How do you deal with getting older?

[sly345]

You can’t pee as far.

I can still piss my name in the snow alright and i'm gaming since 1990  Actually we rarely have snow enough for that anymore.

Dress like a relevant person. (Don’t be a try-hard old guy, but buy you some new clothes)

Here in Germany we call them Beigelings, because old people wear beige/brown/grew/earthy colors in general

I think most important: just be true to yourself, don't think you have to change just because you are older. It's something i noticed with americans: "i can't wear sneakers anymore i'm 30" or "i can't wear colorful clothes, i'm an adult", they seem to completely change once they hit around 35 and stop having fun to fit in a weird, outdated, old mold. people here in germany did the same, i mean the 1968 generation that burned down houses and demonstrated for peace and stuff are now old people who dress...beige.

[Warmsignal]

I recently had a birthday which puts me in my late 30s. I understand I'm still not old, and by conventional standards I'm not even middle aged yet, but one thing that has been on my mind a lot over the last year or so is how people deal with getting older.


it's a strange thing coming out of your late teens, 20s, and even your early 30s and most things are more or less as you remembered them, but then you realize one day they're not. Your relatives you've had in your minds eye as being around a certain age most of your life are now several decades beyond that, you start to hear more and more about people you knew personally dying, and even you aren't the same person anymore. You don't have the energy you once did, your body has all sorts of random aches and pains you never used to have, and you could have sworn you were just renewing your plates or paying your taxes a few months ago, when it's actually been a whole year already. I guess the passage of time and the reality of how much time has passed is starting to finally catch up with me. Does anyone else have feelings like this or have you dealt with this and somehow come to terms with it?

Poorly. It’s been something heavy on my mind for most of my 30s, and it’s something that I’ve struggled with a lot. I’ve become an old man who yells at clouds mostly, I’m a very nostalgic and sentimental person these days. I cope with it by clinging to the last remaining shreds of people, places and things that still resemble what I miss so much about the past.

I have lunch inside of mostly empty irrelevant diners that are barely hanging on and feel like retirement homes, I shop in old school brick & mortar establishments that have neglected to necessitate tech and Internet into their operation, I visit childhood spots like my local parks to go hiking on the trails and just reminisce the whole time, I listen to my music on a CD player without the distraction of other activities, I play retro consoles on my CRT, I watch reruns of classic TV shows with what feels like a brand new set of eyes and ears (it’s the same but with a totally different perspective), listen to other sad millennials relate tales about the good ole days... I often think about people who I mistook for dinosaurs when they were my age and wonder how they felt about their life when they were at this same point, to come of age in the slower, more stable, more simple times. An experience that I can't and will never know. I've taken a greater interest in history as a whole, learning about the way things were before my time.

There’s nothing that I’m more apathetic and cynical towards than present day. All the garbage going on in the world, the politics, the economic system, the unending drama and noise coming from social media that I’m supposed to care about or get sucked into. I don’t want to be a part of it any longer. For the most part, I’m dead to that world. It feels like a waste of my time on this Earth, and everything about the present day system feels designed to make me feel less human and I want none of it. I desperately wanna recapture the way I felt when I was young, or at least how I felt as a young adult. I feel like I’ve seen enough change for a few generations in just the past decade and a half. The harsh reality is, the passage of time is just a process of watching everything you love wither away and eventually die. Anyone who hasn't already realized that is just refusing to pay attention, trying to live insulated inside of a false sense of security. Life is the ultimate tragic story.

As for me, I don’t feel like I’ve changed as a person, not the core of who I am anyway. It’s important to be true to myself, and preserve my principles and values and not let external forces to pressure me into capitulation. In other words, I’ll be insufferable by the time I’m a senior. I’m always gonna live like it’s still 1999 or 2006 and I’ll never apologize for it, no matter how fast the calendar shreds it's pages. I’m a product of my time, and my time was back then.

[tripredacus]

All the garbage going on in the world, the politics, the economic system, the unending drama and noise coming from social media that I’m supposed to care about or get sucked into. I don’t want to be a part of it any longer. For the most part, I’m dead to that world. It feels like a waste of my time on this Earth, and everything about the present day system feels designed to make me feel less human and I want none of it. I desperately wanna recapture the way I felt when I was young, or at least how I felt as a young adult.

I know how you feel. For nearly the entire time I've been active on here I had actually withdrawn from society for the most part. I was "so over" all the BS. But I had found that I was missing something but I didn't know what that was. I can't tell you how I got over it exactly, because it involved a trigger that I was not expecting to occur. I don't know if a person can actually escape that type of situation willingly because for a very long time I didn't think there was a problem. After the trigger event occured, my spirits lifted considerably and I did not know what had happened. I went into a period of introspection to figure things out and found that I had been experiencing some form of depression for a long time. After I came to accept things, I re-integrated with the world including all of the drama, of which I am still involved with even today. But I think it is a cost worth paying.

The things that ended up changing for me:
- I stopped paying attention to the news, politics or things like that. This is partly because I stopped doom scrolling on X and now rarely use it.
- I started focusing on music again and listening to new things. As a result, I stopped listening to the radio so this relates to being out of the loop regarding news. The type of music I listen to has regressed a little but I found that my music choices are dependent on a couple of things, my overall emotional state and also the music scene.
- I stopped playing video games, with exception. I'm still playing the two games in my Currently Playing list, but I haven't played anything in my backlog since early June. This happened immediately after the trigger event. I tried to play a game about a month ago and found I didn't want to.
- I started going to see bands again after a long time. This partially effected the type of music I was listening too somewhat recently.
- I started being more sociable in public which also came with the penalty of being involved in drama.

I won't go into details but I had to come to grips with a mistake I made in my past that led me to becoming a recluse. Once I became at peace with my past, the rest of the world opened up for me. That included some of the things that I had tried to escape from, but as I said I think that cost is worth it. I'd rather be the person I am today than the one I was a year ago. Nothing is easy in life and it is complicated and confusing a lot of the time. You'll end up making mistakes and having to deal with the consequences, but it is better than just hiding away because in that state you can't learn and grow IMO.

[kashell]

I guess I'm the outlier because I'm enjoying this journey of mine. I liked my 20's. I really liked my 30's. And, despite a major life change, I'm loving my 40's (I turned 41 back in June). Will I enjoy my 50's even more? Who knows, but I'm excited to find out. A lot of people say I look younger than my age, which I guess helps some.

A lot of it has to do with me still being mostly the same person since the beginning in terms of interests and hobbies. My parents regularly remind me: "You never change!" And in some ways, it's true. I'm still gaming, still writing reviews for fun, still staying active, still being a silly goose. All while being a responsible adult that goes to work, pays bills (I just got my car note in the mail for paying my last car payment), cooks, cleans the house, etc.

Another part of it has to do with having things to look forward to: Trips. Events. New game releases. Having something marked on the calendar weeks/months ahead makes the mundane less mundane because it's like you're always working towards something. For example, most Tuesdays I go to trivia with some friends. It's something routine and enjoyable and a fun thing to look forward to during the work week. I'm also in a book club and movie club. I've been kicking around the idea of looking for a doggie club since I'll be getting a puppy soon. I've got three new games to look forward to playing, too. And of course, there's this site's Secret Santa coming up which also excites me.

Sadly, part of getting older is seeing how bad things are politically (especially in the USA - yikes), environmentally, monetarily, etc. I don't have a remedy for that other than acknowledging that it's part of life.

So, personally, I deal with getting older by enjoying it. Yeah, there are times when I'm reminded of my age. I played kickball back in April and stumbled while running to first base AFTER MY VERY FIRST KICK. I got scraped up bad. But, there are times I'm reminded I'm doing things better than I did back in the day. I participated in the Spartan Race earlier in October and out shined some of the plucky, social media hungry 20-somethings.

I was always told that getting older is a privilege, and I believe it.