When did you notice you were getting old?

When the AARP started carpet-bombing me with cards about a year and a half ago when I hit the big 5-0.

 

I'm hearing that.

I still work fast and take on a lot, just because I don't know any other way. The change in the 50s is that at the end of it now, I fairly collapse into my couch after a run like that. I'm showing the strain and need more recovery time.

 

I won't feel old for about another year and a half, maybe two. When I get my first Soldier who was born after I joined the Army.

 

Went back to school a few years back and took a Spanish class which was a mix of older adults and a few teenagers. About two weeks in, the 50-something guy in the class drops out and somebody points out to me that I am now the oldest person left in the class. Then I found out that included the teacher, who was three years younger than me.

Also, when I started to hear about Chipper Jones getting old. He was born exactly nine day after I was.

 

When I worked in an after-school glorified daycare, one of the smaller students was wearing all blue. I called him a Smurf. "Mr. Yodel, what is a Smurf?"

I remember when I woke up the day of my 30th birthday, I had aches I didn't have when I was 29. Weird.

 

Sometime between when my son turned 2 and 3 - dealing with 'em that young ages you fast. <g>

 

The distinction between me and you is that, no matter who you were, I was thinner than you and could eat more than you and drink more beer than you and still never gain a pound. I wasn't sedentary, but I was by no means an exercise maniac. And it didn't matter; I just never gained weight. I never worried about my weight; I barely thought about my weight, other than to wow people with what a ridiculously low number it was.

Then I turned 35.

I was on a two-week business trip, for which I had packed some weekend clothes, including a few pairs of jeans. On Saturday morning, I woke up and went to put on the jeans I had packed the previous Monday.

These jeans weren't "a little tight." They weren't "snug." I couldn't snap them. I couldn't leave the hotel room wearing them. I had to put on a pair of sweats, go to Sears, and buy two new pairs of jeans in the next size up.

I gained 25 pounds in the three months preceding my 36th birthday. Eight years later, after deciding to put conscious effort into eating less and moving more for the first time in my life, I've leveled off and am at a comfortable and healthy weight.

But with heart disease coming at me from both sides of my family, it was a pretty harsh wake-up call that I couldn't just eat and drink whatever I wanted whenever I wanted anymore.

 

I've felt "getting old" mostly in my knees. Strangely enough, once I started with the CrossFit the knee pain began to subside. Maybe I was just "getting fat."

 

While I'm delighted with the healing of my new hip, I'm starting to realize that the arthritic knee pain really isn't ever going to leave.

In fact, my biggest worry is that it will get worse with time, because I'm getting out of bed or off the couch mostly with my arms already.

Arthritis is a helluva thing.

 

I still check out both and the cheerleaders, so I guess I'm not old yet. ;D

 

i started getting stalked by aarp before i even turned 40. they apparently knew something i didn't.