to feel I've become middle-aged and irrelevant almost overnight?

[WhatsGoingOnEh]

I've just turned 47. And I don't know what's happened! I use to understand memes and cultural references, but now I understand barely 1 word out of 10 in my DC's conversations.

I crave old-fashioned values like kindness, punctuality (I never used to be punctual!!!) and reliability.

Bits of my job (marketing) annoy me now. When people talk about "creating stories" I just think, "oh shut up, you ponce".

I buy things because they look well-made rather than cool.

I crave silence, and reading, and little treats with a coffee. My face scares me if I don't have make-up on. I'm suddenly into gardening.

I'm realising I've probably blown my chances to be a best-selling novelist and TV presenter/Instagram influencer, but I'm finding I'm not really that bothered about it.

My DH is 2 years older and he pusses me if when he suggests going to gigs in the pub, because I've been doing that for 30 years and would just like a nice dinner party, really.

I feel I've gone from young to old in 6 months. Is this normal? Is this how it happens?

WhatsGoingOnEh you're on WW Connect??? Me too and I also block men lying in bed - what's the need?

Ok. I’ll say it. I’ve been lusting after a housecoat with pockets since I was 32.😭😭😭

I worked in Advertising in my 20’s and used to sit in meetings saying ‘wank. Wank. Wank’ over and over in my head.

I’ve noticed a serious increase in inane internal monologging since 35. I believe that turns to actually muttering our loud sometime around 50.

OP I'm only 38 and I'm with you! I think my turning point was much earlier in early 30s when I mentioned Radio 4 in the office and none of my colleagues had even HEARD of Radio 4... Now all my colleagues are watching Love Island... Bellends

Loving this thread😄

🥂 to acceptance, aka not giving a shit, but am actually 'raging against the dying of the day' in some respects, determined to do things I was too afraid to do in my youth.

Most definitely heading towards the mindset of Jenny Joseph's 'when I am old' but will probably draw the line at learning to spit 😁

Hideandgo

I'm 57.
I just wish my eyes still worked, I've never worn glasses, now I have reading gogs all over the house.
I dash up and down the steps in my big, fucking steep garden chasing butterflies off my cabbages with a tea towel, then I sit supping my tea on a cracket in the greenhouse, sniffing the tomatoes.
I used to spend a fortune on perfume, rather sniff tomatoes now.

Somehow I can't kill a single living thing and wonder why I ever did, so I throw into my neighbours garden dispose humanely all slugs and snails I find and spiders get let out of the back door.

My bird feeder costs me a fortune and we have a rat that visits but I'm beginning to think the rat is really pretty, even better, DP agrees...it's why I love him.
I ran around the front street in my pyjamas the other night capturing a fledgling wood pigeon that had been blown from it's nest, didn't give a hoot what the neighbours thought and DP helped to helped to shoo it towards me, he was to freaked out to touch it but he held the ladders while I popped it's back into it's nest.
I spent 54 years running away from daddy long legs, moths, spiders, wasps still run from those little fuckers .

I am post menopause, free from mood swings, financially secure and spend most of my days googling about how to net strawberries/cabbages.
Still problems in life but I can go to sleep with them.
It's great being 57.

To be fair memes and cultural references shift and change 100x faster than pre-internet.

I'm 23 and think a lot of what you're saying is more reacting to the new world we're in than being older.

I also crave silence, little luxuries like a nice new tea and a book, quality items rather than tat, inspirational marketing shite has become so cliche I'm surprised it's even used. I'm also filled with boiling rage when a colleague of mine is forever late to things - it's horribly rude and if everyone is late all the time then the world will stop fucking working and the meaning of having set times will cease.

Last month some friends Invited me to dinner at a restaurant at 7pm. I was flying around like a nutter because I was 10 minutes late because of the tube - got there at 7.05pm. The inviters showed up at 7.30 and a handful of their friends didn't get there until 8.45. Who lives like this?

I recently took up embroidery and it's wonderfully and peaceful.

It's a reaction to information overload, people always expecting others to be contactable and 'on' and nobody having any time to stop and relax.

I swear the day I turned 50 I couldn't listen to the 'racket' that is Radio 1 and switched to Radio 2.

I've also started googling birds that I've seen on my walks and spend more money on bird feeders now than I do on make up.

Oh and the thrill of going to a good garden centre with a great vegetable seed selection

The highlight of my week? The fact that my beer trap for slugs was successful. Too late for my runner beans that they annihilated though

Yeah im totally with you, HOWEVER I think I'm struggling to accept it so have recently dyed my hair a very bright "fashion" colour and nearly bought a ridiculous dress in river island. Not sure I'm there yet. Or maybe I'm becoming one of THOSE WOMEN...

I do love to knit tho

It is times like these I really wish MN had a like button.

Great thread OP.

43 and riding the Horlicks wave into grownupdom with my genuinely comfortable (not 'SUPER COMFY' insta humans, ok?!) footwear...

Yep I've caught the gardening thing recently - today I've been digging out bramble roots. Looking forward to visiting the garden centre tomorrow.

Last week I had a lightbulb moment after doing my make up.
It was too much. Cakey, mask like and I looked hard. I said to myself 'what are you trying to prove'?
I wiped it off, put on powder, mascara and nude lipstick. I still looked like me and I decided me is good enough.

Yes to not caring about what people think about me.
I still do 'young' things but love staying in.
Places are so LOUD.
I can't get riled up about things, what's the point? Like on here (not this thread, this thread is ull of wise lovelies) when posters jump down your throat. Just why?

crunchymint, When I turned fifty, I considered it middle aged,because I was possibly half way through my Adult life. I don't think your childhood counts, because you aren't in control and are still forming.

"I'm 23 and think a lot of what you're saying is more reacting to the new world we're in than being older. "

God bless you, but it isn't. I would never have dreamed of using that term until I turned 50, things change. Perhaps yours will be a "crisis" or "rebellion" and you'll join a biker gang.

I'm really into skin care, but I'll hum and ha over treatments, but as soon as I saw the compost bin that I've just bought, £100 was nothing.

I could have had a new bathroom with what I've spent on the Garden.

It's liberating though.

I found myself telling a group of 15 year old lads to put their rubbish in the bin, at the lido last month, before I'd even thought about it the words were out of my mouth ...

Plus I make myself laugh.

Plus noise is vile. Any noise.

Plus sex on tv. I mean really, is it necessary to be so graphic, we all know what they're doing, just move along with the story please.

I'm 48 next month, and have spent the last 6 or 8 years bemoaning my lost youth.

It started when a pharmacist called me Madam. It's all been downhill from there tbh. I don't do the early night thing because I work late and night shifts, so my body clock is fucked.

I can still drink youngsters under the tabIe, if i have to. I still occasionally take drugs. I really don't like going out though. I would much rather watch some shit on tv and play stupid games on my phone.

I went to the Freedom To Party rally in Trafalgar Square in 1990 ffs.

The day I deliberately woke at 4am or something godawful like that to hear the Dawn Chorus on radio, I knew then.... ha ha. But it was just glorious too.

I also do not give a shit. My hair is quarter golden blonde and 3/4 original colour so peppered with grey. I don't care anymore. Growing it out to see what it looks like now.

I don't go to weddings unless it is my immediate family. Politely decline all others.

I don't go to pubs unless it is early evening with a few friends and home by 8pm.

I wear the most comfortable clothes I can find, but nothing too awful either, and footwear must be comfortable. I reckon that since I am invisible what the heck. Who cares?

My DH has now got torn ligaments and hamstring injuries trying to keep himself young. He won't be doing much for while now. Pace yourself!

Holidays involve places that are quiet with a few restaurants, nice walks and QUIET!

Embrace the invisibility, there is no need to pluck, get eyebrows done, do the Brazilian scream, and so much more.

Very liberating. The more you try to emulate the young ones, the more they grin at you with cynically raised eyebrows. Every generation has its day!

I'm just waiting until the kids leave home so that DH and I can spend our time taking Viking River Cruises...

I never had a wild youth and I suspect that most MNetters didn't either.

Speak for yourself. I had a wonderful youth.

My children however don't drink, smoke or take drugs. I wonder where I went wrong.

I had a crazy youth and early 20s too.

I think my kids are like Saffy from Ab Fab as a consequence.

I had an unusual alone drive (without preschool kids) the other day and shoved the radio on.

Changed from radio 1 to 2 as I couldn’t stand ‘that awful noise’

I’m 35.

I do what I enjoy. So yes I wear comfortable clothes and shoes, listen to Radio 4, and don't know most modern groups. But I hate gardening, enjoy partying till late and going to the pub.
I really don't see the need to fit us all into particular boxes based on age.

I'm not sure about the irrelevant bit, I am still the only person in my house who can find anything, with the exception of things that I have just literally put down somewhere myself

Own it OP!

Harness it. But make sure you also care less about what other people think and wear what you want / do what you want. That includes gardening

I can't say i feel irrelevant. I don't mix with many younger people so don't have a comparison.
There's about 20 of us in my social group aged late 40s to 60. All their kids are grown up and doing their own thing.
We go to the pub, horse racing, karaoke, house and garage club nights, live music. I don't see them as middle aged but genuinely funny people I've known many years.
We were saying the other day we'll probably end up in the same oap home and cause mayhem.

@crunchymint

I really don't see the need to fit us all into particular boxes based on age.

I don't think anyone is doing that. We're just saying how our tastes are changing as we're getting older