How do you cope with getting older?

10 comments

  1. I am in my late 20s and feel like I’m going off the rails. I’m scared of getting older. I feel like my 20s have been a blur and next thing I know I’m knocking on 30s door. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think 30 is “old” I’m just having a hard time with how much time has passed. I’m a mom of 2 now and just want to live in the moment with my babies but I can’t stop mourning all the time that has passed. I hate the fact that not only am I getting older, but my mom is too. My siblings are too. It doesn’t help that I recently had a baby, I know I’m definitely feeling the baby blues but I do have these feelings outside of post partum, they’re just magnified currently. I know some of you will see this and think I’m so silly for worrying about this at my age. But what are some things you’ve done to accept that you’re getting older and embrace it instead of putting it in a negative light?

  4. By refusing to feel both nostalgia and regret. Regret won’t fix the past, it will only poison the present. And nostalgia is basically that thing which is giving us all those godawful movie reboots, so screw it too.

    Thing is, when you turn 30, you turn 30. No wrinkles appear on your face at midnight and your joints don’t suddenly disintegrate. You don’t suddenly forsake your love for your favorite cheesy metal band, don’t stop playing video games and don’t get banned from your local gym. Nobody hands you a decree of “no more fun is allowed” and orders you to suffer. In fact, barely anything changes from you being 29 at all.

    You’re not meant to cram your entire life into your 20s and then sit back and watch the credits. You just keep living once they end and you keep being your good old self.

  5. Big thing for me was just how much more capable I’ve become with age. I’m more skilled in so many things, experienced so many cool things, have so much more knowledge, etc. Getting older is just me accumulating more of these awesome positives of life, like a snowball rolling downhill.

    And it actually gets easier as I get older. My life in my 30s has been unrecognizable from the previous 20 years in such a positive way, just completely flipped things and really bloomed.

  6. I’m 22 and feel like the anticipation of every birthday after 19 has been awful. I always feel so scared!

    My mom always said she felt this way until she turned 30, and then after that aging didn’t really seem like a big deal. Like that was the last hump to get over, and she wasn’t scared anymore! She is one of the most youthful amazing people I know, so I hope that happens for me!

    Maybe after you turn 30 you’ll feel better – if so report back to us because I think all of us feel the same 🙁

  9. A close friend died at the age of 23. Anytime I’m getting older I think of her, and how she wasn’t fortunate enough to live a longer life. She’s gone. I get to live, and I love living. So I hope I will live healthily and happily as long as possible, because the option is just so much worse.

  10. Quite honestly, I’ve had enough loved ones pass away before they got to grow old. Last year a close friend died very unexpectedly; he was in his thirties, only two months older than me. That’s stayed with me to this day – not the grief so much as the realization that nothing in life is certain, and tomorrow isn’t promised. It sounds cliche, but it’s true that growing older is a privilege.

    So hey – maybe my joints are starting to hurt and there’s some grey in my hair. I despise my job, I still have a pile of student loans to pay off, and we’re in the middle of about twenty different regional/global crises. Do I still enjoy being alive on this earth? Hell yes.

    (And sometimes I wonder what I’d feel like if I knew this was my last day on earth. Suddenly I realize how beautiful the sky is, how amazing the trees are, or how good it feels to breathe air, or hear music, or hug the ones you love. It’s a neat little exercise in perspective.)

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