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I think it’s that you don’t feel older mentally. I though I would feel a certain maturity once I reached an age where I had a solid, advancing career and owned a house. Turns out, I feel pretty much the same and am just better at dealing with things that arise and pretending that I’m mature. My body hurts more and my face looks older, but I don’t feel all that different. I’m sure I’ve mentally changed to some extent, and I notice it more when I talk to younger people, but I still feel the same.
I think that you don’t even notice yourself maturing because it is so gradual. It comes very slowly with life experience. You don’t do something impulsive or you handle an emotional situation a little better or you make a difficult decision that younger you wouldn’t. I think back to even just a few years ago sometimes and think “What a fuckin idiot that guy was”. Sounds like pretending to be mature is almost the same thing as being it
I heard someone say, “We don’t grow up, we grow old”
Agreed. I’m almost 50, but I still feel like I’m in my 20s in many ways.
I don’t really feel different or more mature or smarter or something, but starting to notice just plain… I dunno, experience? Like I see an 18 year doing something stupid, and I know it’s stupid because I did the same thing.
Thankfully, I also still realize just how useful and appreciated my advice will be, so I keep quiet.
But yeah, the BIG generational gap I’m noticing is that I’m okay with playing. Like, gaming, rpg, boardgames, larp. That’s cool with my generation and the newer ones. But for the vast majority of 50+ people, admitting that you like having fun is anathema for some reason.
Like I see an 18 year doing something stupid, and I know it’s stupid because I did the same thing.
It’s weird becaude I never identified with any of this. I never did anything wild and crazy in my teens and so I’ve never understood when people excuse wild and self destructive behavior as “they are just teens and they’ll learn”.
I don’t mean to say that I’ve always been more mature than my peers (my humor is very crude and immature)…just that I have never understood being impulsive and reckless, even as a teen.
It’s very common for teens to be impulsive and reckless because they’re basically biologically programmed to be so. It’s not something they can control, really, it’s something they’re experiencing. If you didn’t go through that, it’s all good, probably safer frankly, but it’s not like people are aberrant for being reckless while maturing.
I didn’t say that it doesn’t happen to people. I’m just saying I never understood it because I never experienced that and can’t comprehend the mindset. I know I’m not the only person on the planet with the same experience either.
But yeah, the BIG generational gap I’m noticing is that I’m okay with playing. Like, gaming, rpg, boardgames, larp. That’s cool with my generation and the newer ones. But for the vast majority of 50+ people, admitting that you like having fun is anathema for some reason.
I’m in my 40s and noticed that as well. People 10 years older than me (now in their 50s) have been telling me I’m too old for games for over 20 years now. I kind of feel bad for them, like they just missed out on being able to enjoy games. Personally, I’m looking forward to LAN parties in the nursing home.
Preach. I just turned 45 and I’m finally starting to physically feel older, but mentally I feel better than ever. I had a lot of mental issues due to being raised in an abusive household and I finally buckled down and got a lot of therapy. I’m not 100% and never will be, but I’m 90% and fighting for more every day. It’s great, feeling like I actually have my shit together.
Talking to younger people, people in their twenties mostly, is a bit depressing, though. I’m so out of touch with their culture and I don’t know where to even start to get caught up. One lady offhandedly said something “slaps” and I had to ask if that’s good or bad. Ughhhhhhhh.
Exactly!
I came here to write this.
I can only add that with years I started doing the same stupid things with no regrets.
Looking back, it would be hard to explain to the younger me, that there are no adults, but just ugly kinds.
How fast time passes. Years pass very quickly now and the view of the end is approaching faster than I would like.
Mentally, I still feel like I am the same person as back when I was a teenager, until I actually meet some real teenagers and thought “oh, they are a bunch of children.”, and then “wait, was I actually as immature as them when I was a teen? That’s not the way I remembered it.”
Exactly! When I was younger I wasn’t that immature and stupid… Thinks back to when I was younger. OH! Shit. Yes I was.
It’s nice to have somewhere where I can stop being a grown-up for a little bit and make some dumb jokes.
The toll of core life events. Having a child, taking care of elderly grandparents/parents. I thought it would be easier. Not easy but “he’s not heavy; he’s my brother” kind of easier. Maybe it’s me, but it feels like I’m constantly running on empty. Caregiver burnout is a real beast.
I’m constantly telling my wife that I feel like I’ve been in emergency red alert mode for the past year and a half and the idea of another child just frightens me. You want to do this shit again? This has been the worst experience of my life. She keeps saying the next one won’t be special needs but I’m good, no more kids for me, divorce me and marry someone else if you need to do that.
Yes, being someone’s caregiver can burn you out in ways you didn’t know you could get burnt out. I’ve had the unfortunate experience of being in two end-of-life care giver situations for immediate family in my life and I still haven’t fully realized the complete toll that has had on me.
I feel like every conversation I have with my wife at the end of the day is which of us is able to convince the other that we are the more tired one.
The amount of pure bullshit I have to go through every day just for an hour of enjoyment in the evenings.
Dude, retirement is where it’s at. I retired early and it’s amazing. It took sacrifices (modest home, aggressively paying off mortgage, no fancy cars) but it’s so worth it. Most people don’t take good enough care of themselves and by the time they retire they no longer have their health. :(
I think seeing how fast many people turn into people they would not have liked when they were younger. It’s probably part of growing up but many people seem to not remember what they wanted to do better than their parents.
How “not old” everything is. I’m not old, but when I was young I thought people my age were at the general end of one’s life. People also are surprisingly clueless.
Same idea but in, perhaps, a different sense:
When I was young, landing on the moon and the US war with Vietnam were all “in the past” and when I was young everything “in the past” had equal weighting and distance from my existence.
As I get older, I look back on things with the perspective of equidistance, time-wise, from my birth (or sometimes from ~adulthood) and events within that ever growing range start feeling like “not that long ago”
- The Vietnam war ended only 3 years before I was born!
- Apollo 11 was less than a decade before I was born. I’ve experienced that 9 year timespan three times in conscious memory and five times in my life.
- Even WWII is closer to my birth than I am.
- Heck, even the Great Depression was just starting to recover.
The older I get, the more recent everything seems.
I relate very much with you on this comment.
It’s bizarre to me these days to really realize and contemplate how close events like WW2, Kennedy’s assassination, the moon landing, Woodstock, etcetera actually all were to my birth.
But as a child and even into my early 20s most of those events felt like practically an eternity away.
It really puts it into perspective when I think about the fact that I moved out of my parents’ home and started working full time over 30 years ago…
First saw the Grateful Dead in concert over 30 years ago… They’d already been performing for over 25 years at that point and seemed like such a massive juggernaut that had just sort of always been around.
I’ve only gotten MORE healthy and strong.
My sex drive hasn’t gone down like media tells me
Retirement is a fantasy
When I look at homeless people I think 'that could be me in 4 months if I miss 2 weeks of work.
Oh my… the homeless quote hit me hard.
How much disdain I have for change (“they are just making it worse!”) aka grumpy old man syndrome
If it was around before you were born, it’s perfectly natural.
If it was invented when you were younger than 10, it’s new, cool, and exciting.
Invented between ages 10 and 25? Innovative.
Between 25 and 40? Silly to replace something that was working fine.
Over 40? The work of the Devil!!
I work in IT. I tell everyone once I retire all the electronics are gone and I’ll be on my front porch shaking my fist at the clouds.
I used to be with it, then they changed what it was. It’ll happen to you.
Am I so out of touch?
Honestly, this one sometimes surprises me too.
Like, I’m okay with it… I’ve accepted being the grumpy old man but it still surprises me how often it feels like my default state the older I get.
The thought of dying gains more optimism because you get more and more fatigued by people and their bullshit. The toxicity, self-entitlment, tribalism, narcissism, hate… There’s enough of them out there to just ruin it all enough that it gets exhausting and saddening. I figure by my old age, I’ll be happy with checking out.
If there’s an afterlife and it has to be shared with people of Earth again, I’ll be so pissed off.
Yeah, the aging process definitely makes death seem less and less undesirable.
I’m just tired man.
My friends a GP in the UK and they’ve said there’s been an increasing amount of people come in for “tiredness”.
It’s probably more about the state of this world rather than your age
Yeah you’re not wrong.
I feel like I can’t get ahead. Always running. Hell, I even do well for myself, good job and income. There’s always “just one more [X]”. And then we die.
Chronic anxiety is bad for your body in plenty of ways.
Yea sure, but that’s a phase that will pass.
That i succeeded in raising my children much better than my parents raised me. As a result, my now adult kids are happy, compassionate, have a good life, and they really love me :-)
Breaking the cycle will be our generations legacy
I was very relieved that it was possible
How much older people “don’t know fuck about fuck”.
As youngling I thought elder know something and I believed them.
Now I know they didn’t know anything, same as me and my friends don’t.
This is the reason my wife and I will admit we don’t know to our kiddo. When possible we explain how we can find out. Growing up without a sense of how being older actually is has been wild.
When I was a kid I thought adults knew stuff and had life figured out. I grew up to realize that no one knows shit.
Same. Grown ups have all the answers. Until I became one and learned there are 3 types of grownups: -people who think they have the answers and think you are the dumbass -people who know they don’t know stuff and only sometimes think you are the dumbass -people who don’t know stuff, don’t know what they don’t know, could not give a crap about what they should know and you are in their way.
Bah! I had everything figured out by 15! Stupid adults would never listen.
How much everything still hurts. Physically, emotionally, everything. How much I hate that I’m still trucking away, trying to do the right thing.
And it’s so lonely.
It doesn’t have to be lonely. Just find some hobby and join a group. Most people younger or older feel great about having older people talk about projects and things they’re passionate about. It’s surprisingly welcoming.
It’s kind of a privilege to have time or energy for things like that. I’m a single parent of abused children with significant mental health issues, and was a victim myself. Any time I find is spent maintaining my house or crying into my pillow. If my oldest manages to become a functional adult, maybe I’ll eke out some scraps of energy.
I hope you do. It’s hard to parent through trauma, especially when you have to maintain a job as well. I’m sure you are a great parent though and your kids have their best chance at being functional adults because of you. Stay strong❤️
