At what age do you start to feel "old"? My birthday is in a month and I'm dreading it already. I just keep creeping closer to 50.
I have always heard that being old was 20 years older than your age (whatever that age may be). Now "feeling" old is a different story. Age is not the problem, it is the complications that accompany it. For me, I started feeling old when I turned 70 and it has been a steady progression from then on. Your mileage may vary. When I was your age I was still on top of the world and could do anything.
To stay energetic, stay positive, get good sleep, keep exercising, stretch, and eat healthy food. Avoid alcohol and drink lots of water instead. Have fun in life!
At 64, I set a personal record in 2017 by hiking 326 miles with 62,200 feet of elevation gain (and loss). The women in my family- all widows- lived into their 100's, staying active, volunteering and living in their homes. From the back, my great aunts looked like teenagers in their 80's.
To get out of 88-degree heat, today I hiked a 6.6-mile loop near Mission Ridge Ski Area above Wenatchee, WA with four women ages 60 to 70. It was 20-degrees cooler in the mountains. The trail is mostly in the shade. That's why I chose this trail.
There was too much snow on the Clara and Marion Lakes trail at 4,600' elevation.So we took a spur trail- still sliding and postholing in snow- and looped down to Beehive Road, then desended to the Pipeline Trail at 4,000' elevation with more wildflowers.
Photos: Mt. Stuart, 9,416', white Trillium, the first Tweedy's Lewisia here (my favorite wildflower), Northern Larch, rocks and snow, and pink, snow dwarf primroses.
We had fun!
Thanks for the photos!
If you keep yourself fit and stay passionate about your future (dreams) then age is just a number.
Days away from 55 here. Don't mind getting old. One of the worst things about it is discovering that there is always a new way to hurt! Have a friend that just turned 60. She was struggling with it. So I said, "what, you wanted to die at 59?". Just a number. Take care of yourself and you will find that aging is very liberating. We are all gonna die, better that you let yourself enjoy living while you can.
I can certainly and most heartily agree with your last sentence. Life is brief and unpredictable, embrace it NOW while you still have the privilege and opportunity to do so.
If you take care of your body and mind, you still have a lot of good years ahead of you. At age 81, I am as mentally alert as I ever was. At age 69 I started working out with weights and gradually increased the weights to the point that I am stronger today than I was as a teenager -- but endurance is limited. Yes, over time, the infirmities of age make us give up things which we loved, but we learn to adjust and treasure the things we do yet have even more. Relationships are deeper and calmer, but less sexual.
For many of us life just began at 50.
I divorced at 56, and I agree!
I'm a week or so away from 53, and I don't feel old. It's just a number. What's more important is how you live your life, and your attitude. I know some people far younger than me who seem really old, and some quite a bit older who are very young.
I don't know. I'm almost 62, so I'll let you know when it happens.
age is just a matter of wearing it well til we're old enough to die.
That's when you're old.
Perfect sum up...
I turned 51 this year. I just had a new shirt made to wear to the skating rink. It says
In my 50's
Looking my 40's
Feeling my 30's
50 is the new 30. Sometimes I feel old, it was a rough winter, I fell on ice 3 times. Not hurt bad, but some lingering aches and pains, and some new or worsening aches. And having to deal with a 6 in my age now, but knowing I'm in the decade I can retire in. Am I old, not sure. I have no guide here, my mom died at 45, so this is uncharted territory. I also am a grandmother now, so all these signs point to old...
I hear you...
Ha, I remember my 50th and I thought Wow, that's a half century. Well now I'm approaching the 3/4 mark and really don't feel much different, maybe a little slower but in good health and still enjoying life. it's only a number and I'm going for 118, I want to see halley's comet again.
Oh your still a kid, I'm getting near to 70 and I still don't feel "old"
Yep, 66 in a few weeks and definately not old kiddo.
I was always an "old" young person and now I am a "young" old person.
Every time I have to disclose my age (forms, conversation, etc) I have to calculate it. I can’t ever just know my age, it keeps changing. I still don’t feel old, but I don’t feel young. I think I just don’t feel.
It comes on slowly... wiry eyebrows, growing wrinkles, the perceptible sag of jowls, then hairy ears (intimations of mortality - collect the set!). Suddenly all of the rock icons and movie stars of your youth have become old people You look in the mirror and instead of you standing there, it's some aged dude and it begins to dawn that you're growing irreversibly o-l-d and, what's worse, that's how others now see you, even if inside you still feel nearer 32 than 64. Can't wait for my eighties.
But then...
Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death
When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party
Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides
Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one
Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death
Roger McGough
It varied for me. I dreaded 30, but I got over it as soon as it happened. 40 was a breeze. 50 was a nightmare, but it came and went, and now it means nothing to me. This is currently the best version of me that there has ever been, and I accept that it took a lot of years to get here.
Age is a relative thing. I think how old you "feel" can be interpreted a number of different ways. Sometimes I feel old when I think about my almost 26YO son, and my 16YO daughter who is now permitted to drive. Sometimes I literally feel old when I experience various aches and pains when I exercise (I work out fairly vigorously and do a combination of cardio and resistance training). I have had "bone spurs" removed from both shoulders now, surgically, in order to continue to exercise at the same level. I'm not a bodybuilder by any stretch, but I'd say I exercise more intensely than most men my age (56).
Conversely, I feel young when I compare myself to other people my age, both physically and mentally. Maybe I'm just immature, but I prefer to call it "youthful." LOL! I look and act much younger than other men my age, and even 10 years my junior. So, as I said, it's all relative. =]
Oh, and @Sk8rgrl, my daughter is big into musical theater. After each show, her production company has a cast party at a local roller rink. I look forward to this activity a lot and, while I'm not the only parent out there skating, I'm among the oldest, and fastest. LOL!
I have a saying in life that keeps me young; “I am as young as the woman I feel”. ?
Dont be looking in the bar mirrors while feeling...lol.
50? Damn, I wish I was still 50!
Im so glad im 65... im to worn out to have to work again.
Meh, I'm 43 and I'm in better shape than I was in my 20s.
Cool...