Anyone else feel that time is running out

You have at least another ten years of working, if you want to and enjoy it. You can make a few loose plans for what you hope to do when retired. There is still much to be enjoyed. I am 75 and can assure you that time often goes very slowly for me, my pace of life is different to when I was working and before I was widowed. However there are good things in life and there will be even more of them for you. Being in your fifties is great if your health is OK, embrace it and do some interesting things.

I’ve had this feeling since a bereavement. It’s made me want to live out my dreams and write a bucket list. I’ve been a lot more brave recently, facing fears and taking risks. I’ve been more reckless with money and I’ve been more selfish. But if I don’t do these things now I’ll never do them, and I’ve already missed out on so much of my life.

I'm 32 and have felt like this since I was 25. Time is running out for everybody.

I have a friend who recently turned 45, and said she's not afraid of getting older, she loves it. Because her best friend died at 35 and she promised she would live for her and cherish all the time she had left on this earth. I try to remind myself of that when I find myself thinking about how many years I may have left, how long my parents have, etc. Let's cherish the time we have and make the most of it.

Some of us didn't have that choice.

Wouldn't have had a baby without being married. Husband and I met young, but we had careers to build, get married, buy a house. Infertility then followed. Eventually had 2 DC, but two miscarriages before our much-wanted 3rd baby when I was 40.

My career stalled for reasons out of my control - let's just say, I learned a hard lesson that standing up and doing the right thing has terrible consequences! Then babies, and children, getting stuck where it was convenient and easy, and latterly a manager who actively dislikes me because (not wanting to sound like an arse!) I am more intelligent than she is, and way more educated, plus she can't stand to be challenged on anything. It's not just my opinion - 15+++ of us aren't wrong!!

So here I am approaching 62, shit marriage, useless DH, never having had a promotion despite being extremely well qualified, reasonable salary, and have had my application for partial retirement turned down by hateful manager, while others have been approved.

@Rankandfile I also have that feeling of time running out. I have health issues. My mobility isn't great at times. I am still supporting adult children living at home. I'm constantly skint. I can't do the improvements to my home that I had planned if I had got my pension lump sum. I am very, very conscious that my mum died of cancer at 63, and I am not far off her age now.

I just feel as if my life is being stolen from me. I don't want to work FT any more (I won't be because you can lead a horse to water etc, but it's the other ramifications of the decision!). I want to live my life while I am still physically able to do it.

I'm in a pretty bad place atm. I get you.

Have you ever seen Tim Urban’s Wait But Why?
https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html
There’s also an excellent post on “The Tail End” (you’re a way off this yet but it’s a good concept to muse on - might help you to reframe, appreciate and focus future plans).
Would also recommend talking therapy - sounds like you’ve got the sort of job with an Employee Assistance Programme. Always good to chat to an unbiased third party to help you process feelings that have hung around for years.

It kind of does both - it helps focus your mind in the things that matter

Does this 4000 weeks book help? I feel it would make me feel worse! I am already pretty low

So you are 55 and you regret that you didn't make different choices in your life? But you also say that you are successful in your career, love your job, are well travelled and have two teenage children.

What is it that you wish you would have done different?

You then say that you wish you were 10-20 years younger. Well, every time I look in the mirror I think that, but why do you? Is it just because you have had a great life and you want to extend it? If so, celebrate that.

If you want to make changes, do so. You're only 55. You say that you worry that you will blink and be too old to do anything, but what do you want to do? If you would like to be a NASA rocket scientist or a brain surgeon, then that ship may have sailed, but if your goal is to write a book, to travel to new parts of the world or take up a hobby, do it. And let us know how it goes.

Something to think about

oh and I seem to have gone from trying to build a career all my life to being old enough to retire without any period of “having made it” in between.

Also when I had my children I didn’t realise that due to the cost of living, uni costs etc that I would be financially responsible for them for so long.
This means I will have to work til I drop and won’t be able to do a lot of the things I would have liked.

I think you are me!!!

it really does feel like time has sped up/is running out?

have you read Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver James?

Thank you for this ❤️

A couple of years ago I was sitting in a bar with my alcoholic husband and his boring friends, waiting until he'd agree to let me drive him home and put him to bed. I realised that time was literally running out and if I didn't make some radical changes I would have the saddest life ever.
Now I'm in my 50s and single and I still feel that time is running out, but not in a bad way. I have a new hobby and I'm trying to get out more and meet people.
Divorce is really hard, OP. Have you considered talking to a counsellor? Maybe how you are feeling is tied up with mourning your marriage.

I think a lot about if I could make decisions again. I am not worried about time running out but there are some specific decisions which were bad. If you are happy with how things have gone then I suppose it’s more of a general feelings about time passing. I worry constantly, but that is about the future

Absolutely agree OP. I can literally see an egg timer with the sand running out.

I think for me it's watching the effects of ageing on my physical body to realise I am now a 'mature' woman. It does not bother me really but I do feel shocked as to how I got here. I mean I know everyone ages but somehow thought I would be exempt.

Then my parents both dying. Before that someone else was before me in the queue (for dying). Now they are gone I am pushed up to the front and it's very much a feeling of disbelief that they are gone and that 'I'm next'

Finding out my first serious boyfriend had died at 50 from cancer. So the tall, charming boy who I adored and loved is dead. That kind of knocked the wind out of me and made me realise time was marching on.

Even watching neighbours kids who were small toddlers when I moved to my house and now they are on the cusp of being young woman heading to high school feels shocking and really emphaises the passing of time. I don't notice it nearly as much with grown ups but kids changing really makes you aware that time is rushing by.

I'm retired now (early fifties) and whilst I am very happy to be out of the rat race saying 'I'm retired' outloud to anyone just seems surreal. I remember so clearly being the twenty something in the workplace and being a bit dismissive (in my head, not externally) to the 'old guys' in their fifties. Now I'm the 'old guy' the twenty somethings are dismissing.

Also as you say regret over decisions I can now see were bad ones and took me down a path which was not so good. Good men I didn't appreciate when I had them, houses I sold that I shouldn't have, things I worried about that were not worth my time.

The plus thing is that I worry less about things that used to concern me a great deal and now seem utterly ludicrous. I used to be houseproud, now I'm pretty untidy. I used to worry about my weight/appearance, now I'm way less concerned about it. My attitude is very much that only serious illness or death are worth worrying about to any degree. Everything else is just 'noise'
I've also developed an interest in lots of things I never use to be remotely interested in such as art, growing stuff, documentaries on planets, space, world events, world wars. I also have animals now and far favour them over buying 'stuff'.

Sometimes I think about how I want to die. My mum lingered for ages and it was not pretty at all. I hope for a quick death at a decent age. Early eighties will be fine. A quick heart attack in my bed or chair and no long hospital stays. I also don't want to leave any animals behind that have to get rehomed. Apart from that I am gradually making my peace with it the older I get.

YANBU OP.
I’m in my 60’s and feel the same. I look back and cannot believe how quickly the years have flown by. However I remind myself that I have great friends, my health is good, and I’m very active as is my DH, so we pack as much enjoyment into our days as possible. In the quiet moments I look back and wish I’d done more, particularly career wise, but that is definitely too late now! I am lucky to have a good life, but I just wish there was more if it ahead of me.
You are only in your 50’s though, look after yourself, socialise, eat healthy, and exercise so you can be fit enough to enjoy good times ahead.

There will be millions of people feeling as you do, or at least have done at some point in their lives.

It's NEVER NEVER too late to make a change.

If that only ever results in one day of true happiness, then it's worth it.

I've experienced a lot of unhappiness in past situations and relationships...

I'm now in my seventies, but I've no regrets, if someone tells me I'm too old to attempt something, it's more likely that I'll try.... that I believe, is the key.

Whether you're 20 - 30 - 40 - 50 or double!

You can
You can
You can

Sending strength

@Rankandfile I’m 55 this year, have a successful career, love my job, head a department, lived abroad from 30-52 (one year travelling and the rest working)

What's the issue? You have a good job and you were able to work abroad. I don't understand what the regret is.

I wish i had your life.

I'm 40 and I'm very ungrateful for the life I have.

My life is very tough right now.

Can I ask- did you have a good childhood?

Because I think that people with good childhoods go on to live good lives.

I feel exactly the same, more so in the last few years since I was diagnosed with breast cancer at just turned 48. I was treated successfully but the mortality check has stayed with me. I actually felt upset only the day before yesterday when it occurred to me that I wouldn’t ever read all the books I wanted to, of all things. As many pp’s have said, I don’t think I’m coping very well at the moment either, but that’s a whole other thread.

I feel exactly the same OP and a very similar age to you.

I keep telling DH that we've only got 20 summer holiday years left before we're old and limited to Cruise ships. Half joking but also half panicking because it's actually true and there are more than 20 years worth of holiday destinations on my list. I worry that I won't read all the books/see all the films/go to all the countries/reach all the goals and that time is just TICK TICK TICK FUCK YOU TICK TICK TICK

I've made some terrible choices in my life and it's now definitely too late for a do-over. That's not to say i can't still do good and nice things, but I have fucked up on some of the things that matter. And I do look at my teenage kids and feel envy, yes. Not in a mean spirited way - just 'you have so much time and choice' and I don't, kind of way.

Having said that, I do have two thoughts that ground me:

Firstly, I am so grateful for having my teen years in the 80s. Thank fuck for all those memories and so little evidence. Proper going out, proper friends not online ones, healthy relationships, reading books and so on.

Secondally, growing old is a privilege. I used to think that was trite, but I have had a terrible tine of losing people recently. I have lost 4 people in their 50's in the last seven months, and it has made me really understand what people mean when they say that.

Try and find some things that you can refer to that will help reframe the time passing thing.

I’m 70 and I’m starting to think that time is running out. This feeling is not helped by the long, dark, cold Scottish winter. I know however that the Spring will cheer and invigorate me.

My goals are different now.

I travel to places where winter sun warms me. I appreciate spending time with friends, and continue to try to push barriers/opinions/expectations about women (and now aging women).

Family = contentment now rather than stress and worry.
Children and young people amaze and delight me.

Nothing is permanent OP

I think feel lucky you were born in the 60s70s your life has been much better than life for those born since 2000

Love the way you're thinking 🥰