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Original poster

to be petrified at how quickly life goes by?

108 replies

wimpofawoman · 08/08/2011 13:25

Seriously, have been thinking about this far too much the last few years, to the point where it can cause shivers of fear to go through me. That's not normal is it? I'm 37. I consider myself a very lucky person with a happy healthy family with no more problems than the usual ups and downs of life. It's a cliche that the older you get the faster the years go by, but since our first dc was born I feel like I've blinked and 10 years has passed. So why spend time worrying about how much time I have left, and how to stop?

OP posts:
Original poster
wimpofawoman · 08/08/2011 17:16

Burningcandles that's so sad. It's good he's still getting out etc. Some people just have a naturally cheery disposition I guess.

Eleanor, yep, feel the same as when I left uni over 15 years ago. We recently had a holiday in the city I went to uni and I walked around watching all the students and feeling like "one of them" with so many memories still fresh in my mind from student duas, then getting a bir reality check at how much oder I must look.

Popbiscuit I don't think 34 is old at all to do a course. I still think about maybe doing another one, don't know if I will though.

OP posts:
Original poster
wimpofawoman · 08/08/2011 17:18

student days, should say, obviously. Argh.

OP posts:
kippersandjam · 08/08/2011 17:18

i think about this a lot, when i see myself in a mirror in the wrong light. my mum says i am too old for long hair, and when i put a flower clip in, she says they are for young girls, not midde aged women- i am 40. i think things like, only 30 more christmas's or summers, then i feel all flustered everything isn't perfect all the time.

Ormirian · 08/08/2011 17:19

I know exactly what you mean. It gets faster and faster as the years go by. I don't mind getting older, I do mind running out of time. All the things I thought I would enjoy as I got older are now tinged by the knowledge that there time is running out.

Original poster
wimpofawoman · 08/08/2011 17:21

I recently read an article about Happiness and it claimed that having bittersweet experiences is essential to long-term happiness, which is maybe what you mean with the Christmas/summer example.

OP posts:
StoopidBint · 08/08/2011 21:44

I recently read something or watched something (can't remember which)about time going faster which said that it is all down to routines. That's why time goes slowly as a child because you're generally unaware of times/dates etc. but as you age you settle into more routines and time speeds up. They suggested this is why the first half of holidays often seem longer because you're finding your feet and exploring what is around without any set routines. By the end of the holiday you've settled into a routine of sorts and the last half whizzes by.

Makes sense I suppose.

StealthPolarBear · 08/08/2011 21:58

yes me too. I'm struggling to accept that I am coming into middle age. I dont actually feel as though I have changed at all since about 17, my circumstances have changed a lot but my personality and temperament haven't. When I think about it, of course they have.
DH's grandma was recently (now I think about it, probably 4 years ago!) 80, and his aunt was laughing and saying in 10 years she would be 90 and they (i.e. aunt, uncle and parents) would be coming up 70. I had to stop and think about that one but she is right - the generation above me is coming up to 70!

StealthPolarBear · 08/08/2011 22:01

I do comfort myself with the fact that every generation ages get younger. My grandma died an old woman in her 50s. My grandads are still alive (hopefully for ages) but have seemed elderly for 10/15 years or so. My parents and PILs are coming up to 60, and apart from a couple of specific things, aren't any different fitness.outlook wise to how they werre 20 years ago, as far as I can tell. Their holidays aer walking/cycling, they do lots of sport, are perfectly fit and healthy. Surely by the time I get there, that will last until you're 80!

Portofino · 08/08/2011 22:36

Stealth, I don't feel any "different" to how I did 20 years ago either. I maybe feel a bit wiser, but I am still waiting to become a proper grown up. I am 43 next month.

My grandparents were just 40 when I was born. I look at photos and they were positively middle aged. They are now 83/84 and have spent all that time being old. I just spent the weekend with them. They are frail now. When I left I wondered if I would see them again Sad I'm abroad and can't just pop by often.

My life at 43 is SO different. I don't feel middle aged. I just bought tickets to see the Kaiser Chiefs Grin. But time definitely goes quicker. We set off on our holiday this year, and I thought about when we set off a year ago to do the same. It seemed unbelievable that a whole year had gone by.

I remember having panic attacks about dying in my teenage years. I used to calm myself by telling myself that I would only be 32 in the year 2000 which seemed like a million miles away then. Eeeeeek!

StealthPolarBear · 08/08/2011 22:38

oh yes I remember being told by my mum I'd be entitled to free eye tests at 40 becuase of glaucoma in the family. I filed it away in my 17yo brain as "free eye tests when I'm old". Well "old" is a few short years away

Mare11bp · 08/08/2011 22:43

I know. It's my birthday shortly and dreading it. Early 30s but ten years ago I qualified in my profession and it has gone by in a flash. I also feel scared and intimidated at how the years fly past, and how I have hardly saved anything by way of nest egg.

What a way to live, constantly worrying!

Portofino · 08/08/2011 22:49

But re. OP, yes it is fecking scary. I freak out when I realise that the first Duran Duran LP is 30 years old. It used to be the Beatles that were "old". It has gone SO fast.

I still chat on FB to primary/secondary/Uni friends who I have not set eyes on in (at least) 20 years. It does not seem possible. Yet we are still friends. DH went to a P&O reunion where he met his old shipmates from 30 years ago Shock and they all still recognised each other and had a fab old time.

The thing that scares me the most is that dh will retire in 10 years. This is impossible - I only left school 5 minutes ago. We have to make plans - and HE is the one in denial.

wellamI1981 · 08/08/2011 22:50

Yep I worry about this kind of stuff an unhealthy amount. 25 - 30 has passed in a blink of an eye and I fear now DS is here time will accelerate more. In fact since DS was born I worry about death constantly, why are we here, how are we here etc etc. I too wonder how people just go through life not contemplating the fact that one day we may simply cease to exist or even that we are on a random planet suspended in mid air. Ugh.

StealthPolarBear · 08/08/2011 22:53

I struggle to imagine the DCs as elderly, with families of their own looking after them, after we have gone. Though the alternative is unthinkable

Portofino · 08/08/2011 22:55

wellam - I always thought that was why we had religion. Though I have to admit that heaven vs nothing for eternity - the thought of both completely scares me more than anything. I just can't get my head around eternity at all.

AgathaPinchBottom · 08/08/2011 23:01

When I was little I used to confide in my father about my horror of death and the complete terror the thought of it would inspire. He used to say 'everybody dies...Even the queen...you wouldn't want to be the only one that lived forever would you?' that always made me feel better. At least we are all in it together. Nobody escapes the passage of time.

Lunabelly · 08/08/2011 23:02

I'm 39 in a few days. The last few years have gone in the blink of an eye. I have panic attacks about dying - as others have said, I simply cannot deal with no longer existing, of not being with my loved ones. Every sudden headache and I'm thinking "this is it". Like that bit when the Titanic rears up before sliding away.

Once my DCs were born, time hit warp speed, like they were born only yesterday but also forever ago, and to be honest, sometimes I feel so scared of what the future holds. I know I am a mess, have been all my life. But this Fear is one of the worst. Because that spider won't eat me. But one day, I will cease to exist.

I'm so glad it's not just me that feels like this though.

Portofino · 08/08/2011 23:09

I always thought I had a slighty skewed view of it all, as my mum died when I was 4. She was 21. I have always felt a need to DO stuff. I am always planning something.

But I worry that I miss out on the here and now. Day to day life seems like such a struggle. I look forward to events and holidays and don't pay nowhere near enough attention to say, dd just being dd.

bruffin · 08/08/2011 23:23

Each day is a smaler percentage of your life, which is why I think of life going faster. I will be 49 next month and DH will be 50 in a few weeks, our 20th wedding anniversary is on wednesday and we now have teenagers.
The benefit of it all is when I was younger time seem to go so slowly and things we looked forward to seemed such a long time away, now I know things I look forward to will be here before I know it.
DS is going into yr11 this year and I just don't know where the time has gone since he was starting secondary.

FunkyChicken · 09/08/2011 00:33

I'm so relieved to hear lots of you have these thoughts and I'm not a freak! I regularly have sessions of getting really upset about same things - my DH and other friends I've talked to think I'm really morbid but I can't help it. I'm very happy and know I'm lucky in life and I do appreciate my blessings but sometimes its the sweetest moments that upset me most- I find myself welling up thinking about how transient it all is. Better stop before I start myself off!

Dorje · 09/08/2011 01:17

When my Dc was 3 years old she'd cry herself to sleep with thoughts about my and her and everyone elses' deaths. (G&T)

I was the same as a child, and, funnily enough, so was my DH.
We concentrate on living every day, and have dried our tears. There is nothing else to do!

It's quite liberating actually, and having seen so many LO die in my family, I'm relieved every day that I am alive and can go and do stuff - like learn to surf - and have a wonderful time smelling the roses Grin

Being alive is ace.

hairfullofsnakes · 09/08/2011 05:45

Very interesting thread!

CheerfulYank · 09/08/2011 06:26

It is funny, this "old" business. When I was young "old" people were those who'd lived through WWII and the Depression, etc. Now the younger kids I know think of "old" people in terms of the Vietnam War and hippies!

And I find myself going on about "kids these days, no respect. When I was young..." Blush I'm 29 FFS!

I sometimes wonder if this is part of the reason people have a lot of children. When you still have very young children at home, a part of you still feels young. My aunt has six (most were not planned, I think) ages 6-23. She says it stings now that her youngest is at school full time, to know that part of her life is done now.

It does seem to be going by fast now that I have DS...surely he was just a baby a second ago, and then I blinked and he's blowing out four candles on his birthday cake.

is really long, but I think what the ghost says at 3:13 is especially relevant. It's the best ending to a TV series ever. Sigh...

I'm not very afraid of death...I don't chase it certainly but it could happen tomorrow or in eighty years. Of course I'm one of those strange spiritual people who believes that we never cease to exist, anyway. :)

kippersandjam · 09/08/2011 06:33

stoopidbint, not sure about that, have been living with my mil for 3 months and it feels like 20 years:)
George Bernard Shaw said youth is wasted on the young and he is right. and i remember my brother as a teenager wanting everyone over 30 shot!
now i have dh and the dc's its better as i used to worry i would be alone, like bridget jones.
not sure about the bittersweet memories comment, am i being a bit thick?

portofino, i love killers, kaiser cheifs etc, have been to festivals and try not to say ooh that's for the young. but remember being young (18ish) and seeing older folk out and rocking and feeling they should be elsewhere:)
think my mums generation were very 60's 70's and seemed to have clearly defined to them modes of behaviour and dress which was the norm then. my mum didn't wear jeans after 40, they are for young people, she said.

scaryteacher · 09/08/2011 08:35

I hit 45 earlier this year, have been married 25 years in September, my ds turns 16 in October and does his GCSEs next summer. It doesn't seem three minutes since he was a tiny baby and now he pats me on the head and calls me little mum.

What's scary is that I haven't achieved what i thought I would in life and don't know if it is too late now to do so. I also don't feel old enough or grown up enough to be 45...