This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

x-post - No, I think you're definitely right about that. Also, the air circulation factor is key. I pretty much only wear dresses in the summer for that reason. When it's hot and humid out I can't stand clothes that are clingy.

xp - honestly think about the fact that Harrison Ford and Clint Eastwood were romantic leads up until ...

which brings us to the contentious territory of aging men vs. women

Well, yeah.

when Spencer Tracy was Bruce Springsteen's age, he was dead.

An ex-bf of mine (Irish, not an ILXor, died unexpectedly last year) always asked people ‘what is your age’ and I always thought that was a better way of putting it!

did he get a bunch of clever responses like "stone", "mesozoic", and "golden"?

Carroll O'Connor in 1968 at age 44:

https://i.imgur.com/dwiNJjp.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/M9JO4nG.jpg

Also so happy to have finally found a thread to post 50-year-old Carroll O'Connor pictures.

is it just me or are we aging better as a generation? i mean i know _I_ look good but it seems like most of my fortysomething friends look like they're in their thirties. these boomer/greatest gen guys in their forties look like they're in their fifties

― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses)

no i'm pretty much decrepit, carroll o'connor looks great compared to me

http://i.cdn.turner.com/v5cache/TCM/Images/Dynamic/i440/kellysheroes_forgetaboutyourflanks_FC_470x264_052720170642.jpg

Carroll O'Connor at 45

https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/006wy7kd.jpg

meanwhile, same movie - clint eastwood at 39 (movie came out when he was 40)

Potato chips will do wonders

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nfRW82om7IE/UVL0JSb8KOI/AAAAAAAADf4/QGz2GfIJ5nU/s1600/The_Enforcer_Clint_Eastwood.jpg

Clint at 45

YEah, he and George Harrison at a tie.

OK, feel like we're making progress here.

https://i.imgur.com/TMkybHs.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z3FxI3Mt3PU/U5a5ydpRNcI/AAAAAAAAN-8/3hzfSRCCukg/s1600/Up-The-Down-Staircase-Jean-Stapleton-1967.JPG

here she is at 44

carroll o'c did a nice slooow southern accent in 'in the heat of the night' despite being from nyc

I think people were expected to dress/look old, back in the day.

I was watching God's Own Country last night and noticed how it inverted the sexist movie rulebook by having Ian Hart play the partner of Gemma Jones, who is 20 odd years his senior. Mind you he, fine actor as he is, is knackered and old looking enough looking to pull it off. Not meant in a shitty way, I've similar genes at work on me.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DVBDw1GX4AAlCJr.jpg:small

by having Ian Hart play the partner of Gemma Jones, who is 20 odd years his senior

The rulebook is intact; she plays his mother-in-law, as I remember it (not his mother, I don't think). At any rate, she is the grandmother of the protagonist. A few critics missed this too.

the son calls her "Nan" i think.

I must have misheard that as "mam".

https://i.imgur.com/tDyNaxf.jpg

Rarely have I ever wanted to actually punch a computer screen and yet.

People scream at concerts?

http://www.babylonisburning.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/psycho-scream.jpeg

how can you tell whether you have lower back pain in the morning because you old, or it's just time to replace your "2nd cheapest from Sears" mattress you bought 8 years ago?

― sarahell, Wednesday, January 24, 2018 11:06 PM (one month ago)

Update -- I rotated the mattress a few weeks back and now do not have the pain anymore.

√

Rotated my mattress a couple of weeks ago and got the same effect. I think I might have worn a groove in it.
Also it might be because of the relentless summer sunshine, but oh boy are the grey hairs starting to come in on top. Looks OK though. If I can pull of an 'old Deckard' look at 75 I'll be happy.

Also I would like to report considerably less patience with people who talk out of their arse all the time.

Hey turned 40 a bit over a month ago, don't care much so far. Lots of grey but for some reason it only seems to show in my beard.

Yokoso

I’ll be landing squarely in the middle of my forties this month as I turn 45. I’m uh, not in love with the idea but I don’t have too much of a say in the matter.

More on the ground reportage as my 40s keep happening.

I'm liking 40 a lot so far I think. The creeping sense of FOMO about basically everything actually seems to be helping with priorities a little bit.

I'm 41, so I guess I should mingle in here, right?

Christ I am 48 now. Does not compute.

just u wait!

Yeah was gonna say, just wait until you pass through Area 51.

Gonna be 47 in December. Celebrated my 25th wedding anniversary this minth.

Lol morbs quoting Hamilton

Murray Hamilton?

Know yourself at any age. Lots of us love y’all

Gonna be 47 in December. Celebrated my 25th wedding anniversary this minth.

sort of got skipped over but this is utterly brilliant

In my 50s here, and in my experience it's a lot harder than your 40s.

The main reason is that if you're not happy with your life, or you feel you took a major wrong turn 30 years ago, it feel too late to do something about it. And its all too easy to be lost in obsessive thoughts about it. For the first time in my life I'm seeking counselling.

Would be good to hear more from morbs.

Well, having separated from my wife of 20 years and fallen in love with someone who actually makes me feel loved, I can attest that 48 has been a watershed for me. And counselling has helped me to realise how I constructed the trap in which I found myself.
In a weird way I am delighted, I had felt very hollow after apparently solving all the problems most people deal with in affluent Western societies and gaining no satisfaction from that.

Good to hear. And good to be reminded that if you can overcome your problems, there's a positive side when you come through.

48 later this month. Regrets become a extremely potent brew by this point, but I’m still trying to build a way out of this economic leg hold trap I’m in.

Not sure i have "come through", I think I'm about 50% of the way "through" and with plenty of my old problems stuck to me. What is great is the realisation that growth and change is possible at any stage of life.

The hardest ages for me to come to terms with were 25 and 50. My forties were a golden age, I loved them. I'd spent my thirties hell-bent on pleasure, to compensate for a lack of fulfillment. In my forties, pleasure settled into a better place in my priorities, as fulfillment rapidly increased.

Turning 50 made me feel old, in a way that turning 40 hadn't, and I found it harder to envisage a path forwards. I'm 56 now, and that's all resolved. I've gracefully shed some aspects of my younger life, but by no means all. My aging system can't take quite so much pleasure, but it can take enough.

In my twenties and thirties, I socialised almost exclusively within a narrow age range. That started changing in my forties, and to my surprise, it's expanded even more in my fifties. I have friends who I see regularly in every half-decade age group from 19 to 80, and I value that enormously. I've also become a great deal more accepting of my weaknesses and flaws. That took long enough.

beautiful words Mike