Do you worry about getting old?

xpost - what teeny said

if it makes you boys feel any better, I really love watching mr teeny's gray hairs and laugh lines appear. I think if he started losing his hair I would also find it charming.

It's one thing to decay AFTER you've secured a mate, but BEFORE??? Welcome to Loserville, Pop. 1, buddy.

I think the older you get, the less you get judged on your appearanceand the more on your character (if you're a man in any case, maybe it's different for women).

(x-post)

I am 312 years old. I have started making noises when I pick stuff up, and other Standup Comic Bingo tropes.

23 is far too young to die.

'In my youth', Father William replied to his son,
'I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.'

'You are old', said the youth, 'as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
Pray, what is the reason of that?'

'In my youth', said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
'I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box -
Allow me to sell you a couple?'

'You are old', said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -
Pray, how did you manage to do it?'

'In my youth', said his father, 'I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.'

'You are old', said the youth, 'one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -
What made you so awfully clever?'

'I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'
Said his father, 'don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!'

Also, when I hit 30, no-one believed I was, most said "early twenties". So, that was great. And I do look older than that now, but as far as hair is concerned, still non-balding, and one grey hair gots found (not by me) and 'plucked out with great hilarity' each year. So I assume I don't have any other grey hairs around (Can't see any, anyhow).

bo.

in the last couple weeks i've been feeling really young. i think it has something to do with the fact that a lot of my friends have already hit or passed 30, and i don't do that for 3 years (and one week)! which sounds like a really long time to me.

but of course, 30's the new 21. so it's no big deal.

So is 33 the new 25?

but i'm too lazy to register to read the whole article. anyone already registered?

But yes, inbetweenager status extends to 30-35 these days as *responsibility* is deferred later and later. So 30 is def the new 20.

I was raised by my grandparents, who were in their 60's when I was born, as were their friends. So, by 5 years old, all of my role models were vibrant, healthy people in their 60's through 90's.

I've NEVER understood this philosophy:

If someone dies, like Princess Di, John Kennedy Jr. or John Ritter, and they are 30/40/50, their fans mourn their "untimely death" and that they "had so many good years ahead of them."

Yet, those very same people, when THEY turn 30/40/50, they whine/moan/pout about how "I'm getting old and I don't want to celebrate birthdays any more."

So, which the Hell is it? Dead and 40 is a tragedy but LIVE and 40 is also a tragedy?

Each birthday, I kick up my 52 year old heels and celebrate the fact that I've beaten cancer, car wrecks, wasting diseases and 9/11.

I want to grow old, wrinkled and crotchedy and have 80 years of good memories.

I'll take wrinkles and weight gain over an early death, hands down!

Morris Bishop

I met an elf man in the woods,
The wee-est little elf!
Sitting under a mushroom tall--
'Twas taller than himself!

"How do you do, little elf," I said,
"And what do you do all day?"
"I dance 'n fwolic about," said he,
"'N scuttle about and play;"

"I s'prise the butterflies, 'n when
A katydid I see,
'Katy didn't' I say, and he
Says 'Katy did!' to me!

"I hide behind my mushroom stalk
When Mister Mole comes froo,
'N only jus' to fwighten him
I jump out'n say 'Boo!'

"'N then I swing on a cobweb swing
Up in the air so high,
'N the cwickets chirp to hear me sing
'Upsy-daisy-die!'

"'N then I play with the baby chicks,
I call them, chick chick chick!
'N what do you think of that?" said he.
I said, "It makes me sick.

"It gives me sharp and shooting pains
To listen to such drool."
I lifted up my foot, and squashed
The God damn little fool.

No, this event doesn't actually make me "worried" about getting old. After all, I've known I'm mortal for quite a bit now.
(Moreover, now and again I see my grandmother, way over ninety, and of rather frail health at this point, who still seems to, um, half-remember her five-year-old idea of living to one-hundred, bed ridden or not)

What's actually on my mind now, appearing much more important somehow than any "worry" of my own of "getting old", is the freshly arrived poignant understanding that I'll never be able to fathom what my mother (seventy-three) must have felt or thought burying the youngest, and last, of her sisters and brothers today.

Whatever it is that's on her mind worries me more greatly than my own (quite moderate) getting on in years.

(if yer "real", i.e.)

jonathan z otm upthread.

i just worry about the wrinkles and grey hair b/c they are a pain in the ass. and what seems to be an increasing intolerance to alcohol.

how can 30 be the new 20 if cheap beer now leaves me feeling like such shit the next day?

However, I do worry quite a bit about getting to be eighty and starting to lose the ability to handle things on my own. I remember the nursing home and how the atmosphere just reeked of death and how I'd rather be claimed early on of some horrid disease or similar when I was younger than end up wasting away in some wretched nursing home aged 90 or similar. Nightmare.

As for now, I'm 24 and most of the time feel like I'm at least 34. On a bad day, I feel like I'm 74. Hurrah for being old before my time! ;) (Though I have yet to encounter a gray hair and my face is as of now happily line-free.)

Christ I feel ancient.