To wonder how you recognise you're getting older

[clearlyaplasticgnome]

I hate having to go out in the evenings
I love listening to Radio 4
I dream of retirement and moving to a nice village beside the sea (never going to happen!)

Rustic - are your ear lobes getting longer too? Nose and ears do keep growing as you get older, so it's not your imagination, sorry!

The fact that the parents of my students have stopped saying "you don't look old enough to be a teacher" and instead I now get my students saying "you're older than my mum". Very depressing!

No Thumb not yet - but I've noticed my DM's have so its immanent

Can't see to thread a needle, and the print in the A-Z keeps shrinking and shrinking.

My knees! I have weirdly saggy wrinkly knees.

Crepey hands

Saggy bum

53 here and suddenly feel aged....like someone flicked a switch and "poof" my younger (Middle aged) self disappeared. I'm genuinely shocked at the seemingly overnight change in my appearance. I am depressed and stuff that worked for me in the past, now, just doesn't. and

When one of the young girls at work asked me if I collect cardigans as I have lots of them!

She then mysteriously disappeared....
fell down the lift shaft

When people ask in your day. What was it like in your day. Blimey, I'm not 100, you know

53 here and suddenly feel aged....like someone flicked a switch and poof my younger (Middle aged) self disappeared

Yes! I got to 50 and thought - wow, I don't look to bad and feel fine, DCs had left home, was all ready for this new life.
By the time I was 55 my memory was hopeless, eyesight gone, body just seemed weaker - very depressing.

Only consolation is that at 62 I still feel like I did at 55

yeah the bum thing is depressing. Mine seems to have defied gravity - I am sure it has migrated up to my stomach. When I look sideways in the mirror it looks like I am back to front.

One poster said something along the lines of we age in spurts [like we used to have growth spurts when kids].

Well I noticed this when I hit 40. At 39 I still looked reasonably good. Slim[mish], minimal double chin, good skin.

Then at 40 - 41 I suddenly seemed to age overnight. It is my mother who looks back at me in the mirror. I have a spare tyre around my middle I cannot seem to shift with 3 x weekly gym. I have a double chin, muddy skin, wrinkles and dark circles/under eye bags.

I used to be someone who looked younger than her age [a right bummer when I was 16 and trying to get into pubs!] and meant I was sometimes patronised by work colleagues as I looked like a newbie [even though I'd been working into my field for 10 plus years.

But now no-one bats an eye when I say I am nearly 42. I definitely look middle aged now and that is a bit depressing.

But I also feel I get more respect in life as a middle aged women. Shop assistants and cocky young men don't mess with me anymore. I sometimes even get offered a seat on the train. So it's not all bad

When friends your age have grandchildren and nobody thinks it's odd.

I find at 50 that I cannot burn the candle at both ends without my face paying dearly. A few years ago I could slap on some makeup and still get away with it, but now I need to be getting my full quota of beauty sleep or the result is beyond the power of makeup to fix.

I'm only in my mid 20's but I was just thinking a few days ago about how everything seems to hurt more. I get a sore back and sore knees, I wake up feeling stiff and like I could sleep for a week. I used to bounce out of bed and go about my day even just a few years ago. Now 11.30pm is a late night.

Also, going out for a run or to the gym isn't seen as being cool and different like it was when I was 18, it's just something I have to do to balance out my love of cake.

Also, chin hair. What's that about? One day my chin is smooth as a baby's arse, the next day I have a sharp bristle an inch long?

DH and I both up at 7am on a weekend, instead of fighting over whose turn it is for a sleep in.
Contemplating taking up year round outdoor swimmimg just to feel alive !

I'm nearly 60, life just flashes by, I think back to my youth and it seems like another life. It just goes so quick. It wasn't that long ago when my DCs were young people, now I've got a forty year old for goodness sake.
Slightly off subject but I sometimes think back to my first love who will now be the same age as me. It's hard to equate that lovely young boy of 17 will now be this age.

was talking to my 24yr old dd last night and she was really surprised about something that we had in my youth and I thought "I must post that on the MN thread about ageing"

and I now have no clue what it was we were talking about .....

When it takes my face till midday to uncrumple.
When I have to brace my back before DS launches at me for a cuddle.
When going out 2 nights in a row takes what feels like super human effort and planning.

Love the "Evolution Man across the living room" quote, yes exactly that!!

When you stop thinking 'Oh I just forgot that' and start worrying that dementia may be setting in and reviewing all of your actions that day.

I've noticed that some names or phrases are just out of reach.

When you can't see your wrinkles in the mirror unless you put your varifocals on first.

I'm actually quite relaxed about that chockbic. There's so much information coming in every day that it doesn't surprise me if the brain has to send some stuff down to deep storage so I just think to myself - 'Oh that will come up from storage in the next hour or so'. Which it does.

If, however, you don't know what to call the kettle.......?

My wattle.

waggle waggle

When a friend introduces you to their husband and you're surprised that they're married to a balding older dad type and then realise 'oh, wait....'