Things that you start to obsess about as you get older…

[BarrelOfOtters]

Bin day. Never used to think about it really. Now I’m proper obsessed with bin day and what to leave out when…

garden birds and feeding them.

it was like a switch flipped and now I’m buying high quality fat balls and ground feeding mixes….

It would be FAR easier to list what I'm not obsessing over or worrying about tbh.

im only 53, I'd have driven my younger self completely mad!!!

At a trivial level
Bins
Birds
Foxes
Parking
Washing/ironing

Likewise, I worry about women's rights.

Grey pubes

Ooh me too! Also people parking where it blocks the footpath.

Feminist issues definitely.
Also obsessed with when my periods will finally end! (53 and still going!).
The cost of literally everything! I frequently find myself saying "I'm not paying that much for that" and hear myself sounding like a grumpy old person.
Shoes! Not how pretty they are but how comfortable they are. That is the main consideration now.

Safety. When I was young I took risks, did daring things, took little care of my surroundings. Now at 63, I'm getting a ramp put in so I don't have to navigate steps, have hand rails in the bathroom, and I assess every part of my surroundings. Falls can kill you - I don't want to end up as a static.

Pelvic floor exercises

Agree with bin day! But I think it's partly because when I was younger they collected every week, now it's every 2 with talks of moving to every 3.... so if we miss one it's a nightmare and we end up having to go to the tip, which is a pain in the bum!

This is so funny 😆

My younger self would be surprised at how concerned I am about condensation in the house.
I am constantly closing doors / opening windows to strategically ventilate rooms after teenagers have had overly long showers or cooked pasta without putting the lid on the pan.

I am also increasingly concerned about several wider issues (including women's rights and climate change) but that isn't linked to me getting older, which is what the OP asked about.

Dementia, how long I will be a carer, how long till I get it myself and the window of free time allowed between that.

Health.

Keeping the grey hairs covered.

Going on holidays. I keep thinking I should go whilst health good enough.

@Favouritefruits you are adorable 🥰

Uneven pavement

It is not obsessive but I am always diligent about what goes in the bins and getting them out on the correct day.
I have an elderly neighbour who likes to bring my emptied bin back for me. She does it with other neighbours too.
When she was on holiday her son brought my bin back. It was only after I had placed rubbish in it that I realised it was their bin and they had mine.
I had to wait two weeks to get my bin (with house number on ) back. It was filthy inside and I had to bleach it and wipe the lid clean.
On second thoughts.. yeah I am obsessive !

Bin day has become increasingly vital though.

when me and dh were a young couple, we had our wheelie bin, we put the litter in it and it was collected weekly. If we had something bulky, we could take it to the local tip. It was never any bother. Just remove the bin liner from the kitchen bin and dump it in the outside bin. If we forgot to put it out one week, it would be fine - just put it out the following week. Nothing unhygienic, difficult or inconvenient. No capacity problems.

fast forward 25 years and bins are collected far less frequently, meaning that you have to be vigilant with bin day - miss it once and end up with a month’s litter! Recycling has to be put in idiotic box containers with no lids. Then after they are emptied, they are tossed so that sharp bits break off the edges. Recycling is dropped on the street. The food container is a filthy thing that needs cleaning, even when you use cornstarch liners. Our local recycling bank closed this year -
I used to take the hello fresh massive cardboard boxes there. Our tip is closing in a few weeks. I have actually paid to have litter taken away occasionally. It’s an issue with a large busy household.

@BestIsWest the one in Gorseinon? If so no because I'd have to plan it that I go when I visit my parents in the area before there so I'm not going just for that 😀

Researching which hoover is the best at picking up cat hair. Even though we don't actually need a new one yet and DH does all the hoovering.

Having repeated conversations with DH about my desire to buy a robot hoover and his conviction that they don't "pick up cat hair properly" and I don't even do the hoovering anyway.

I also spend an ordinate amount of time musing how chin hairs how can suddenly appear overnight and how can they immediately be over an inch in length. I actually once started a thread wondering if a jumper debobbler would work on your face.

God I want to be 18 again!

Plants. I think I spent approx 3 minutes thinking about plants before the age of 40. Now I can spend ages thinking about what to put where, is this thriving, drat these snails, ooh look there’s some new growth there.

Ageing. Again not something I ever thought about. I have a constant battle in my head between feminist me which says sod it I shall wear purple and learn to spit. And vain me which reads about all the SPFs and retinols and jade rollers I ought to be using and gets depressed.

I don’t think about bins that much but we have a blessedly simple system here.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you won't achieve great inner peace as you will just be fretting about the shelf items going down to 2 instead of 3. If you do take this route though, refer to the shelves as "The Stash" (assign it these capital letters in your thoughts) and buy a label maker. Make sure you research which label maker is best. Perhaps a subscription to Which might help?

I put shelves in my garage last year with the rotation intent. I haven't mastered it though, can't be bothered to go outside to check stocks before I shop or do the new for old swapping whilst unloading the shopping so we always use the handy tin of Tom's indoors instead of the outdoor supplies.
DH has also kindly put 6 boxes of wine on my garage shelves as he is obsessed with bin days AND never running out of wine and the existing wine rack is full.

No bin worries here, we just do exactly what the bloke across the road does. He is totally on top of the complicated system we have. He knows the rest of us in our close rely on him and puts his bins out early so we have time to copy.

I have too many house plants so obsess about them. Have they had enough/too much water? Do they need more/less light? Do they need repotting/pruning?

As a PP said, loos. Plan a trip to town, go to three or four shops then M&S because it has nice loos. Then a couple more shops before a visit to the bookshop which also has nice loos. I'm sure it never crossed my mind years ago. It still makes me twitch if I am going somewhere with an adult DC and they don't have a wee before we leave. Maternal conditioning I guess.

DH knows all the local bus routes and numbers. There was a new route added recently which was exciting for him 😁

One of my greatest joys is confusing the neighbours by being first to put my bin out and putting out THE WRONG BIN. Sometimes the more confident neighbours will text or knock to tell me I have the wrong bin out. For everyone else it generates massive confusion as they doubt their own knowledge of which bin needs to go out. I have seen groups of them in the street with different coloured bins, conferring on which bin is correct. It’s marvellous fun.

I do this. I have the bin app for our area and sometimes I just randomly put one out 😅

Ooooo! @Velda I might give this a go. Only 5 houses in my street though, slim pickings