To find getting older so incredibly sad

As you get older, time does seem to go so quickly. I find I dont have time to do as much stuff in a day that up could have done in my twenties. I have also found that the well known cliche of becoming 'invisible' after age 50 is true.
I don't really mind getting older so long as I stay healthy. Its something you become more and more aware of and you regret not taking more care when you had the mad idea life goes on forever...

I spent most of my late teens and most of my 20's depressed, I am the same age as you OP and now is the first time I feel that actually I'm pretty much where I want to be. I wouldn't trade my life now for my miserable younger one.

Sometimes it doesn't do good to think too much about stuff. Just focus on striving to be happy, that's more important than dwelling on how old you feel.

I'm approaching 35 and am mentally noticing. I didn't really notice 30 as I had a very new baby, and much of the last 5 years has been a rollercoaster of disturbed sleep, breastfeeding, reclaiming my body, pregnancy and repeat again. Now suddenly I have a school child, and no baby.

Mostly the mirror shows the same face as 15+ years ago, but there are subtle hints of change. I'm disconnected from knowing what to wear, clothes from nearly 20 years ago, or trying to work out which shops are neither to young nor too old.

DH is older and he's beginning to hit the fringes of middle age. He's less than 10 years younger than my dad was when he died suddenly. Our surving parents are beginning to reach old age with their health and abilities changing.

Realising that the millennium wasn't that recent, and seeing "young" celebrities and wondering why they're looking middle aged and realising it's because they've been around for 20 years.

I suppose I can summarise it by having been in a bit of a bubble and suddenly noticing lots of little changes all at once.

By and large, I still feel quite young, but feel a bit discombobulated by noticing these changes around me. That's not unreasonable. Getting too hung up on it and defining your life too heavily by it can get unreasonable. I hope I'm still less than halfway through a happy healthy life.

As others have said, growing old is a privilege. A privilege that was denied to my little boy who is forever 1 year and 25 days old. I'll be upset when my parents die (hopefully not anytime soon) but it won't come close to the devastation of my baby not getting to grow up.

I have to put my hand up and admit to feeling rueful sometimes about my changing appearance. But I refuse to get sucked into the all anti-ageing beauty nonsense and I think wrinkles, for example, can make a woman look interesting and strong. I particularly like the look of long gnarled fingers and have killed a couple of threads on Style and Beauty by saying so!

I agree that the down side of getting old is the amount of people you love that die. My FIL has a funeral suit, and regularly goes to funerals. He is very sociable and from a big family, but as he is old so many people close to him have died.

I have had 4 people die in the last year. Two close friends and two family members. It is hard.

What it does bring home to you though is that it is important to do the things you want to, while you still have the chance. Do not put off things you really want to do with your life. And things like appearance really don't matter.

It's funny how we interpret things differently. I just read the op as feeling a bit melancholy about the passage of time which I can understand at any age.

The threads that drive me nuts are where you get 49 year-olds insisting they can't be middle aged because they still go to T in the Park. And the phrase 'young at heart' - as if young people have a monopoly on all that's good - that gives me the rage!

Sorry I haven't got time to rtf huge t!

No, growing old is not sad. Not having the chance to grow old is sad. When arseholes people teased me at my last big birthday "ooooooh turning XX. Are you sad?", (from someone who I know HATES birthdays / getting older etc), I would always say "well, I prefer it to the alternative you dick".

I also agree that it's normal to mourn the realization that your life span is perhaps on the descendant, but that is very different from issues about appearance. The saddest thing for me as I have grown older (I am 69) is all the loss that I have experienced. Both of my parents died recently (at the age of 93 so I was lucky to have them a long time); in the past 10 years, I have lost two close friends and a BIL to cancer. I have experienced the loss of three work colleagues, two to cancer and one to a sudden heart attack.

Both of my children had their children later in life so I realize I may not be around for the weddings and other major life events for my grandchildren. These are the things I am sad for. Not my aging body, although I would like to have my 35 year-old-knees back.

hahaha . My keyboard has a sense of humour. I typed 'body image' and my computer said 'biddy image'.

I agree with you SSargassosea. That's what I think it's all about.

I'd like the choice about when I've had enough though

I also agree with mathanxiety. I had a big wobble at 35 to do with appearance, biddy image and dress sense in the midst of parenting.

I can be sympathetic up to a point. But I think that we as women need to encourage other women, and society as a whole, to address ageism where we can. It's this "youth is the default for all things good" that I find particularly galling. It's everywhere. And it's especially targeted at women.

Recently in connection with my work, someone brought up the notion of "positive" images of older people. It became clear that they meant things like attractive older people playing tennis (there was even a suggestion of showing someone jumping the net).

It's when you see your grown up children visibly age that you realise how short life really is.

I may be done blossoming and blooming (I'm 50) but I have decades of interesting and fun things to do before it's time to wither and die

Life isn't over just because the brief flush of youth has passed
Now its time to start really living

Its tragic, the loss of youth
If it just happened to some people while the rest of us got to stay young and fresh then you'd have cause for complaint

But it's exactly the same for every one of us, we all have to come to terms with it the best we can

I don't think it's particularly ageist or shallow to think, 'Fuck, my life's nearly half over - what happened?'

At any rate, that's how I interpreted the op.

Math you make a good point about the pressures in women to value themselves primarily by their looks ( and DEGratia and I have both made similar points).

But the OP is still wildly unreasonable. She writes that she feels "incredibly sad" to be 35 and "old." It's such a shallow and ageist view, frankly.

It suggests to me that the OP has a rather sexist ageist view of older women. So when you say, let's support each other, then the OP might take note. She - and every other whingeing 35 year old - will be an old woman one day. She'll be the "old lady" on the bus that dares to take up a front eat which should go to a young able-bodied parent with a pram, and so on, and on, just to quote one regular MN bit of ageism.

Well she'd better hope she's going to be one, because the alternative is worse.

Some while ago I pinpointed 35 as the time I consciously felt my age. Our DC2 was a lively toddler so I felt tired, I was starting to think about my health, DH and I had each lost a parent. We were about to relocate and leave our first family home.

Around then, the first time in a shop I was called Madam, I felt as old as Mrs Noah.

I guess from being nowhere in sight, suddenly middle age appeared on the horizon? So I sympathise, OP. For me that pang or whatever was fleeting.

Incidentally was talking to someone the other day about how hard it is guessing people's ages now - I don't mean just beauty tricks or cosmetic surgery - perhaps fewer stereotypical limitations or expectations.

Or maybe it's failing eyesight. Did laugh when some years after, a friend and I were out to lunch. She couldn't read the small print on a menu, I'd left my driving glasses in the car so couldn't see the script on the specials' board at the end of the room. What a pair!

35!!!! 35???????? Getting old at 35?!!!!?!?!?!??!

I wouldn't have anticipated it but, yes, 50s is definitely the best by a mile so far. Long and happy marriage, youngest DC off to uni next year, me and DC retiring this year (I am currently self employed and work from home), financially secure, buying a flat in London so we can be near to museums and theatres etc, lots of travel planned.

My relationship with my DCs better than ever, we go to the theatre and meals together, eldest DD asked me if I would spend a weekend away with her (even though she has a serious DP).

Lots of time for seeing friends, walking dogs, cooking, concerts with friends etc.

No wrinkles (occasional Botox is brilliant, I don't understand the reticence), hair gets tinted every 6 weeks, good skin, just need to shift a stone, but feeling confident in new year's resolutions for more exercise, healthy eating.

All ages have highs and lows but don't make the mistake of thinking getting older means it gets worse, it doesn't; nobody knows what's around the corner, so grab life now and enjoy the moment!

Excellent post math

YANBU OP

But I think this is about perspective. I'm a few years older than you and I finally feel as though I've getting to be the person I was always meant to be.

I have a job I love. I personally think I look better than I have ever done. My children are a joy. Most importantly I still have my health. I have a small number of friends I trust more than anything.

Am I older? Yes
Has the flush of youth passed? Yes
Will I get more niggles? Yes

Is this what I let make me feel old? Nope.
If you look back to your teens and twenties with nostalgia then know you'll look back to this age win nostalgia too. And you'll wonder what on earth you were thinking when you thought you were old!

I don't think it helps someone up to be told off for thinking they have suddenly left youth behind at 35. I think that feeling is quite common, given that many women have a child or two in their late twenties or early thirties and feel themselves to have aged in many respects thanks to that experience, and not just in physical terms but in the sense of feeling 100% responsible for babies or small children 24/7.

The physical manifestations of it are not to be pooh poohed however -- many a woman emerges from a period in her life when she wore either maternity wear or post maternity/nursing duds only to find she no longer knows what suits her changed body, has spent a few years oblivious to fashion and finds everything she owned before babies is now out of date, looks haggard from lack of sleep and grabbing food on the go while chasing toddlers, and holding down a job too, and has no time for the sort of beauty routine that would make an appreciable difference.

I have a lot of sympathy for women doing the equivalent of Rip Van Winkle's emergence. You look in the mirror and ask yourself what the heck happened. And we still live in a culture where women are valued for their youthful good looks and their sexual potential, not for the strength of all kinds or the stamina or maturity that is involved in being a mother. It can come as a shock to women that they have actually become devalued in our culture once they have crossed the Rubicon of motherhood.

I think we should be a little more supportive of each other and a little more understanding. (And yy to less ageist too).

I haven't read the whole thread ,but I am amazed that the OP considers herself to be old at 35. At 35 ,I was single and anticipating never meeting the right person and never being lucky enough to have a family. Fast forward , I am now 53 married to a wonderful man with two kids ,12 and 15. I have gone through the menopause (not great but hey ho) and although my joints ache occasionally and I have a few chin hairs , I feel so blessed that I have come so far. Mum is in her 80s and Dad in his 90s and both of them are still active . I understand the feeling of "God I am getting old",but you are here for such a short time , just get on out there and live your time. I remember being 12/13 and painting my face with makeup , wanting to look older , I am now reversing that procedure ,painting my face to look younger!!

I haven't RTT and this has probably been said, but not getting older is incredibly sad.

I'm browsing as a bit of light relief from my 60 year old DM's hospital room. She isn't going to get old.

I know where you're coming from, OP, but believe me, the best thing you can wish for for anyone you love is that they live happily to a good old age.