etc. No things are more stable. I look at my friends sometimes and think we will probably be grey haired and old together now, hopefully.

I agree with SeasideSister. Its a reminder to live our lives in awareness and consciousness and not waste it on trivia.*

*except on designated days of chocolate, wine and retail therapy

I am forty. I think this every day. Especially since I have had children. Once minute they were new born, all of a sudden I have an 8 year old and a four year old. It makes me really so I try very hard to make every day count as far as possible. I don't want to look back and have wasted all this time with my amazing children.

You are the same age as my dd and I am 30 years older-believe me the last 37 years have gone by on wings and I hate the thought that I'll be lucky to have another 10-it feels very scary indeed.

In that case Her Maj's clock must be in mach drive plus warp Imperial

I know that the recommendation for resolving this is to make sure you do a lot of new activities. Years can pass by quickly if you always follow the same routine and don't do anything new.

If you're not normal, neither am I

I feel like I'm continually looking at a scene from one of those 1940's films where the passage of time is signified by days/weeks/months falling off a calendar, but in my case entire years are falling off the wall.

Exhortions to live in the 'now' are all very well but, in reality, the 'moment' doesn't last very long at all.

The pathos and the seeming randomness of life is something I've been pondering a lot lately; unfortunately I haven't yet been able to derive much consolation from knowing that time as we know it doesn't exist and that, in effect, all time is now.

The very thought of no longer existing gives me cold shivers and makes living at all seem rather pointless.

i dont really worry about no longer existing, i wont know anything about it anyway. But i do ponder on if my OH goes first and I am left on my own

Thank you for starting this thread. I never realised others felt like this, thought i was alone. Other people seem to bowl through life as if they don't understand that one day they will die. The very thought of no longer existing gives me cold shivers and makes living at all seem rather pointless.