Anyone else feel that time is running out

I’m late 50s and so excited for the next stage of my life. I don’t own a home and being crippled by high rent on a family home. So, I’m not very secure financially. But I feel so lucky everyday for the life I have: kids, mates, health, music, job, neighbourhood.

I don’t feel time’s running out, even though my dad died at 59, so I may only have a couple of years left. I still feel so young. My bf of 6 years is 15 years younger than me. I’ve never really dwelt on age. Unless you know how your life will pan out, it’s all relative. If you die in your 20s and 30s (as some of my mates did), then time’s running out at 27.

Joining the q. Though unlike OP I dont have the successful career. Smartest person in my very smart school and nothing career wise. A very dramatic life, accidents and incidents. 54 and feel like I'm 100. I look back at all the offers of jobs etc I knocked back. Instead I got pregnant at 23yo and I wouldn't trade that for all the riches. It is annoying when someone who didn't do well at school constantly posts their first class boarding passes though.

I think life changing events so death, divorce etc make you think this
i will soon lose my v old mum.makes me think I’m next up

Early 40s here. I look back and wonder where on earth the last 25 years have gone. I feel I've wasted my youth struggling, planning, and sacrificing for a future that never came. Decades of bad relationships, miserable work experience, naively trying to learn new skills and getting a higher education have been a waste of time because they haven't changed my life for the better. I've given up! I realise now that I'll never have the loving relationship, big family, successful career and loads of money I was aiming for. I've simply run out of time to make these things happen. I feel a bit silly for being so hopeful and ambitious in the first place. Now I try not to aim so high. I try to enjoy the smaller things like learning a new craft and just accept it for what it is rather than expecting it to lead to something bigger. I don't know if its a depressive midlife crisis or a case of finally accepting my lot in life.

I’m 53 and running out of time as I have terminal cancer. That was expected to be my last Christmas. I’m financially very healthy as although we have a lovely life I always saved for the rainy day and now won’t be able to use it. What do I wish I could have done is to travel more and to spend more money on my house than I did. By this I mean the actual bathroom and kitchen I really wanted rather than the 4th one down the list to save a few grand. I wish I’d gotten my bedroom fitted out by Sharps (old house - lots of ins and outs).

I’ve always played it safe and only now that I’m spending more and more time in bed I wish my room was nicer and I’m only now Igetting the decorators in and going a bit off my usual track but actually what I really like.

We never know what’s round the corner, enjoy life, do all the things you want to do. I have no regrets as such but as a total home bird I wish I’d done things differently. I guess reading this back if that’s the only thing I would change about my life then it’s been pretty good until now!

I think we all reach an age where we realise we're no longer 'our whole life is in front of us'. I'm 48 & have become very aware in the last two-three years.

I've noticed my body slowing, eyesight going to.sh*t, DH complaining about his knees (genetic, apparently). Nothing major, but the realisation that we'll eventually decline & we're on the clock to do things. I think a lot about time I've wasted. It's been pushed harder by seeing some family & friends in in my age group decline or hit obstacles that are harder, or impossible to recover from (financial, health).

We can't stop it, can't go back, so we're using it to do more now. We've starting travelling again, with DC in tow, instead of obsessing about pensions or everything that needs upgrading around the house (nothing absolutely necessary). Sacrifing to accumulate wealth or working crazy hours for a job seems pointless when you know your time to enjoy it is limited. We are also enjoying ourselves a bit more on a daily basis, instead of being so frugal, which we've always been.

I’m 37 and very recently had a baby. I have been feeling a bit like this (currently listening to an audio book during night feeds about teenagers and it’s made me nostalgic for that time again). I think we all feel like this at various points in life no matter what our age. It’s a shame you have spent 8 years feeling like this instead of enjoying those years - it’s a long time! Have you spoken to your GP? I suffer periodically with health anxiety and worry about dying. I have tried CBT and it has helped at times. I would suggest making some plans for things you really want to do and just crack on and do them. Not necessarily big, expensive plans, just things you fancy doing or achieving. That’s my plan for this year - stop procrastinating/ worrying / giving up because I think it’s too hard. I hope you can stop feeling this way soon and enjoy life again

Pep talk incoming...

Get a grip, everyone! The average age of death is early eighties, so you all have 30-40 years to go, if not more! Some of you have FIFTY YEARS to go!

And flip it...Do you really WANT to be here at 100 with all your friends and possibly your kids having passed before you?

Plus, I was with my dad as he took his last breaths a few months ago. He just fell asleep, after a long illness, and he was at peace at last. Death is not anything to be afraid of. You simply go to sleep, the difference being that you don't wake up, but you don't know about it.

I'm 50 and recently an orphan, and have wasted a lot of my life. But I don't feel that time is running out, because I stay in the present and focus on the here and now.

Now go and do something useful instead of all this navel-gazing! Tidy your rooms if you can't think of anything!😂

I feel
Like this but I think it was turning 50 for me , my mum passed at 60
And my auntie too so I have this fear that the number is fast approaching

I've posted this before, this when you need to get a goat or two.

@ForeverDelayedEpiphany I think you have to get to a certain age to reach that perspective for the most part, although some really gifted people get it from a younger age.

Love this answer. May I add that my dad always said I'd enjoy life much more if I didn't take it so seriously - only now at aged 43 am I beginning to realise he was right! And he told me that when I was aged 17! 🤣😳🤣

You do have a talent, you write very well!

How??

I am really sorry for your loss and hope things are better for you now.

Ultimately everyone's life is meaningless and even the biological imperative to reproduce and pass your genes along is kind of unimportant as those genes will be present in millions of other people and in existence whether you reproduce or not. We are all also, even little children even babies growing closer to death each day and we never know when it will come to us.

So life is pointless except for the meaning you choose to give it. Your life is also only ever a series of moments and you can only exist in each one at a time and then its gone. We will all die and one day humanity will cease to exist. You can see this as depressing or see it as liberating and I think its liberating. Nothing really matters, you are free to choose who you are and your life. Even those responsibilities you have are still what you are choosing.

The past is gone, all you have is now. The best advice I ever got was to find the joy in small day to day things and those tiny fleeting moments. My own observations have also shown me that the people I know who dwell on ageing and that time is running out seem to grow old so much faster than those who don't worry about age and just live present in the moment, those people even seem to look younger.

Let go and focus on what you love and what brings you joy, don't take life to seriously because its not "for" anything but to exist, even just being alive is enough to justify your existence, no more is needed the rest is up to you.

Stop wasting your time on men.

They are inadequate. Useful for one thing.

Make a life without men. It is so much better. Find women, book clubs, restaurant clubs, sewing, singing, gardening, walking.

Oh, and my poor late DB died aged 34 from bowel cancer 7 years ago, so yes, time is precious. And we certainly don't all get to live to a ripe age. Carpe diem, and be happy 😊 💖

This resonates OP.
I'm mid 40's.
I hear ABBA's dancing queen and I am so happy that I got to experience first hand the words of that song. And I am so sad that I never will again. I am excited for my DD to experience that excitement.
I am sad that I'm now invisible to outside society when I used to receive positive attention.
I miss being young and carefree. I miss the joy of youth.
On the flip side I love my DH and DD and friends and job and for that I'll take a wrinkle or two (which I could Botox away!!)

I'll reply properly in the morning, but it reminds me of the song "Sunscreen" I heard aged 18 at university... my health was at its peak, my brain was firing on all cylinders, I had so much potential and optimism. The song was so true and so poignant, looking back now. Floss, it said. Dance, it said. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, it said. And yes, I was never as fat as I imagined

Now.... now, of course, i long to go back in time even 12 years ago to aged 31, and not be in poor health. Life is easy when you're young. It's pointless regretting things but it's made me feel like my life will be pretty much enduring and almost just existing from now on.

God, that was depressing. Sorry! 🤣

My heart goes out to you. Very best wishes xx

To grow old is a privilege. Some people don't get to grow old. I do feel time is speeding up for me. My children are in their twenties. I have been successful in the sense that I am very financially secure. I am still happily with my husband. But I do feel I have lived a more limited life. I am trying to fit in more overseas trips and focusing on enjoying the now. OP should book that trip to Scotland - I mean it's cold. grey and miserable but whatever does it for you. Why not Bali? (I am part Scots so don't abuse me but there's a reason my family immigrated.)

I think maybe it's more a looming awareness of one's own mortality

I feel just the same OP, I'm 55
I don't regret very much of the choices in my past but more that if I drift on like this through late middle age, I definitely will
I feel trapped and panicky
I'm working too hard, not having much fun and feeling burned out
And want something more from what remains of my one wild and precious life

Yes, I have not been able to work for years.... and there is a part of me that keeps saying "we will start tomorrow", but tomorrow never comes.
I think I have lots of time left.... I do not.