How do you deal with ageing?

[CaveWoman1]

I’m going to turn 40 this year (admittedly not until autumn!!) but I’m DREADING it. Coming at it from a completely emotional perspective but I’m hating getting older. Hate that I’ll no longer be able to say ‘I’m in my 30’s,” even though it’s my late 30’s.

Hated turning 30 too; the decade ones just seem so……final & depressing. BUT turning 40 is going to be nothing compared to turning 50, & turning 50 is going to be a walk in the park compared to being 60.

I HATE HATE HATE it. I’m struggling to age gracefully, I’m bloody annoyed & I don’t want a party, don’t want to see anyone, certainly don’t want to celebrate. Celebrate what exactly? That I’m another 10 years closer to death, whenever that may be? It’s fucking shit & I don’t know how people do it with a modicum of style or acceptance.

I get it OP, I could have written your post. Your last paragraph especially resonates with me - as you say another decade closer to death.

Unfortunately, I'm 59 and my next birthday is this month. There is fuck all to celebrate and no one to celebrate with. I have a DP and one close friend and that's it. DP is ill with Covid and I'm recovering. To add insult to injury, I still can't taste or smell after 9 days. Friend is in the middle of a marriage breakup. All alone with no family. My parents dead, no siblings and no kids.

It's dreadful and it's too late now for me to to have that great career, marriage and kids. I'm only with DP because I don't want to be alone and I'll never find someone else at my age. I think he's with me for similar reasons. We've split a few times due to his past abusive behaviour.

I guess ageing is ok if you've got kids and grandkids to visit/look after you when you're old, if you've got a lovely husband, loads of friends, if you've no regrets and had lots of life experiences. If you had a shit start in life like me with an alcoholic, abusive father and loads of bullying at school then you grow up scared with zero confidence. You don't follow your dreams you have a breakdown in your 30's instead and face your declining years only with many regrets.

It makes me so sad to realise I was quite pretty when I was young and I never knew it. I thought I was hideous. When I compare myself to other women, I feel such a failure and ageing just reinforces this.
I don't know why you are getting such a hard time on here OP because your view is the truthful one.

I appreciate that I am getting older. OK, so I look a bit rough, these days but we can't be 30 forever.

Well I turned 70 in December and I spent a good 6 months before my birthday being depressed about my "great age" and I have become obsessive about any health issues I have.
I am lucky I am here still in one piece, still look good in a mini-skirt, and have very little grey hair. A face lift would be nice, but my pension won't run to it!
The most depressing thing about being older is how invisible you suddenly become, and how it is assumed that you can't have any relevent opinions or can make any useful contribution to anything of any importance.

I lost my friend at 41 to cancer. She lit up every room she was in. The alternative to ageing is not great.

Move to Australia. Everyone ages rapidly there due to the sun. But fewer people seem to care - bad skin is accepted as normal. Plus, if you move now you'll look amazing in comparison to other people your age!

@mjf981

Move to Australia. Everyone ages rapidly there due to the sun. But fewer people seem to care - bad skin is accepted as normal. Plus, if you move now you'll look amazing in comparison to other people your age!

So true!

Not to boast, but I've often been congratulated on my "English skin". I moved here in my early 50s.

On the other hand I'ver learned not to speculate on age here, as I've miscalculated the effects of the Australian sun. So I STFU in these instances.

It's better than a wooden overcoat

You need to get a grip OP. I'm 62 and I still feel young, it's your attitude that matters, not how you look or you actual age. I can remember my DM and her friend, both in their 80s, saying they didn't feel any older than when they were young.

Stop worrying about superficial things, and just be glad you are alive - grab life by the throat and enjoy it instead of wasting your time hating something you can't change!

@PandoraRocks - I still have my DF, but he is 88 and when he goes I will have no parents, no siblings and no children/grandchildren - and I'm older than you. I am separated from my DH, we are still friends but that is all. However, my attitude couldn't be more different to yours!!

Average life expectancy for a woman in Britain is around 80.
Are you going to spend the next 40 years ( if you're lucky) looking back to your 20s and 30s and mourning your lost youth?

Perhaps in your 30s you worry about ageing as you haven’t hopefully started burying your friends. When your older and friends have started dying you’re just glad to be alive

Enjoy your life! I'm 64 and can honestly say that I've never worried about my age because I've always felt and behaved young. I think as long as you have your health you don't have much to worry about.

I hate it when people complain about getting older. It's a privilege denied to many. It's either get old or die.

Ha! I'll be 60 in October and I'm struggling to get my head around that fact. Thanks to my parents' excellent genes and the care I've taken with my skin and fitness, I don't look anywhere near my age (truthfully) but 60 is still "old". Oh well.

I'm in my 50s now but my 40s were some of the best years of my life. I can't comprehend your feeling of dread.

I think it's just the thought of it. Like anything new you will now say forty something instead of thirty something.

It is not going to affect your life in any drastic way though I can assure you.

I've aways found when I reach a new decade I feel good, think I'm reasonably fit and don't quite look my age. However by about mid way through that decade, and just past that I notice the extra wrinkles, few pounds of extra weight, stiffer joints. That's when it's depressing for me. And of course your nearly in the next decade .....

I wonder if you're actually afraid to live? Afraid to laugh, cry, play, explore, to experience joy and disappointment, to feel love and loss - to be fulfilled and vibrantly alive? If so, get yourself to therapy and deal with this issue. We are going to die, each one of us. So either curl up in existential despair and waste your life, or make the most of the days you are given.

I can relate to this, but it's not because of looks or anything. I'm rapidly approaching the same birthday as you and for me it's all the things I'm running out of time for. Packing up and going travelling for six months because I have too much financial responsibility, trying a completely new career because it would take me eleventy years to qualify and start at the bottom again, having any more children.

The biggest fear for me is getting to be the top of the tree. I don't feel like enough of an adult to do without my Mum and other older relatives! While I know I'm perfectly capable, having a professional job, mortgage, keep DH, DC and DDog alive as well as friends, hobbies and interests, at times I still feel about 12!

Well there’s nothing you can do to stop it so not much point in getting upset by it.
I’ll turn 69 this year and am in a better state of health and fitness than on occasions in the past (despite some creaky joints), I work when I want to not when I have to, I have lovely children and grandchildren, I have a number of rewarding and enjoyable friendships and a newish and fulfilling relationship. I know I’m lucky, but ageing isn’t all doom and gloom.

Retend you're five years older so it's a pleasent surprise when you remember you aren't.

The other piece of advice I would have - is stop looking in the mirror. My Aunt is in her 60s, short, totally grey and with a very ruddy face. She has spent her life on a windswept farm in Yorkshire, and is certainly no beauty. She doesn't do selfies or SM, and only has one small mirror in the house, above the bathroom sink. But she is the happiest person I know and a joy to be around. She doesn't give a toss about how she looks - there are far more important things to think about/do.

i cope with it ,by simply not thinking about it or caring too much , the only things that bother me about aging arent the oh my god im 50 next year sort of thoughts or the fact its obvious im aging in grey hair , menopause starting , its more long term things like what will happen when im 65 and too decrepit to manage taming the huge front and back garden of the house , that sort of stuff , but even that i assume i will have too worry about when it happens

the only thing i find hard is that i feel more frail , a lot more frail and tired than i ever did do , but other than that nothing about it bothers me . i cant understand worrying about it , as its still going to happen regardless anyways

I just embrace ageing, it’s a privilege to get old. I am 50, I was so happy to have survived for half a century, DH on the other hand was depressed by turning 50 😂

@borntobequiet thank you! You've cheered me up, even though I'm not too upset about aging... just a bit surprised at how quickly time passes. I'm not as vain and self-absorbed as I sounded in a previous post; just having a laugh to myself about looking and above all, feeling, younger than I actually am. We are fortunate to have lived this long! And to have so many blessings. OP, honestly don't worry about the numbers. They're actually irrelevant. Stay healthy, focus on what you have, count your blessings.