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.

I get you OP! I'm also 35 and it's only over the last year that I've really needed to go to the Dr. I've also had a bit of dental work done - never seemed to need anything in the past. I live overseas and each time I go back to the UK, it shocks me to see my friends back home with a few more grey hairs than on my last visit. If I compare pictures of my inlaws or parents over the last few years, there's noticable progression from grey to white hair.

I totally agree with TracyBarlow above - in your head you've just left uni, but in reality that was nearly a decade and a half ago! In my situation, I don't think it helps that I did a long course at uni, then did a graduate management programme, got my first proper job at the same company and had DC1 aged 30. I've been on a career break ever since (and had more DC) so in my head I'm that relatively young high flyer, but in reality times have moved on, I'll need to retrain and a lot of my skills are out of date. All that said, I'm starting a uni course in September and the kids are in school and nursery, sleep through the night and it finally feels like it's getting easier again. I'm hopeful about the future and have the added benefit of the confidence that age and experience bring with them.

By the way, yes you were asking for a "pity Party"...a new one on MN I think.

I get how you feel OP and I'm a similar age. But I also have ME/CFS and have had since I was 20 so I think part of my sadness is that the best years of my life have been spent like an old woman who can't do very much. I had a good job, got promoted twice quickly and had to give it up. I know I could have done well in a job. I would have gone back to uni and persued the course I shouldn't have quit at 18. I would have had more than 2 children. But I know these things won't happen because my illness robbed me of a normal life and whilst I'm thankful it's not as bad as some people get it and I'm not terminal, I do mourn a life I should have had and I feel my best years have been lost. I am also fearful of my children growing older and not needing me anymore so every New Year that passes I feel more fearful and sad.

Eddy, the best thing... Zombie means really the BEST thing about maturing is learning that it is completely and utterly unimportant what anyone else thinks of you or how you choose to live your life.

You have lovely DC and so much to share with them. Zombie does understand how you feel.

Try to think of it as being a fine vintage wine stored in optimum conditions. It just gets better.

Heck. It works for Zombie. (Most days anyway.)

((((( Hugs )))))

Not getting older is a hell of a lot sadder than a few lines and white hairs.

Way Hay!

I turned 60 in 2015 & had the best year of my life - so far!

We all get old & it's a fuck of a lot better than the alternative!

Chin hairs, white pubes etc etc but it's still being alive & connecting.

I haven't felt as sad as you, OP, you just need to embrace the years.

I know loads of women in their 50s/60s/70s who are really bright and vibrant. I think we're lucky to live in a time where middle aged women aren't made to look like little old crones like they used to. I've got a photo of my grand mother taken when she was in her 40s - she could easily pass for being in her 70s! I'm sure a lot of it was the way women that age dressed then - frumpy black old lady style shoes, severe hair styles, no hair dye, very old fashioned style shapeless, frumpy dresses. But her face looks very old as well, I'm sure the result of bringing up 6 children in poverty. I've seen other photos of women around the same time of a similar age and they all look ancient. I can't imagine any woman in her 40s looking or dressing like that now. The majority look relatively youthful still, even if they have got a few grey hairs and crow's feet.

My point being that it's not so long ago that once you hit 40, women really DID look old (and I mean really, really old) and were encouraged to dress and be regarded that way. They were essentially on the scrap heap work and looks wise. That's not the case any more, thank god. I do a dance class with women where a lot of them are 50+ and they have lots of fun, dress up and look great. I admire the confidence older women seem to have. It is sad parents getting older, but my parents are in their 60s and they don't seem old at all to me! Perhaps it's just your dad's personality rather than his age. And my 89 year old grandmother not so long ago was sunning herself in the med with her friend on a cruise ship and dancing with 21 year old waiters at night and she LOVED it.

I do know what you mean. My mum died in October aged 82. She had severe dementia. My dad died many years ago when I was a child. Sometimes now I walk along the pavement, say on my way to the train, and it hits me, in an uncomfortable, beyond comprehension, way, that my mum no longer exists and that one day the same will be true of me and eventually even my children.

I know this is all 'obvious', but still on some level it is deeply shocking. I suppose that is what religion is for.

There's a useful book about getting the most out of life as we grow old in the shops at the moment - Atul Gawande's 'mortality'. I found it quite helpful after my mum died.

*I meant to say a photo of my GREAT grandmother, not my grandmother! Both my grandmothers still looked youthful in their 40s.

Hmm my dad. He's not unwell, he's just lazy. He dotes on my children but I do feel he could do with a bit more in his life - hobbies or interests, but no amount of nagging encouraging makes a difference.

I start a fabulous new job next month which I am very excited about so 2016 should be a good year. Perhaps that's part of my wistfulness too - being on the cusp of change makes me sentimental.

And I think part of it is that DH and I have decided no more children, so I think a lot of the things you 'aspire' to when in your childhood/teens/20s have all been ticked off (uni, career, travel, marriage, house, babies) so it's a bit of a "shit, what now?" type of feeling. I don't think I'd actually thought much further than getting to this age and doing all of those things I mention above. And catching a glimpse of my frumpy self (PJs and hoodie on, no make up, hair scragged back, sweeping the floor) in the reflection of the kitchen window tonight and I saw that I looked like my grandmother

35 yrs was a great age! Enjoy it.
As people have said the only alternative to growing old is to die young.
I am in my 60s and it is a wonderful age and it is not old! I have time, I have my health and there is so much to do that the only problem is that it all clashes. My mother is over 90yrs, and that is old,but she still enjoys life she just isn't too good physically.
I can't see the problem because we will all age and eventually die. The unlucky ones are those that don't get the privilege of growing old. At 35yrs my worry was dying while my children still needed me, not wasting time worrying about inevitabilities.

I have been thinking about this too. I live near lots of care homes. I see all these frail elderly people stuck in residential settings, so dependent on others.....they were young, raised families, had jobs once.....makes me sad.

Appreciate what and who you have in life and LIVE your life. In 10 years you'll be wishing you were 35 again. Not everyone gets the chance to grow old.

At 34 I feel pretty great.

I have some wrinkles around my eyes, I quite like them. I also have a few grey hairs. But I don't care, I don't see looking young as this great thing like many people seem to. You are meant to look older, it's sad that so many people do everything they can (even if it doesn't work) to try to combat it. My mum was beautiful in her 20's and she is just as beautiful in her 60's. I like to use my sunscreen and look after myself but I'm not going to be having botox or spend much time worrying about new wrinkles.

Working with lots of elderly people I can't say I'm looking forward to being very elderly, most of them aren't having fun and are spending years with awful health problems, or dementia but while I still have my health it's all good.

That said, OP you have young children. My eldest is 16 and my youngest is nearly 7. I feel much more healthier and energetic now they are older. When they were younger I felt much older than I do now.

I think we are all in agreement that life is short. So, let's live it and not waste precious time worrying about an undetermined future.

YANBU, I don't think. It's perfectly possible to appreciate the gift of health and life, and still feel a melancholy for the passing of youth, whatever that means to you. Like a transition point when you lose that sense of immortality and possibility that early adulthood allows many of us, but before you have learnt the positive aspects of maturity. And it's also reasonable to appreciate what you have so much that you find it hard to accept that it will be lost to time one day. All animals fear loss and death.

I guess the challenge is to have faith that this strength of feeling will pass and you will find a sense of balance and acceptance about both the good and negative aspects of ageing. And also to look at your lifestyle to give yourself every chance of really experiencing and enjoying the present - if time is going too quickly, could you be doing too much?

The alternative to getting old is dying young. I know which one I'd rather be.

Old age is not for the wimps. But 35 is not old!!!

I'm 37 so similar age and I felt this way when I turned 30. Looking back, I think it's a sign of a mild depression more than anything else. Or it could be a mild illness that isn't well managed and brings you down. It's certainly not the number 35 (or in my case 30) itself.

I have been incredibly lucky career-wise in the last three years, and kids have achieved some truly remarkable things, so even though I am not younger than I was when I was 30, I feel happier and healthier both physically and emotionally.

I do find it sad that my younger cousin died a couple of years ago, and a few of my friends, only a bit older than me, died recently as well. But... Life must go on.

See whether how you feel is just a phase... it might be some blues that you will cope with just fine, and you might have a brighter days ahead!

You are a long time dead, just enjoy the life experiences!

Once I am dead, I am dead!!!

Don't feel sad about growing old. It's a privilege denied to many.

Worrying about it won't change a thing, it will just spoil the present.

You know, there's nothing wrong with taking stock now and then and realising how precious life is - and how fast it goes. It gives pause for thought and can be useful in terms of appreciating the moment and not taking it for granted that people we love will be around forever.

Nothing wrong with being nostalgic. Just cry happy tears, not sad ones. Listen to the song, Do You Realise?by The Flaming Lips. It says it all

I am nearly 20 years older than you. I don't like the physical aspects of getting older, especially the peri menopause. But the hardest part is having friends die. I have lost two friends who were about my age, both of cancer. That was a shock.

What I like about being 51 is that since I turned 50 I've become much more bolshy and I've designated 2016 as my year of Fuck That Shit.

I do understand exactly what you mean OP, but I didn't start to feel it until I was about 55 (64 next month)

If I could be stuck at an age it would be yours!

Yes, getting old is preferable to the alternative, but it's still a bit of a shock noticing aches and pains and wrinkles and grey bits.