Does anyone else reflect on 'Closer to Cleopatra than...' moments in their personal lives?

[Thurien]

We are told we are closer in time to Cleopatra today than when the first pyramids were built. Then there is Tyrannosaurus Rex which we are closer to than Stegosaurus.

Interesting enough, but what blows my mind more is time distances in my own life. Today I took a detour through the village where I was born and where I returned to live with my young family. There, one of the DC's and I sat on a small hill by the wood's edge and watched young squirrels playing. DC was about 3 and shreiking with joy as they gambled about.

As I drove through today, I reflected that my own early years seemed like a whole eternity before DC came along. It was really like a different life. Yet from the squirrels to now seems like just a decade or two, but still very much connected to now.

Anyone else get these type of thoughts?

Yes! If my oldest DD has her first child at the age I was when I had her, I’m closer now to being a grandmother than I am to being childless. I still feel 25. 😂

My mistake - my nephew reels historical facts off at me...obviously only a little bit sinks in must pay more attention!

I agree though, perception is that Cleopatra was forever ago rather than at a point in history when the European World was really taking strides in governance and the arts...aka being more civilised. I also didn't realise that she bore Julias Caesar a child until fairly recently (again super nephew!)

MIL parents in wedding photo look old - like my DGP I remember being in their 60+ years- dressed old and stooped they were early 40 she was 19 - they lived till their mid 90s - so spent over half their life looking really old.
I was thinking about this only today. I went for a bike ride with 2 friends. I'm 58 and my friends are 60 and 65. We were all riding road bikes and wearing lycra cycling kit. It occured to me that when my Mum was my age it would probably have seemed positively scandalous for women of our age to behave in such a way. My Mum already seemed really old at 60, with an old lady permed hairstyle and semi formal clothes even when she was doing housework. She wouldn't have got on a bike at that age for anything, even less one with a crossbar and as for wearing shorts....
I think some of it is to do with things like better nutrition and healthcare meaning that my generation genuinely are ageing better than our parents but there are also different attitudes now.

People do seem to stay youthful for longer these days. Just look at the World Cup winning England football team of 1966 - some of them already have combovers, others are missing teeth - and they’re all in their 20s or very early 30s!

I wonder if some of this though is because of the 'cult of youth' we have today? In that today, everybody wants to look and be young. I think back then, being older, including looking older, was more desirable? Age was all about respectability and wisdom and youth was something less valued?

I think people are, generally, better looking now than they have been in the past as more access to dental treatments and better quality make up and hair styling aides. Was talking about this recently when watching some American history documentary. Lyndon B Johnson was 56 in this photo.

Re the 60 year old women of the past seeming older because they had perms and wore smart clothes for housework, I think they were still dressing in the style of their youth. My Nan used to talk about how when she was younger the old ladies dressed like Queen Victoria. I don’t think we are going to be any different.

I remember my Aunt who's 87 saying that when she was a school girl she decided to get her hair cut like George from the Famous Five. Her headmistress had a Victorian hairstyle braided and piled on her head and she called out in assembly that my Aunt's hairstyle was a disgrace and she called her up the front and caned her hand! Whereas now that my Aunt is elderly a short hairstyle would be the norm for women as it was current in their youth.

I wonder how much difference sun screen has made as well.

"at the very beginning of my career I treated people who were born at the end of the 19th century and served in WW1 "

In a bit more trivial, or at least different way, being a vet in the same practice for a long time is odd given the rapid nature of aging in our patients. I've never been anywhere longer than about 8 or 9 years but in one of my jobs, one of the senior semi-retired partners had been there since graduating. She said it's a weird and unpleasant feeling seeing arthritic grizzled bony old half blind pets doddering in for checkups or euthansia, when she remembers them wriggling about at their first puppy vaccines. I get a similar feeling when there are two pets of different ages belonging to one person in for boosters and in my head I think oh I know that client with the Labs, Lady is the older one and Bonnie is the young bouncy dopey one. A sensible slightly portly, slightly greying dog ambles in with a youngster bouncing off the walls. The client says let's get Bonnie out of the way first so I take a step towards the youngster, but it turns out that's Luna, and the older dog the client is leading towards me is Bonnie, not Lady, and a discreet click of the records reminds me that Lady was euthansed for age related illness or infirmity by my colleague last year.

The clothing and hair.
When women married years ago,that was it.
They just god old.
My mam on my confirmation had a perm, blouse and skirt matching and a fur jacket . She was 44 and it was 1986.

She and a lot of people then dressed so much older.
She never wore trousers,or jeans.
I don't think it's frowned upon now to wear much more fashionable clothes.

I came across an old photo of my aunt and gran at my cousins wedding so I know my gran was 70 in it

the same aunt is now 73 and looks about 25 years younger now than my gran in the photo

I'm always fascinated by time comparisons like this. One thing I do (to particularly freak myself out 😅) is project forward. For example, I met my ExDH 25 years ago this year, but that period of my life doesn't feel all that long ago. Which in turn would be the same time-distance as 74 year old me looking back on this year and thinking 'it can't be 25 years ago'. Life is very short!

Yes, Arnie kills another Sarah Connor. He systematically kills all the Sarah Connor's in the phone book.

MIL Dad had survived a Japanese camps in second world war- so that probably didn't help his posture or general health and both grew up and lived in poverty - MIL grew up dirt poor.

My own Grandad parents also in the second world war grew up very poor but did well in life active into 80s -despite similar period style in my parents wedding photos don't look old as such just differently styled. .

Yet both couples lived to their mid 90s. So while I get style and clothes probably do make them look older - I do agree that health and lifestyle also impact the impression given.

On a more mundane level, I now work in a job with quite a young age profile of workmates. In my old job, if a moment at work really fitted, somebody might quote Father Ted or the Fast Show. Giggles all round. New job, I forget myself and quote one of them- blank looks . Then I remember that most of them were in nappies or hasn't been conceived yet when these TV shows were a common cultural reference. Now they're an in-joke with an in-group consisting of....me. 😶 not cool.
DH, who is 10 years older than me, has a lot of shared references with me but was a little bit sad early on when he gleefully spotted the right moment to sing with expectant grin:
Him: Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub!
Me: blank look
Him: (repeats) Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew... come on Power..
Me: blank
Him: you know, the song. Trumpton.
Me: What?
Him : You know, the kids thing. Camberwick Green . Trumpton. (Starts headbanging and singing) THERE'S GONNA BE A RIOT DOWN IN TRUMPTON TONIGHT.
Me: What?
Him: Half Man Half Biscuit!
Me: Are you taking the piss or are you having some kind of episode?
Him: (lengthy rather garbled explanation of the 60s/early 70s TV show and the 80s song. ).
Me, peeved that my tea is cold and he appears to think I'm a bit dim to never have heard of any of it:Sounds a bit shit, was it like Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men? People go on about how it was great but I saw it once, looks shit
Him: It was brilliant. Nothing like Bill and Ben. That was shit, only old people think it was brilliant.
Me: Right. (making mental note to annoy him with the theme tunes to Bananaman, Superted, Danger Mouse, Count Duckula and all the other stuff I used to watch and love)

Kind of - I realised that the 1990s are to today's teens what the 1960s were to me at that age. That made me feel old.

Yeah I still think Victorian = 100 years ago.

And the kids I teach - when I reference 9/11 and they've heard of it but it happened before they were born.

Actually got my revenge a bit when DD1 was enjoying The Clangers and DH kept moaning how they'd wrecked it. I just said oh yeah the old Clangers was a bit before my time, but I did see some of the old one years ago.....it wasn't as good as Button Moon.

My wife died last winter... I was struck by one of our wedding photographs... the best man, the maid of honour, assorted relatives... and I'm the only one still alive.

It's hard not to dwell on this.

I definitely think reflecting forward is worse.
I'm 51 and in 22 years my eldest son will be 51.
I'm finding that bit hard to swallow.

I had a weird moment when my great aunt died at 102 and was buried in the graveyard where quite a few of the deceased family lie. We usually go and 'visit' the graves of those we knew such as her sister (my grandmother) and my aunt and cousin who sadly died quite young.
When I was there I saw the grave of her father (so my great grandfather) who had died in the 1950s, well before I was born, the grave looked old and slightly lop sided the way old graves can and it occurred to me that this man who is only 3 generations before me has pretty much been forgotten, all the love and life and experiences he had and who now alive can remember him - my mother was a child when he died so she may have a vague memory, all of his children's generation are gone... yet he had a full life and now it's just... nothing... just an untended unvisited grave that's all that's left of his time and life on this earth.

Me neither.