To find getting older so incredibly sad

[GrillPanEddy]

All of a sudden I feel old. I'm 35 which I know is by no means ancient but physically I'm starting to feel it - little aches and niggles, grey hairs, wrinkles, sagging. Nothing that major but it just keeps dawning on me that I'm getting older.

I bump into people I used to know in my teens and think "fuck they look old".

Looking at my parents getting older breaks my heart. My dad in particular - late 60s and getting grumpy, a bit lazy, a bit slow, a bit out of touch with what's going on. He used to be so lively and in the know about everything.

I feel like my time, my family's time is a all so bloody short. Life is running away from us and making us old in the process. Time goes sooooo quickly these days, the years are merging into each other.

I don't want to get old and don't want others around me to get old. I don't want to see my lovely DH get old.

I don't want to deteriorate mentally or physically but kind of think I've hit my peak without even realizing and it's just age age age from here on in.

Makes me so sad. Feels like a ridiculously unfair part of life. Though I also get how ridiculous that sounds too.

Some while ago I pinpointed 35 as the time I consciously felt my age. Our DC2 was a lively toddler so I felt tired, I was starting to think about my health, DH and I had each lost a parent. We were about to relocate and leave our first family home.

Around then, the first time in a shop I was called Madam, I felt as old as Mrs Noah.

I guess from being nowhere in sight, suddenly middle age appeared on the horizon? So I sympathise, OP. For me that pang or whatever was fleeting.

Incidentally was talking to someone the other day about how hard it is guessing people's ages now - I don't mean just beauty tricks or cosmetic surgery - perhaps fewer stereotypical limitations or expectations.

Or maybe it's failing eyesight. Did laugh when some years after, a friend and I were out to lunch. She couldn't read the small print on a menu, I'd left my driving glasses in the car so couldn't see the script on the specials' board at the end of the room. What a pair!

Math you make a good point about the pressures in women to value themselves primarily by their looks ( and DEGratia and I have both made similar points).

But the OP is still wildly unreasonable. She writes that she feels "incredibly sad" to be 35 and "old." It's such a shallow and ageist view, frankly.

It suggests to me that the OP has a rather sexist ageist view of older women. So when you say, let's support each other, then the OP might take note. She - and every other whingeing 35 year old - will be an old woman one day. She'll be the "old lady" on the bus that dares to take up a front eat which should go to a young able-bodied parent with a pram, and so on, and on, just to quote one regular MN bit of ageism.

Well she'd better hope she's going to be one, because the alternative is worse.

I don't think it's particularly ageist or shallow to think, 'Fuck, my life's nearly half over - what happened?'

At any rate, that's how I interpreted the op.

Its tragic, the loss of youth
If it just happened to some people while the rest of us got to stay young and fresh then you'd have cause for complaint

But it's exactly the same for every one of us, we all have to come to terms with it the best we can

I may be done blossoming and blooming (I'm 50) but I have decades of interesting and fun things to do before it's time to wither and die

Life isn't over just because the brief flush of youth has passed
Now its time to start really living

It's when you see your grown up children visibly age that you realise how short life really is.

I can be sympathetic up to a point. But I think that we as women need to encourage other women, and society as a whole, to address ageism where we can. It's this "youth is the default for all things good" that I find particularly galling. It's everywhere. And it's especially targeted at women.

Recently in connection with my work, someone brought up the notion of "positive" images of older people. It became clear that they meant things like attractive older people playing tennis (there was even a suggestion of showing someone jumping the net).

I agree with you SSargassosea. That's what I think it's all about.

I'd like the choice about when I've had enough though

I also agree with mathanxiety. I had a big wobble at 35 to do with appearance, biddy image and dress sense in the midst of parenting.

hahaha . My keyboard has a sense of humour. I typed 'body image' and my computer said 'biddy image'.

I also agree that it's normal to mourn the realization that your life span is perhaps on the descendant, but that is very different from issues about appearance. The saddest thing for me as I have grown older (I am 69) is all the loss that I have experienced. Both of my parents died recently (at the age of 93 so I was lucky to have them a long time); in the past 10 years, I have lost two close friends and a BIL to cancer. I have experienced the loss of three work colleagues, two to cancer and one to a sudden heart attack.

Both of my children had their children later in life so I realize I may not be around for the weddings and other major life events for my grandchildren. These are the things I am sad for. Not my aging body, although I would like to have my 35 year-old-knees back.

Sorry I haven't got time to rtf huge t!

No, growing old is not sad. Not having the chance to grow old is sad. When arseholes people teased me at my last big birthday "ooooooh turning XX. Are you sad?", (from someone who I know HATES birthdays / getting older etc), I would always say "well, I prefer it to the alternative you dick".

It's funny how we interpret things differently. I just read the op as feeling a bit melancholy about the passage of time which I can understand at any age.

The threads that drive me nuts are where you get 49 year-olds insisting they can't be middle aged because they still go to T in the Park. And the phrase 'young at heart' - as if young people have a monopoly on all that's good - that gives me the rage!

I agree that the down side of getting old is the amount of people you love that die. My FIL has a funeral suit, and regularly goes to funerals. He is very sociable and from a big family, but as he is old so many people close to him have died.

I have had 4 people die in the last year. Two close friends and two family members. It is hard.

What it does bring home to you though is that it is important to do the things you want to, while you still have the chance. Do not put off things you really want to do with your life. And things like appearance really don't matter.

I have to put my hand up and admit to feeling rueful sometimes about my changing appearance. But I refuse to get sucked into the all anti-ageing beauty nonsense and I think wrinkles, for example, can make a woman look interesting and strong. I particularly like the look of long gnarled fingers and have killed a couple of threads on Style and Beauty by saying so!

As others have said, growing old is a privilege. A privilege that was denied to my little boy who is forever 1 year and 25 days old. I'll be upset when my parents die (hopefully not anytime soon) but it won't come close to the devastation of my baby not getting to grow up.

I'm approaching 35 and am mentally noticing. I didn't really notice 30 as I had a very new baby, and much of the last 5 years has been a rollercoaster of disturbed sleep, breastfeeding, reclaiming my body, pregnancy and repeat again. Now suddenly I have a school child, and no baby.

Mostly the mirror shows the same face as 15+ years ago, but there are subtle hints of change. I'm disconnected from knowing what to wear, clothes from nearly 20 years ago, or trying to work out which shops are neither to young nor too old.

DH is older and he's beginning to hit the fringes of middle age. He's less than 10 years younger than my dad was when he died suddenly. Our surving parents are beginning to reach old age with their health and abilities changing.

Realising that the millennium wasn't that recent, and seeing "young" celebrities and wondering why they're looking middle aged and realising it's because they've been around for 20 years.

I suppose I can summarise it by having been in a bit of a bubble and suddenly noticing lots of little changes all at once.

By and large, I still feel quite young, but feel a bit discombobulated by noticing these changes around me. That's not unreasonable. Getting too hung up on it and defining your life too heavily by it can get unreasonable. I hope I'm still less than halfway through a happy healthy life.

I spent most of my late teens and most of my 20's depressed, I am the same age as you OP and now is the first time I feel that actually I'm pretty much where I want to be. I wouldn't trade my life now for my miserable younger one.

Sometimes it doesn't do good to think too much about stuff. Just focus on striving to be happy, that's more important than dwelling on how old you feel.

As you get older, time does seem to go so quickly. I find I dont have time to do as much stuff in a day that up could have done in my twenties. I have also found that the well known cliche of becoming 'invisible' after age 50 is true.
I don't really mind getting older so long as I stay healthy. Its something you become more and more aware of and you regret not taking more care when you had the mad idea life goes on forever...

I am 35 and I love it! I am in the best shape of my life after losing a significant amount of weight last year, my ds is a teenager and I feel like I have my life back. I don't feel old at all.

"But it's exactly the same for every one of us"

Well, no, some people age better than others.

Dexterjamesmummy So very sad to read that, it's I think one of the worst things that can happen and its very difficult to cope with. I knew a girl who had that happedn she never really got over it:-(

Multishirking (love your username) you don't have to particularly value your looks before you start to see wrinkles, etc appearing and to experience the shock of finding yourself in a different category of woman.

I think sometimes women who are sure they are relevant, valued for the entirety of who they are and not just their bodies, and convinced that they will always get the sort of attention they are used to find it a huge shock when they begin to show signs of ageing and realise how little attention was really being paid to their intellect.

You get a clearer view of the patriarchy in all its glory in your mid thirties and it can come as a shock.

And you can feel sad, if that is the way it is for you, even incredibly sad.

You are looking at ever-narrowing options at 35, with most of the possibilities you felt you had at 25 already foreclosed, and that can be sobering. You are perhaps tied to a mortgage and your better half is losing his hair, and you are spending most of your waking hours chasing your own tail, which may be a far cry from how you saw life a decade previously.

I think some people on MN have a real problem with empathy. Because they are older than 35 and would love to be 35 they can't for a moment understand that the OPS feelings are real and valid.

I am nearly 44..the oldest I have ever felt was when I was 27. It was a real and depressing feeling. I'd love to be 27 now but that doesn't make what I felt back them not valid.

I'm sure some people would love to be 44. It's all relative.

OP it does get easier to personally accept aging..but it gets harder as your parents get a lot older, obviously

I also think mentioning people who died is a bit unnecessary..obviously I feel for people's losses but the OP shouldn't feel guilty for having her real and valid feelings.

I also agree with Mathanxiety''s posts.