This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

I used to have limits for how far I thought I could walk, but my range over time has really expanded

I’ll be 50 next summer. My forties have been so bad that I don’t even dread turning 50. Kind of looking forward to it almost. There’s no inherent magic to numbers divisible by ten but who knows.

I'm 45. Yesterday I taught my first class of students who are the same year as my (oldest) daughter. It's a little weird!

Contrarian Dickhead Fite! [Started by Darin in September 2019, last updated fifty-six seconds ago by YouGov to see it (wins) on I Love Music] 6 new answers POLL closes: September 20 (in 11 hours)
This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties [Started by Marcello Carlin in August 2008, last updated forty-eight seconds ago by L'assie (Euler) on I Love Everything] 103 new answers

Oops... that was for the Thread Connections thread.

The second half of my forties has been an amazing mix - marriage breakdown, going from decent physical shape to pretty nasty back problems, massively better self-knowledge and self-understanding, wonderful new partner who's here for the long haul, absolute best sex of my entire life, very positive changes in friendships, got into new types of music, feel hugely more positive about the future, great relationships with my kids. Many of these things are interrelated of course.

― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK)

i hear people talking about how "the millennials aren't having as much sex and the sex they are having is terrible!" and i don't know i always took having an unsatisfying or barely satisfying sex life as being endemic? but i guess it's different because a lot of it for me has been a function of being in a long-term relationship. i don't want to talk about certain things because they're pretty private and because also, you know, people don't necessarily want to hear the gory details (or else think that talking about sex is necessarily a form of flirting, which is pretty uncomfortable in its own way), but not talking about things is a pretty good recipe for unsatisfying sex... talking within the relationship is best, sure, but people in a relationship still exists as individuals with individual desires, and the buildup of emotional baggage in a relationship is a pretty big barrier to just awkwardly blurting shit out without forethought.

main change in my knees is that since i've started bending them properly i have way more crepitus and it's kind of embarrassing.

I moved to a big city when I turned forty and haven't had a car since, and the stair climbing that come along with reliance on public transportation have been a pretty good way to keep my knees in good condition.

xpost-ish When I was in San Francisco last summer I commented to my wife about how many people I saw walking with canes.

Probably more for the Over 50s (maybe?) in this thing but any empty nesters? Thoughts, expectations, disappointments, sudden onsets of regret at things unsaid, advice not given...asking for a friend.

my youngest is 14 & I'm dreading the point when they're all moved out. my kids are my best friends (not including my partner here).

^^^

this week my older daughter (17 in October) started making legit plans to visit colleges and my heart went in my throat. She had to snap me back to attention.

I do worry abt my mental health when this happens...wondering if it might be wise for me to move, too—I don't mean to be nearer to them, but moving my life somewhere else for a major change

I turned 40 a couple weeks ago. About three years ago I really started to notice that "my body just doesn't want to exercise any more, and when I do exercise, my body doesn't really respond the way it used to". Other than that I feel no difference between now and before. I don't have any illusions toward fatherhood, as I once did, and as a result I feel a significant increase of dread about my distance future as an actual oldster. I'm actually going to be 60 and alone! I hope my brothers (all straight, all married, lots of nieces and nephews) still care enough about me to take me in or live nearby when I get to that age.

I don't have any illusions toward fatherhood, as I once did, and as a result I feel a significant increase of dread about my distance future as an actual oldster

I feel this - I'm 40.5 now - but the other way around? It's hugely liberating for me to know I won't have kids, for a thousand reasons. Thinking of "who will take care of me" just isn't on my mind, like at all. But then I cannot fathom myself being 60 either. Likely because there's this slumbering thought that I won't even make it to 60, but mostly I wouldn't want to be a burden on anyone, let alone my own children! Now that there won't be any of the latter, that's one thing less to worry about.

You'll never be alone, not at 60, nor 80. Believe.

You'll never be alone, not at 60, nor 80. Believe.

wanna bet

i wouldn't be as worried about being taken care of / taking care of myself in my advanced years if the boomers etc etc hadn't made my prime earning years a desolate wasteland

I’ll pass... But I don’t think people in general (and fgti in this particular instance) will be left to their own devices. Children aren’t (and imo shouldn’t even be in the first place) the only ‘safety net’ around in the latter stages.

This is getting too grim
Let’s reel it in folks

I’m not trying to spend my remaining good years thinking about how no one will take care of me when I’m old. Need to be able to enjoy today and all that.

dammit i was trying to finagle an invitation to holland when i turn 60

Well, I spent most of my 30s missing the constant social buzz of my 20s— posting here largely as a response to that feeling of loneliness— but that loneliness has dissipated, even as my average number of weekly social engagements continues to wane. (My friends still say I throw the best parties, which is nice to hear.)

I think I’m enjoying being alone more and more as I get older, which is convenient. Even in my relationship, I adore the dude but wouldn’t feel terribly hurt if he decided to leave tomorrow. Self-sufficiency is a rewarding feeling.

One thing that childlessness does offer is that there’s no chance one or more of my kids will disown me. I would imagine that’s one of the most awful things a person could experience. (One of my siblings disowned my father and all it did was make my father obsessed with reconnecting, some 22 years of obsession)

Keep trying! Idk why but I thought you were older than I am LBI??

I still harbour strong illusions of fatherhood, but as my mom told my husband and I a few months ago when the subject came up, "you're getting awfully long in the tooth" (not meant as discouragement; she was just correctly pointing out how much less energy one has for things like raising children as one ages). Mostly it is an issue of getting into a stable place financially before that can happen; I'm working on it but really feeling like I'm running out of time.

I became a parent at 41, it's totally doable/possible

My impression was that the Boomers, a lot of them, had this romantic impression that their kids would love them for the heroes they were and want to be around them forever and take care of them when they got old, and a lot of the people I know don't talk to their Boomer parents. Probably they're wondering how we all turned out so rotten. There's no shortage of things they don't get. The kids today, you know, a lot of them can't tell the difference between me and a Boomer, which is my own fault for spending all that time listening to Pink Floyd probably. Are they going to take care of me when I get older? I mean, shit, they're taking care of me _now_.

Something I wonder about a lot - I don't feel guilt about it, but I wonder about it - was how our generation got the trans thing so wrong. There were real opportunities back then that we didn't take because most of us weren't even close to understanding how it was, and the ones who did understand, I don't know. We didn't or couldn't listen, most of us. The younger generations - not my own kids, I don't have any - but the younger generations aren't going to pay my hospital bills, because they don't have any money to pay my hospital bills with, but in some ways they're better at being kind than I was. Good enough.

tbh I've loved my forties! I know who I want to be and how to project it, am fitter, and have almost reached career goals insofar as they've mattered. Bachelorhood is my destiny, which doesn't stop me from thinking it'd be nice to take care of a guy when I'm older.

I do worry about the planet I'm leaving my nieces and godchild, but I'm no different than any previous generation.

I love that this thread can be a home for me for *checks watch* a little more than six more years

which is my own fault for spending all that time listening to Pink Floyd probably

hush

lol

I'm 42.

I can *definitely* feel my age more and more, some of that's health related stuff that medication is sorting out. Kind of a weird place to be - both having the sense of youth having raced away from me when I somehow wasn't paying serious attention but also realizing that there's a lot of beauty and joy in aspects of life that I didn't quite comprehend at, say, 20 or even 30.

Someone up thread was advising about building core strength - this is one of my biggest goals over the next year or so. I go to the gym sometimes, and walk a *lot* but need to buckle down harder.

tbh I've loved my forties! I know who I want to be and how to project it

oh i can hum a few bars of this, especially the past few months. so happy for you btw.

All this stuff about being alone / single when in senior years is a lot of worry about nothing. We have no idea what we’ll be like by then.

Anecdotal yes, but I’ve seen enough sweet and care-free relationships between elders not to worry too much about that. Making relationships work is something most people get better at with age.

Kids, not going to happen at this point for me -- I never ruled out being a stepdad at some point if I'd fallen for someone who had kids already, but that's turned out not to be the case and we're both happy as we are, so. No regrets, and I have (unofficially, I guess) nieces and nephews, so that will do for me.

Larger societal/planetary worries, sure I got 'em. But working constantly with folks in their early twenties, more recently thanks to all the various pre-med students who volunteer at the hospital under a program I oversee, means I'm always getting to know people with a certain drive and friendliness, and that's certainly reassuring.

The scariest thing about the notion of singledom at this age is the thought of marrying out of desperation and loneliness, just settling. Recently though it's occurred to me that I'm good with a) never marrying again and b) never living with anyone again, unless my son wants to move across the country and move in with me at some point.

my main concern is whether age will ever compel ned to cut his hair

as we wither he only gains in strength and luxuriousness

Boomer parents. Probably they're wondering how we all turned out so rotten.

All my nieces and nephews (and their spouses) are spread through their mid-30s to mid-40s and I think they are amazingly good, loving, thoughtful and firmly-grounded people. Which is not to say perfect, or anything like it, but they are good in the basic ways that flawed human beings can achieve by working at it.

xpost -- My standing rule of thumb is that if my hairline ever started to retreat or my hair thinned out I would cut it. Neither has happened and I suspect neither will at this point, content to let it all slowly go grey as it does.

The best way to die is to feel my chin nodding against my chin as I'm reading Wallace Stevens' late poems, assuming it's the onset of a cat nap, and closing my eyes.

my chin nodding against my chin

i like the idea of nodding off to Wallace Steven poems

Keep trying! Idk why but I thought you were older than I am LBI??

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Friday, September 20, 2019 1:44 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

No idea! My displayed wisdom Wdyll's in which I look really old? :-/

I'm actually going to be 60 and alone!

Dropping in from the fifties thread to say I am racing to 60 and alone myself and it’s great! I’m not planning to need someone to “take me in” at 60 - I’ll still be working and hopefully still to enjoy a good retirement.

It took me until my 40s to be unapologetically alone and enjoy life and not confirm with societal pressures to pair up. As a result,I often feel I’m still playing catch up with things that people had the confidence to do much earlias a couple (travel, interior design, socialising, fashion etc). But there’s a lot of fun in discovering and experimenting with things now - and not being jaded.

That is so good to hear! Considering that I've spent most of my adult life rather... dependent upon romantic and social activity, and I'm more recently starting to feel more comfortable in solitude (even as my romantic and social life are still relatively rich). I've been feeling more optimistic about All Possible Futures. Especially one where Ned has very long grey hair

Re: children after 40, I'm not knocking it. My father was 42 when he... fathered me, and I have many younger siblings on his side, as well. I just have lost the enthusiasm I had about it when I was in my 20s and 30s. My bf wants kids. It's weird thinking about it. First, there's the solicitation of a surrogate, which feels slimy to me. Or, the long process of adoption. Even just thinking about the race of the child is difficult-- my bf does not want to raise a non-black child. I have no preference toward the race of my children.

Ah fuck it, I'll type it... the reason I've kind of "gone off" of the prospect of being the drummer for Gay Dad is largely the result of hearing these romantic sloppy origin stories of so many of my straight parent friends. Having children feels like the product of romance, because it is. It's less appealing to me that my children might be the product of administration. This is not to criticize or judge parents of adopted children, of course-- one such parent himself even told me that the administrative process, although extremely worth it in the end, was hell.

I was walking my dog this morning and I thought "dog is a man's best friend", and all the implications of this adage started to suddenly revealed themselves

I do love my dog, though

The adoption process IS hell and I'm very glad I did it.

Xp. Wait, there's a fifties thread?

Yeah, but it’s hard to find.

Especially if you are in your fifties.

But I managed to find it again by searching upthread for a prior link. This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

Y'all ever do that thing where you think, "Well if I was the 20th Century, WWII would be just about over."

Used to wonder when my age and the numeric place of the president would synch up and goddammit.