[Closed] what happens when you get old?

*wonders if I seem like a grown up*

phil - in answer to your first question, I haven't a clue! It's a number, that's all.

I embraced my mid-life crisis by buying a Ti bike and one or two other things. 🙄

On a serious note, I feel comfortable with myself and the world. 8)

Auntie C_G
(over 50 apparently)

i don't feel old, people tell me i am, but then they are in their 20's and couldn't walk 10 miles let alone do any distance on a bike, it's all relative, i do find i'm doing more now incase i can't manage it in the future, lifes too short etc etc

You buy Singletrack magazine.

Your body starts to fail you!

You buy a Tandem and argue about helmets.

Ah Sorry TJ but someone had to do it.

Grumble mutter mummble

where's my werthers!

i do find i'm doing more now incase i can't manage it in the future, lifes too short etc etc

yup

You buy Singletrack magazine.

yup

Your body starts to fail you!

yup

I'm old! 😯 that must mean you're all REALLY old 😆

phil - you need to stop crashing! How are your bruises now?

Still feel the same inside as I did when I was 19, just look slightly different on the outside.

As you get older you don't worry as much about your age. As c_g says, it's just a number. It is true when older people tell you that the older you get, the faster time seems to go. 😥

I certainly wouldn't want to be younger again though, as I'm a lot more content with who I am as a person.

Yours,

A very young 39 year old.

I am definitely looking old around the eyes. Watching my daughter grow up puts things into perspective. She is growing FAST.! I still don't feel that grown up inside and feel I have a hell of a lot to learn. As a male it is a well known fact that I will never grow up.

The trick to not feeling old is to hang around with people older than you. I felt old when I left uni then I got a job working with people who were mostly mid to late 20s. That made me feel young. If that happened now I'd feel really old, so by some stroke of luck my colleages have always ended up being slightly older than me. Last long job my closest workmate was mid to late 40s and still had a strong social life and did loads of active stuff. That helped 🙂

rOcKeTdOg - Member
i don't feel old, people tell me i am, but then they are in their 20's and couldn't walk 10 miles let alone do any distance on a bike, it's all relative, i do find i'm doing more now incase i can't manage it in the future, lifes too short etc etc

Exactly like this ^^^^ except that I sometimes feel old too (I'm 59).
Ironically, I'm probably riding better than at any time over the last ten years, but since I'm another of these "glass half empty" people I worry about some sort of sh!t happening to change all the good things that I'm lucky enough to have in my life.
Sometimes I feel [u]too[/u] lucky, if that makes any sense?

You generally become wiser.
You learn to do things that you have to out of a sense of responsibility.
You value the good things in life more.
You realise that you are not immortal and tend to change your lifestyle accordingly.
You generally become happier with your lot.

On the whole I would say I am more content now at the age of 40 than I was when 30 or 20.

as the five O looms i cant quite do what i did when i was 25 but i can come close, the ladies dont stop and stare anymore, i lost my name when i had kids you just become 'Lauryns dad' etc i ve got more money than ever had, no mortgage, all the boys toys i ve ever wanted.. down side.. health, more visits to the gp than nights out clubbing and the nagging awareness that somewhere theres a pair of slippers with my name on em..

http://pre65trials.blogspot.com/

we few, we happy few

I find that having kids simultaneously makes me feel young and old. Young because I could never have imagined playing with Nerf guns, and being excited for Christmas again; old because, after a year of injury, I look at them and realise I am mortal.

Otherwise, I work with people whose ages I don't generally know, but take comfort in the fact that they all [i]act[/i] like extremely wound up old people - too old, I imagine - for their real ages, while I'm generally seen as young and entirely able to laugh at things the way a slightly wise teenager might.

Having kids definitely makes you feel young again, cos you're no longer a very old teenager, just a young parent 🙂

And they do things that trigger your own memories of far off times.. and you start thinking of your own parents in a slightly different light.

I started my midlife crisis early (or possibly late; I don't know when I will die). It was as a result of the rapid mental ageing brought on by an extremely stressful job.

It made me want to do stuff right now and not wait until retirement.

So, weirdly, I feel as young as I ever have, but older than my years.

And they do things that trigger your own memories of far off times.. and you start thinking of your own parents in a slightly different light.

Seconded.

When you need to pee, you NEED TO PEE NOW!

(Oh and you only listen to old music and think none of today's musicians are as talented as "they used to be" 😉 )

About to step around the corner into 60.

Things I miss:

A good night's sleep.
A body that doesn't hurt in different places all the time.
Inexhaustable supplies of energy.
A waistline.

And so on and so on....

EDIT: Decent modern music 😆

You wish you'd learned to surf / wheelie / snowboard before you were 50 becasue you notice strength going a bit. And your hair goes a bit, too.

(But you listen to new music because the kids have got fire if not always skill, and you've heard the old stuff 100 times before)

And since you've had so much "stuff" in the past, new toys don't do it in quite the same way as they used to.
And you remember lost opportunities with regret rather than anger.

Seems to me that the majority of problems in the world are caused by " grown ups" , hold on to that inner child... 😀

Moses = wise 🙂

My hip hurts (all the time) and i 'tut' quite a lot.

I'm 37. Where do I collect my 5 bob?

What happens - your 6 pack becomes party seven

You buy Singletrack magazine.

Probably you subscribe to Singletrack magazine rather than simply buying it. Pedant mode off.

Also judging by the results in the local MTBO league, you seem to get considerably more competitive. I go up an age category next year and I definitely need to raise my game simply to stay at my current level of uncompetitiveness.

I ponder this kind of stuff a lot too... 🙄

I don't feel old - although like OMITN, I reckon I midlifed early through a stressful job and spent most of my early 30s wondering 'what's it all about'. I'm 40 now, and the things are notice most are:
- the years go fast, really fast
- I don't think there are endless years ahead like I did and am conscious that if I want to do stuff now is the time
- when I smile there's a growing host of wrinkles
- I worried when I started listening to radio 2 but now that Jo Whiley is on there I'm defo on 6music full time

As for being 'grown up' really, I've no idea. I still spend all my spare time on a bike ... 😉

Interestingly I do feel more empathy towards older people (parents excepted 👿 ) and young people annoy me less then they used to - they're young - what do they know!

You die.

Some time around 35 you realize the ground is getting harder and comes up faster. And then a bit later you accept you don't want to do quite so much, but the fun is still there. All the old dents and scrapes remind you where your limits are, and you won't make those mistakes again.

Later still you let your son do all the work on the front of the tandem.

any early/mid thirties people care to comment?

comparing myself to friends of the same age i'm like an old old man... but i've always been that way - upbringing, IQ level, job, health problems and nearly always 'getting on' better with people about 5-10 years older than me in social circles.

physically i feel old, mentally i feel old... but i'm not old. riding a bike makes me feel young, the attitudes and opinions on STW make me feel young. perception is a funny thing!

Top tip to make the years slow down is variety.

Become self employed, take time off, become a traveller etc etc.

I'm 35 btw Phil. It's hard for me to say I feel young, because I have 20 more years of experience and wisdom than I did 20 years ago, and that's a big part of who I am. I would rather be ageless than simply young 🙂

Physically, I feel fit but I found I couldn't take fitness for granted, but then again I used to do a greater variety of sport back then.

However iDave and some general excercises have rolled the years back nicely.

the most comforting thing i've learnt recently is that yeti only started riding at the same age as i did... but he's about 6 years older than me, so that gives me 6 years to get to his fitness/radness level 8)

Also, you have to start making that noise after you've bent down to pick things up. It's in the contract...

i make that noise on the way down and back up!

phil- you're worrying yourself unnecessarily!

[i]the most comforting thing i've learnt recently is that yeti only started riding at the same age as i did... but he's about 6 years older than me, so that gives me 6 years to get to his fitness/radness level[/i]

Ah, but then the downslide...

I can remember as an 18 year old trying to get into an over 25's night in nightclubs. Everyone else looked really old and past it.

I'm 35 next month, and in the past few years I've been looking back rather than forward if you know what I mean...there are things I'd do differently. I'm too old now to compete seriously in muay thai...many of the younger people in the gym are getting a lot of fights and moving towards title shots. The fight team managers can probably see a lot more reward from pushing them forward rather than me.

I've realised I'm getting old because I'm looking back.

But I don't feel like a grown up...I'm still a child inside. I'd like to be like Peter Griffin I think...immature forever. But eventually you've got to be an adult.

My Dad's 66...he said he still feels the same inside as he did in his early 20s. On my graduation day at University I went out in the evening with Uni friends and he stayed at the hotel, but he said he really wanted to come out with us and re-live his uni days!

If you are worried about age and fitness, go and watch a Masters MTB race.

not worrying myself 🙂 had to come to terms with my health problems a long time ago, at least now i'm doing something positive about it!

anyway.. tis not about me, tis about all your experiences and perception of ageing 🙂 nice to read about lots of people who still feel young at heart!

I personally am getting down about being that much closer to real physical deterioration and death 🙁

Also I take heart from this comment after Capt Sully, the US airline pilot, glided his powerless plane to a near-perfect landing in the river and all survived. Someone said - 'rather than a twenty-five year old with perfect reflexes, I would chose a pilot with twenty-five years' experience'.

Or something like that, my memory ain't what it was.

Finally, I have started to feel older than 17.

Dunno really I'll tell when I'm old. I'm actually only 51.

The speeds all gone, but that's been replaced by endurance and grunt.
I can share weed with my kids.
To be honest I don't feel any different to how I felt decades ago. Though strangely I've become more liberal minded and I thought you became more conservative in your veiws as you aged.
Get a massive kick out of punishing youngsters on the road, which I think I'm jolly well entitled to feel.