Anyone else feel that time is running out

[Rankandfile]

For the last 8 years or so I’ve had this feeling that time is running out, along with a load of regret that I didn’t do more / make different choices. For perspective, I’m 55 this year, have a successful career, love my job, head a department, lived abroad from 30-52 (one year travelling and the rest working) and have 2 teenage kids. I just can’t shake off this feeling that I wish I was in my 30s or 40s and that I’ll blink and be too old to do anything!! Talk me out of this ridiculousness.

I’m 53 and running out of time as I have terminal cancer. That was expected to be my last Christmas. I’m financially very healthy as although we have a lovely life I always saved for the rainy day and now won’t be able to use it. What do I wish I could have done is to travel more and to spend more money on my house than I did. By this I mean the actual bathroom and kitchen I really wanted rather than the 4th one down the list to save a few grand. I wish I’d gotten my bedroom fitted out by Sharps (old house - lots of ins and outs).

I’ve always played it safe and only now that I’m spending more and more time in bed I wish my room was nicer and I’m only now Igetting the decorators in and going a bit off my usual track but actually what I really like.

We never know what’s round the corner, enjoy life, do all the things you want to do. I have no regrets as such but as a total home bird I wish I’d done things differently. I guess reading this back if that’s the only thing I would change about my life then it’s been pretty good until now!

Early 40s here. I look back and wonder where on earth the last 25 years have gone. I feel I've wasted my youth struggling, planning, and sacrificing for a future that never came. Decades of bad relationships, miserable work experience, naively trying to learn new skills and getting a higher education have been a waste of time because they haven't changed my life for the better. I've given up! I realise now that I'll never have the loving relationship, big family, successful career and loads of money I was aiming for. I've simply run out of time to make these things happen. I feel a bit silly for being so hopeful and ambitious in the first place. Now I try not to aim so high. I try to enjoy the smaller things like learning a new craft and just accept it for what it is rather than expecting it to lead to something bigger. I don't know if its a depressive midlife crisis or a case of finally accepting my lot in life.

I think life changing events so death, divorce etc make you think this
i will soon lose my v old mum.makes me think I’m next up

Joining the q. Though unlike OP I dont have the successful career. Smartest person in my very smart school and nothing career wise. A very dramatic life, accidents and incidents. 54 and feel like I'm 100. I look back at all the offers of jobs etc I knocked back. Instead I got pregnant at 23yo and I wouldn't trade that for all the riches. It is annoying when someone who didn't do well at school constantly posts their first class boarding passes though.

I’m late 50s and so excited for the next stage of my life. I don’t own a home and being crippled by high rent on a family home. So, I’m not very secure financially. But I feel so lucky everyday for the life I have: kids, mates, health, music, job, neighbourhood.

I don’t feel time’s running out, even though my dad died at 59, so I may only have a couple of years left. I still feel so young. My bf of 6 years is 15 years younger than me. I’ve never really dwelt on age. Unless you know how your life will pan out, it’s all relative. If you die in your 20s and 30s (as some of my mates did), then time’s running out at 27.

@Enigma52

I am so very sorry to hear this. Please keep fighting.

Sending much love ❤️

Yeah I'm in my early 40s and think I'm feeling it more because I've lost too many people and some of them too young. So it feels like time is going faster than I can manage, kinda like the rug pulled from under my feet. They're already no longer living, we're not all on this really long journey to the end.
I think because I know I might not live to an old age, but even if I do it feels so quick. Children make it speed up too.
It feels like we have all the time in the world in our 20s. Then 30s flies by. When I think of 20 years ago it feels so much more recent.
But when I calculate how many sleeps it's been since then it blows my mind! Time is a weird thing.
Just try and enjoy every day and look after yourself, that's all we can do

Oh and also (after reading the 'which celebs dying upset you' thread, so many famous people we've grown up around have died now and that makes it feel quicker.

It's a natural but I'm still sorry so many posters are feeling by the time they reach their 50s they haven't seen or done enough in life & have regrets.

I have to admit it's one of the reasons I chose to get married straight after university in my early 20s & have my children soon after. Obviously I had met the right person so it was the best thing for us. I accept it wouldn't be for everyone, especially nowadays. There are so many advantages though, like having more time to do things you want when the children grow up, plus the benefits of being young grandparents. I believe if you want to eventually get married and start a family and your fortunate enogh to meet the right person, not putting marriage & children off until later years is the best idea.

The book Four Thousand Weeks would be a really good ready for you right now!

My feeling of time running out is exacerbated by feeling constricted by my relationship; my partner of 20 years is not always an easy person and I have learnt to live in such a way that we coexist practically and efficiently with minimal friction, keeping things on an even keel. This comes at a cost: core characteristics find little expression in our life together. I feel a bit like a secret agent, flying under the radar, biding my time, only now I have pivoted into the realisation time is slipping through my fingers: I used to feel like the future was waiting patiently for me to arrive as soon as I could figure out how without wrecking lives, whereas in the last couple of years, I find I frame it as how I want to spend the remainder of my days.
Something has happened which could enable us to separate in the coming year with minimal practical disruption and it really is now or never for me. It'll still be carnage, just not as catastrophic.

I'm also feeling very conscious of the changing climate and how time is literally running out in terms of huge global real-time biodiversity loss, and how millions are already living with or awaiting displacement due to the flooding associated with rising sea levels and loss of viable agricultural land and water sources due to floods or persistent drought. The future feels very unknown ‐the world of our DC will be so different to the one in which I grew up. I realise I measure time according to some kind of expectation as to how events are likely to unfold, an understanding of 'how the world goes'; cycles and regular recurrences, but I definitely feel as if, globally, this is very much in the balance. And because my capacity for prediction and future casting feel so weak in this respect, I do feel as if we're at the end of what is 'known', if that makes sense.

This has really hit home. I lost someone close to me a couple of years ago who was far too young to die.
I try hard to use the fancy crockery and being a home bird too, make the house how I would like it.
Sending you my very best wishes and I hope you have as much time as you can to enjoy the changes you are making xx

All I can think about is Eowyn's quote from LOTRs:
Aragorn : What do you fear, my lady?
Eowyn : A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.
I see aging as a cage and it panics me and a loss of all the lofty dreams we had in our youth. Suddenly we realise we're just ordinary.

I'm 47. When my cousin received a terminal diagnosis out of the blue, I started writing a book. She died 6 months later. I've written nearly every day for 4 years. I'm focused on martial arts. I won't be able to do some of the acrobatic movies but I'm giving them a damn good try. I keep thinking, now or never. Never will come!

I have my 50th birthday later this year, and I totally understand where you are coming from.
It's only recently that I have started feeling this way.

I am just trying to focus on one day at a time and finding things I enjoy doing.
However, I have decided I don't want to make a big deal of my 50th this year.
I just want to let it pass me by.
I am hoping I will feel better once I have got through this milestone.

I don't have regrets as such but def feeling the passing of time.

Had all the DC home for Christmas (all in mid/late 20's) along with assorted partners and it was so nice.
I look forward to having everyone home for so long- I plan and cook and decorate and make list upon list. Love when they are here.
House full of noise and laughter and then before I know it they are all gone again.
Of course I am so proud that they are all doing well and have wonderful lives to go back to but I miss them.

I do feel like it is all slipping through my fingers so fast...

I’m so sorry you feel this way. I understand the feeling. I know it sounds a cliché but trying to live for now helps me. I’ve been mentally ill in the past, and this helped. I’m not good at doing it though but when I do it, it brings a joy with it. Simple things, like a walk by a river, listening to its sounds, or just listening to birds singing, or the light, as it plays through trees. Notice things in other words. It can bring a real feeling of being alive, the joy of it. I started to learn to play cello. That really makes me concentrate on the moment. Yes have plans to do things, I do too but this might help a bit. Sending kindest thoughts.

That is indeed a great book. It gives you a different perspective.

@Keeponkeepingon9 Definitely agree about having kids younger if possible - I was in the same situation as you, been happily with DH since age 22, good job, nice house by age 26, but I put off having children until 32, then secondary infertility meant my 2nd wasn't born until age 38. I can remember really wanting children around age 17, but then at uni, there was definitely a mentality coming from lots of people to "enjoy your 20s, go travelling, party 'til dawn" kind of thing, and I got suckered into that. I consequently spent the whole of my 20s feeling like I was searching for something, and hence did tons of travelling, but it was only when my first child was born, that I realised what I'd been searching for all along...

Is this code! Or do you mean an actual goat?
Is this like a squash and a squeeze?!

Great post & thankfully all turned out well for you.

We were fortunate in that we were able to travel & enjoy regular holidays while our children were growing up.Grandparents living close(another good idea if possible) to us meant we had free time to do things together when desired. I understand not everyone is in that position. If at all possible & its what you desire,I say marrying young,starting a family & living close to Grandparents is preferable, especially if you don't want to have regrets in later life about free time when often it's too late.

I’m 53 and I should feel that way as both parents died in their early 60’s. My best friend died a couple of years ago, aged 50. I just feel grateful for every day that I’m here and my loved ones are happy. I live a simple life, I think and I see joy in very everyday things.

I totally get you OP - I’m 52

I’m in your age bracket, OP, and I’ve not been a high achiever in life so I definitely get where you’re coming from. However, my dad died when I was really young (he was in his early 40s) so every day I live beyond his age feels like a lovely bonus. For me it’s not how much time I have left but how much time I have been given, and honestly I have had a pretty nice, imperfect life. I know it sounds wankerish but I’m grateful to have made it this far.

Everyone worries about death but one day it will be here, and it would be a real shame to have spent your last precious years in dread of it. I hope you can find a different way to frame it and enjoy what you have right now

Could be another 40 years of rude health for you, by which time you’ll be knackered and well over it! 😂

I wish there was a little compass in life saying- go this way, go this way. This way is best!

So then I wouldn't have wasted some of my best years being with a bad man.
And I wouldn't gave wasted a year being in an awful job.

Now I'm 40. A man I know for a while has asked me out. I wish I knew if I went out with him - will I be wasting precious time. Or will he be good for me.

It's so hard to know which is the best decision in life!

I went to bed thinking about this thread and it was in the forefront of my mind when I woke up today. It made me think of this famous quote from Wordsworth " The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!"

That pause to look around, to see the beauty and wonder of the world, to think that the sun above has come up every morning and shone down for longer in time that any of us can comprehend and will continue to do so long after we and maybe even this planet have gone. I am reading all the posts on here and think I will book mark it, it is thought provoking, humbling when I see what some posters have experienced and it is also comforting to realise that I am not alone in having these thoughts.