OH MY GOD! (AKA The quarter life crisis)

[Northern Light]

Linear age doesn't really matter, it's how you feel and what you do with the time you have. When you're 40 you could be having as much fun or more fun than you are now, for all you know.

The trap that people fall into is that they think a number means they should act and be a certain way. i.e. "I'm 40 now so I'm over the hill". I know 40 year olds who are more young at heart, more adventurous, yet way more self-assured than people half their age.

It's your life and your creation.

 

[sawyerloggingon]

I am resurrecting this thread because now I'm going mental again.

I just found a gray hair. Actually, it's not gray. It's sun-glintingly white.

And I think a few people owe me some money.

I had some running bets that I'd start going gray right in the front, like Cruella de Vil. That hair right in front always turned blonde in summer, so I figure it'd be the first to lose its color.

Well, there it is. Bright white. Right up front. I win.

It's actually kinda pretty.

Wait until you are in your 60s. I have two middle age dogs now and assuming I outlive them I will never get another puppy. I just don't think it's fair to run the risk of dying before they do so I will adopt old dogs from shelters, my cute new puppy days are behind me.

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

Wait until you are in your 60s. I have two middle age dogs now and assuming I outlive them I will never get another puppy. I just don't think it's fair to run the risk of dying before they do so I will adopt old dogs from shelters, my cute new puppy days are behind me.

Yeah, my dad is 63 and he currently has a 3-year-old cat. It will definitely be his last cat.

The cat was about to be thrown out by my friend's terrible sister, so I was actually the one who called him up and asked him if he wanted to take her. I couldn't at the time; I had a very fragile old cat who wouldn't have been able to tolerate that. He had been thinking about getting another cat, although I don't know that he would have gone for one so young. What can I say, he's a sucker for whiskers. As such, I've agreed to take her in if he can't care for her at some point in the future. She knows me, and he knows I'm up to it.

I would love to foster or adopt senior cats in my old age. I agree; I wouldn't want to risk dying first, and them having nowhere to go. Of course, that is always a risk, even with me being young and healthy. I have 2 "cat godparents" because you just never know.

 

[Gaius46]

I am resurrecting this thread because now I'm going mental again.

I just found a gray hair. Actually, it's not gray. It's sun-glintingly white.

And I think a few people owe me some money.

I had some running bets that I'd start going gray right in the front, like Cruella de Vil. That hair right in front always turned blonde in summer, so I figure it'd be the first to lose its color.

Well, there it is. Bright white. Right up front. I win.

It's actually kinda pretty.

I started going gray at 19, the men in my family go gray early. Now in my 50s it's all gray I think, I shave my head not because it's gray but because I'm lazy and don't want to have to comb my hair in the morning. My moustache and goatee are pretty much all snow white but I think they look kind of cool.

My dogs are 10 and 12 and with me at 52 I can probably have one more round of pets but I'm not sure I want more. Each successive generation of pets have been harder to say goodbye to.

 

[Fisher]

Wait until you are in your 60s. I have two middle age dogs now and assuming I outlive them I will never get another puppy. I just don't think it's fair to run the risk of dying before they do so I will adopt old dogs from shelters, my cute new puppy days are behind me.

I'm not close to 60's but I tend to prefer older dogs anyways. We have one dog now that is just so high strung I want to accidentally let her run into traffic some days. Her latest thing to annoy me is to wrap her leash around a tree a few times and then keep wrapping herself up more as I try to walk around the tree to untangle her so it becomes a game to her. I just don't have the patience to put up with puppies any more. They are too needy. I want dogs that eat, sleep, and bark at strangers.

 

[sawyerloggingon]

I'm not close to 60's but I tend to prefer older dogs anyways. We have one dog now that is just so high strung I want to accidentally let her run into traffic some days. Her latest thing to annoy me is to wrap her leash around a tree a few times and then keep wrapping herself up more as I try to walk around the tree to untangle her so it becomes a game to her. I just don't have the patience to put up with puppies any more. They are too needy. I want dogs that eat, sleep, and bark at strangers.

German Shorthair?

 

[Fisher]

German Shorthair?

No she is a beagle as are most of our dogs. God that dog can zip around faster than the speed of light. I wished I had 10% of her energy. If she ever escapes, I just look for the cluster of cats pouring out of people's yards at break neck speed to find her.

 

[ChezC3]

But at the time, I couldn't imagine myself any older than 22.

So much for that. 40 seems almost beyond comprehension.

I know I will probably be a curmudgeonly bar patron when it comes to my gin and tonics. I know my kitty will be very, very old. And possibly (but hopefully not) departed.

Beyond that, I haven't the faintest idea.

I just hope I don't sleep through it.

As I was reading this I had a song playing in the back of my head, which seemed rather fitting so I figured I'd share...enjoy..

 

[Slartibartfast]

I am 35 and I am having more fun than I can ever remember. I have a decent income, freedom to pretty much do what I want (within reason), a ton of free time, a bunch of friends, and plenty to do.

Life is like that. If I look through the eyes of the me a year ago, I would be shocked at what's going on now. That guy would be like "who is that woman in your bed? Where are you living? Where did all these friends come from?" and stuff like that. That me a year ago would have never made the positive choices that he was forced to make to, in some ways, survive. In the end those choices caused me to thrive. There is a lesson in this experience:

I guess I don't see it about one's ago so much as where one is that. Treat every day as if today is important, but also as if you have a great future that you are building.

 

[code1211]

I have a kitty sitting beside me.

Not too long after the loss of my elder kitty, I stumbled upon a beautiful moggie cat people were spreading the word about. She had been up for adoption for months, being kept in foster. The reason she sat so long? Well, first of all, she's an adult -- about 1 1/2. And second of all, she's a bit of a trauma cat, and she was terrified in the shelter environment when people came to see her.

Her face grabbed me by the neck and I just had to go see her. So I did. Her signs were small, as she huddled, shaking, in the back of her carrier. But she was totally non-aggressive -- just scared. And when I sent her eye kisses, she returned them. When I pet her face, she turned it into my palm, as if to block out the sad yowls of the shelter.

And home with me she went.

I just realized something.

She's still got her whole life ahead of her. If we're converting cat to human, she's maybe slightly younger than the age I am now. I'm 24.

Assuming she doesn't have any kind of catastrophic disorder (which would be unusual, now that she's safely and healthfully in adulthood), I can expect her to live possibly as long as...

Until I am in my 40's.

My 40's. My 40's. My 40's. My 40's.

My 40's? I'm theoretically going to have 40's? What the hell happened to my teens!? Where did they go!? Wait, I'm halfway through my 20's? WHAT!?

When the hell did this happen? Why did no one wake me?

Oh my god, I have a skilled job, and an apartment, and a cat who will likely live until I'm middle aged, and I have to have my gin and tonic JUST SO, and no one makes it right.

:scared:

I feel like I'm supposed to be doing something about this.

Going out and madly playing beer pong, because I went to bed 18 and woke up 24. So next time I go to bed I could wake up 35, and this spry little kitty will be another granny cat.

Only problem with that is that I don't enjoy beer pong. Or really, getting wasted and partying in general. Because I'm 24, not 18, and I got bored with that quite a while ago.

I don't know when "quite a while ago" was, seeing as how I was just 18, like, YESTERDAY, but I know it was quite a while ago in the scheme of this weird wormhole that is getting older from a personal perspective.

What am I gonna be like at 40?

When I was 19, I had probably the lowest period of my life. My whole world just sort collapsed around me.

A good friend of mine -- then 30 -- didn't believe in my general ennui about my life at that point. One of those people who thinks I'll do something awesome someday. He asked me something I always remembered, because it was one of those things where the words the person said are just a simplistic outfit for the million other things they actually mean to say.

"What will you be like in 5 years?"

I know the answer to that now: completely unrecognizable from what I was at 19.

But at the time, I couldn't imagine myself any older than 22.

So much for that. 40 seems almost beyond comprehension.

I know I will probably be a curmudgeonly bar patron when it comes to my gin and tonics. I know my kitty will be very, very old. And possibly (but hopefully not) departed.

Beyond that, I haven't the faintest idea.

I just hope I don't sleep through it.

Really excellent.