Are you surprised by your age?

To Op, I’m only surprised when others are surprised by my age. Most people think I look much younger (not bragging—just hear it all the time)) and when I tell them how old I am then that’s when I realize...wow, that sounds old. I find age is just a number and I definitely feel younger at my age. Like someone said earlier, it’s your emotional attitude and how you carry yourself. I can be playful, youthful and yet serious and act my age too...whatever that means.

“I believe age defines you chronically but your soul determines the outcome of agelessness”

I refuse to get old wrote:

To Op, I’m only surprised when others are surprised by my age. Most people think I look much younger (not bragging—just hear it all the time)) and when I tell them how old I am then that’s when I realize...wow, that sounds old. I find age is just a number and I definitely feel younger at my age. Like someone said earlier, it’s your emotional attitude and how you carry yourself. I can be playful, youthful and yet serious and act my age too...whatever that means.

“I believe age defines you chronically but your soul determines the outcome of agelessness”

OK but you are wrong to say that age is just a number. Why would people be surprised by your age if age is just a number? Age is correlated with many things. It is not just a number.

I think you are both right. It's a thing we can affect and sway, and it is a reality that acts upon us whether we want it to or not, because it will.

But we can influence how it affects us, how feel about it, and how much we will acquiesce.

Ultimately, i feel it is a dialogue. A back and forth, a push here and some push back in return.

To what end?

That's it! That is what I believe the entire point is: the realization of the vast sadness in aging. But in so realizing, so comes an equally vast appreciation and love for all that is dear and cherished, overlooked, not understood, and soon to be lost as it slips through our fingers, however begrudgingly.

54 here, sneaking up on 55. Wife turned 55 end of 2019.

In my heart and in my head, I'm still a teenager, and I often act the part. However, the body is getting older and keeps reminding me that time is passing on. Most of this past year my damn feet have hurt; I've had numerous running injuries over the years, but this has been the most persistent and insidious.

I'd like to think my life is only half to two-thirds over, but if it ends soon I will have had a full life with many highs and many lows:

- found true, lasting love, am married to my best friend

- have watched both my in-laws pass in the last 4 years; they were both among my oldest, closest friends

- shared in the joy of having a child and watching him grow and outsmart both of us

- suffered indescribable loss when he was taken by the opioid crisis

- experienced armed conflict up close and personal

- traveled widely, seen a lot of humanity on both ends of the spectrum, enjoyed an extremely wide range of culture and, importantly, cuisine

- have lived abroad, forced to get by on a second language (French) and immersed in another language (Italian)

- have attended innumerable concerts and encountered brilliant street musicians around the world

- have visited many of the world's most important cultural sites and a very wide range of museums and art galleries

- and now, living through a pandemic, wondering what the next 1, 3, 5, 10 and 30 years will bring...

My heartfelt condolences.

seattle prattle wrote:My heartfelt condolences.

Thanks SP. Loss is something we all become more familiar with as we age. My parents, 79 and 80, seem to lose friends and siblings or cousins on a near-monthly basis. That's coming our way too. Loss is hard, and grief can nearly kill you, but we also gain from every encounter with those we've lost. Something to keep in mind BEFORE we lose our loved ones.

One more high and one more low:

- I love the intellectual stimulation of school and spent many more years than most others paying for the privilege of an advanced education. Others can judge whether any of it stuck, but it led to a career in a field I find endlessly stimulating, and every day brings new interesting challenges

- I stumbled across and got hooked on this hell hole back around the early 00s. I do get to engage with some good people on here (you and I have discussed and debated elsewhere for example), and I plug my nose a lot when wading through some of the stink

I'll leave it to the philosophers to decide which of those is high and which is low :-)

Good to know.

Advanced education has also served me well, and to a field i now find hard to leave, though i am getting ready to any day now.

As far as thinking about the loss before it happens, and learning to appreciate before it's gone, I couldn't agree more. Spoken like a man who's made wise use of their time.

Just trying to make sense of it while there's still some of it left.

Take care, and looking forward to some more stories.

My father-in-law passed two months ago (not covid-related). We were home with him before he entered the hospital. I assembled a night table for his bed a couple of days before I last saw him. When we loaded him into my sister-in-law's car the evening before entering hospital (for surgery we hoped would correct a nagging issue), I told her privately I didn't expect he would ever be back there. Which proved correct. Four years ago when we lost his wife, I missed the opportunity to tell her what she meant to me (the world).

At our last dinner together, I made my wife and her sister leave us alone for a few minutes, and I took the time to tell him what was on my mind but I'd never said out loud, which was that he was one of my oldest and closest friends, and that I'd never really thought if him in any other way. You have no idea how glad I am that I said goodbye to him like that. Now I'm at peace with him being gone, because I had over 30 years of good friendship and bad stories.

Although their is some truth in your post, I strongly disagree with your fatalistic and depressive view of aging. I think you got me depressed just read your articulate and literary description of aging as "vast sadness" and "soon to be lost as it slips through our fingers, however begrudgingly". I know you are being honest but WOW!I

I am 66 and there are many things I can't do that I could do at 25, but I am pretty happy right now maybe even the most content and happiest in my life. Now if my wife died from cancer maybe I would feel more than grief and missing but I would feel the sustained "vast sadness" that you talk about. I would hope not.

I accept that life is temporary and yes endings are very difficult, but I am truly ok with it and don't feel a sense of impeding vast sadness. We outgrow our lives here and move on. It's part of the deal.

Correction, I meant to type if my wife died would I feel the sustained vast sadness you speak about. I hope not.

serious question.. wrote:... if my wife died would I feel the sustained vast sadness you speak about. I hope not.

My wife and I have agreed that I will go first (hopefully not initiated by her... :-)) so I don't have to grieve for her. I honestly don't think I could take that. I understand why a lot of old couples pass together within hours of each other. When she is gone, if I'm still around (this should not happen, she and I struck a deal...), it will be time for me to go. I will have already had everything I came for.

When I wrote earlier that my father-in-law shared decades of friendship and bad stories, I should have emphasized that that's all there really is. Or maybe more to the point, all there needs to be. I know two important things in life. That was one, and the other is that the glass doesn't know whether it's half full or half empty; it gets to decide, as do we all.

I'm 33 here and feel better than ever aside from a couple aches and pains that did not exist in my twenties. Lost almost 10 pounds during quarantine. Amazing what daily exercise, enough sleep, healthy eating, and quitting drinking can do for you.

60 today. Not too long ago I was looking forward to turning 60 as I was sure I could be competitive in my new age group on a national level. My head says lets go, my body says awww hell no!

The aging from 57 to 60 was the same as 30 to 55. I knew this time would come but its still hard to accept. The cliff you're about to fall from is real. Enjoy your running days while you have them.

Have a good run,

Dave

Almost every time I run, I am surprised by my age (54). I feel great doing so and love it as much as I did when I first started at 10. Most of my surprise comes from the example of my father. While he was a great role model for me, in the running department, I only saw him engage in the activity exactly one time and that lasted for about 5 seconds max.

Growing up, I always thought I'd be like him and, as far as running goes, I'm glad to find this not to be the case.

What else surprises me about my age? How happy I am, how easy it is to stay fit, how much my kids have followed me and my wife down the fitness path without us ever having to talk them into it. They just embraced the lifestyle.

Last thing, a couple of years ago, I had a spin through the cancer world. My doctors kept telling me they never see someone like me (ie height/weight appropriate, strong heart etc). I don't have a personal physician, don't take any medication and take every medical evaluation with a very skeptical eye. My doctors cured me of cancer but, oh my God, were they inconsistent, wrong and ill informed in a holistic sense throughout much of the journey.

This has been on my mind in the pandemic. So many people say, "Trust the science." While I have enough of an education to understand what they're getting at, I have enough personal experience to know that science is hugely fallible, medicine is a business and a doctor's first inclination is to make the most cautious recommendation available. If you're a runner, in good health with few "conditions," chances are you know your body much better than any doctor. Trust that you know what risks you should be taking and how you should live your life. Don't leave it in the hands of someone just because they have a medical degree. Respect science but don't abdicate authority over your health, hold on to that with every ounce of strength you have.

My 45th birthday was yesterday and I can't believe it. Mentally I still think I'm 17 and physically I'm not too bad apart from a bad neck due to years as a desk jockey (and I can't believe how slow I've got). I just can't compute that people in important positions (politicians etc) are in many cases younger than me. Also, everyone I went to school with looks so old!

I turned 30 last summer. It is pretty weird. High school and college seem like another life in many ways, yet I don't feel "old" except I'm more injury-prone than I used to be. I've read elsewhere that as you age the days are long but the years fly by. I've found that to be true. When I was in school every year was nicely demarcated by the academic year/XC/track seasons. In adulthood there's been some of that (I went back to school for a bit and was a teacher for two years), but mostly I just watch the seasons float by and the years blend together.

I'm only 21 years old, but I feel like I'm 12.

Yes. I have to say that at 52 I am very surprised that I can still go run 16-20M, and that I can still do some decent workouts. Also physically I'll gladly take my shirt off around guys half my age. I cannot believe out dumpy and horrible these guys look at 25-30 years old. They have Dad Bods and they aren't even Dads yet!

I don't find myself with Old Man thinking yet. I still like to hear new music, new tv, new foods.

I'd say the most Old Guy attitudes I have are 1) I don't care about video games at all. It's just lost on me how anyone can spend more than 10 mins on that. 2) I don't listen to much hip hop, but then that music is not made for me. I think it'd be odd for a 50 year old white guy to LIKE music that's primarily about going to the club and doing young person stuff.

I agree with you. What i was trying to say is that I am able to accept aging and move on, as you say, but the process becomes meaningful and poignant by acknowledging the effects of aging. It doesn't paralyze us, we don't wallow in it. We have become wiser in seeing its hands upon us and knowing it is just part of the process, and to the extent that we are able to be, still, is that much more valuable since we know how fleeting it is. I think, at least for me, acknowledging the diminishing capabilities (maybe sadness is the wrong word) in aging, it becomes a positive, energizing force to use and celebrate that which is fleeting.

It's good to hear you're balanced approach. That's what i was trying to capture as well.

You've given me a lot to think about and thank you.