# Feeling Sad Sometimes About Aging, I Think It's Very Natural...Do You?



## SeaBreeze (Oct 11, 2015)

Sometimes before bed, we'll put on a music channel of oldies from the 60s, 70s or 80s on cable TV, just for the few minutes when we're unwinding and wrapping things up for bedtime.  When I hear the rock music that I grew up on and loved, and see the artists then and now...although I'm proud and impressed by those still performing (or not), it saddens me to see them age.

I heard a couple of older songs last night, and the memories were good...but bittersweet, as I am reminded of how we're all getting up in years and how our time is limited.  This isn't really a light-hearted subject, but I think it's very real among seniors.

I'm very grateful for being born in the early 50s, and growing up in the 60s/70s.  That time to me is precious, the music was very special and I sometimes wish I could revisit, even if just for a day. :sentimental: 

How about you?  Do you sometimes have bittersweet emotions when thinking of your younger years, and feel a bit sad that you're in your twilight years?


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## Falcon (Oct 11, 2015)

*TWILIGHT ? !   *Hey, with me it's more like midnight.  I'm just happy that I don't wake up dead each morning.

But I AM glad that my health is good; no pains, pills, canes or walkers.  My target date is 100.  If Bob Hope and George Burns
made it, I think I can too


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## fureverywhere (Oct 11, 2015)

Oh but of course darlin'. I seriously wouldn't want to see any of the pop stars perform now that I remember from back in the day. I'm a later day boomer so somebody I loved in concert was Bob Seger. But that was in the mid-70's. He was on top of his game, Alto Reed getting levitated...man what a great show. I saw pictures of Bob a few years ago with Kid Rock. He was on one knee and looking like he was going to need serious help getting back up.

Gah, WE didn't get OLD, They GOT OLD right? Keith Richard's wears it well, probably healthier now than he was then. But yes I know how you feel. It's about facing our own mortality too. My Dad is 93...how much longer? Holding my grandson and it crosses my mind how much longer for me? Based on heredity this baby will be here for centuries past me. Then you get yourself into after they throw your ashes around the nature reserve, how will they remember you?

Then it's time to pick up the silliest book or movie you can find and stop dwelling


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## Butterfly (Oct 11, 2015)

I think we probably do the same thing -- feeling sad about the passing of the years, and they do seem to pass much more quickly the older you get . . . .


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## Warrigal (Oct 11, 2015)

I was born in the 40s and a teen in the 50's. I wouldn't time travel back there if given the chance. 
I'd ask for the switch to be thrown straight to the future.
I love the time I'm living in. It is full of marvels and miracles. :neat:

Did I mention that I have a new hip that doesn't hurt? :woohoo1:


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## Linda (Oct 12, 2015)

Falcon, my husband says he's going to live to be a 100, like you.  I tell him I'll be over there waiting for him.  I like listening to the oldies and all that but I don't want to go back in time and I enjoy my life more now than I ever did when I was young.    Sometimes I do stop and think about how long ago it seems that I was with my family I was born into or that our children were babies.  Long long ago and so many of them are no longer with us.


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## chic (Oct 12, 2015)

Yes, I hink it's natural to be a bit sad. Like you I wish I could go back to the optimism of the 60s. The art, the colors, the commraderie with other young people just because we were all young at the same time and there were so many of us. Sometimes, I watch those oldies music specials on PBS and they always depress me a little except for Peter Noone (lead singer of Herman's Hermits - remember them) ? He looks exactly the same, I swear and it gives me hope that if one can do it, maybe more can.


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## Laurie (Oct 12, 2015)

No, not sad.  Frustrated sometimes at some of the things I can't do any more, but generally at peace with the world, and happy with my memories.

I've seen an erupting volcano, an African sunset,  the dawn come "up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!", the Southern Cross, an Arctic blizzard, a Sahara sandstorm, a manta ray that wouldn't fit in my bedroom, enough of the Arabian Desert to understand, and envy, a man like Lawrence and   I've slept in a tent and been woken by  a wild lion coughing. 

Enough there to keep me happy the rest oh my lifetime!


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## Warrigal (Oct 12, 2015)

Wonderful Laurie. I feel much the same way about all the amazing things that I have seen and experienced over my long year.

I've seen a volcano spewing ash into the sky and flown over dozens more in the PNG jungle, enjoyed a clifftop sunset BBQ on Norfolk Island and watched the mutton birds wheel in the sky before dropping down to their chicks in the burrows. I've flown over the Grand Canyon in a helicopter, camped at Ayers Rock and walked on the Great Wall of China. Hubby and I have soaked in hot sulphurous springs in Rotoroa, been on a holiday safari in Kenya where were came close to lions, giraffe, elephants and met the Masai in their village. We have been fortunate enough to visit countries in Europe, North America, Asia, Africa and around the Mediterranean. 

On top of that we've explored our own continent and immersed ourselves in our history and geography. From the Great Barrier Reef in the east to the red desert of the Centre and the iron ore country of the Pilbara of Western Australia, from Darwin and Kakadu in the north to Tasmania and the Great Ocean Road of Victoria in the south, we have seen so much.

It takes long years to accumulate such a wealth of memories and in my youth in the 50s and 60s none of this was possible for a girl from my humble background. My experience and memories are now part of who I am and even as senile dementia encroaches and I forget the names of things, the memories will still form part of the essential me.

I'm grateful that I was born when I was and where I was and for the long years that have been granted to me. I have no wish to go back and live in a time capsule where nothing ever changes.


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## Ralphy1 (Oct 12, 2015)

Every day might be "the last call for alcohol" so I hoist a martini every evening to salute what could be my final day...


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## boozercruiser (Oct 12, 2015)

Ralphy1 said:


> Every day might be "the last call for alcohol" so I hoist a martini every evening to salute what could be my final day...



Funny that Ralphy1.
I do the same, only with BEER !


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## Ralphy1 (Oct 12, 2015)

Cheers!


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## Shalimar (Oct 12, 2015)

I am having a scotch right now! Salut mes amis!


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## Ralphy1 (Oct 12, 2015)

Bottoms up!


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## Debby (Oct 12, 2015)

Warrigal said:


> I was born in the 40s and a teen in the 50's. I wouldn't time travel back there if given the chance.
> I'd ask for the switch to be thrown straight to the future.
> I love the time I'm living in. It is full of marvels and miracles. :neat:
> 
> Did I mention that I have a new hip that doesn't hurt? :woohoo1:




Firstly, congrats on the new hip!  You must feel fabulous now.  And regarding the nostalgia for the old days....I'm with you and I wouldn't go back there at all.  Maybe it had something to do with a difficult childhood but I find that even watching that tv show 'Mad Men' actually made me uncomfortable.


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## SenseiPapa (Oct 13, 2015)

What makes me sad is watching my friends deteriorate before my eyes.  They long ago gave up exercise (if they ever did it), good books, scotch, and smiling.  That breaks my heart, and no amount of cajoling spurs them on to happier things.  Aging to them is an old, rusty car.  Aging to me is a fine single malt, there to be sipped and savored.  When the bottle is empty I will have enjoyed every drop.

By the bye there is a web sight, dumb.com, that has a huge selection of old time radio shows for the listening.   I'm currently going through the Gunsmoke series (William Conrad as Matt Dillon!).  Brings back fond memories of the old Philco on a cold, winters evening.


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## NancyNGA (Oct 13, 2015)

SenseiPapa said:


> What makes me sad is watching my friends deteriorate before my eyes....



Yes I agree.  This is what bothers me most.


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## drifter (Oct 13, 2015)

I expect almost everyone is glad he or she is living in the time they live in. But somewhere out there, just before departure, I'd like to start over, with a big part of knowledge I now possess. Of course if that wouldn't be too much to asked. But about being sad, I was born that ways, sad but hopeful. Maybe in the next life...


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## Warrigal (Oct 14, 2015)

Scotch is a popular tipple in Australia with men and women. Mostly it is mixed with something - dry ginger ale or (shudder) coke. Purists add only water or ice.


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## Shalimar (Oct 14, 2015)

Scotch on the rocks. Many Canadian women drink it. It was my mother's favourite.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 27, 2017)

Was just watching part of a show on all the people we lost in 2017,  seems a little more bittersweet around the holidays, you remember the good times of the past and those loved ones you lost.  Even rock and roll singers you grew up with, when they pass on, it's like a lost friend in some cases.


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## Smiling Jane (Dec 27, 2017)

I'm sometimes surprised by the people whose deaths really bother me; it tends to be unpredictable. Oddly, they are not usually the most famous celebrities but people I liked. Warren Zevon and Levon Helm were a couple of those.

This year Nancy Zieman's death hit me hard. She was a fixture on PBS' how-to shows since 1982, a good teacher, someone I always thought I would like if I ever met her. She announced her cancer had come out of remission and there was no treatment available in September and she was dead in November. She had two cancers at the same time, breast cancer and bone cancer, a number of years ago; one of her legs was amputated below the knee but she never made a big deal of it. That was the cancer that killed her.


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## Victor (Dec 31, 2017)

Anyone got a time machine?
I'd like to return to the 70's
or 80's
I have noticed that when I think life is lousy,
one day in the future I may realize that it wasn't so
bad and overall it was a good time for me,
but you did not know that then.


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## CindyLouWho (Dec 31, 2017)

I don't have a time machine, but would love a chance to go back too! Like the saying goes, "If only I knew then what I now know".  Guess we can only move forward and live our life the best we know how.


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## Butterfly (Jan 1, 2018)

Especially in the last few years, I find the holidays bring a kind of sadness I can't quite explain -- kind of a sense of loss over all the things that have been and will be no more.   I don't get too wrapped up in it, but it is definitely there.


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## Victor (Jan 3, 2018)

_"For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these:_
_it might have been"  _ 

  from Maud Muller by Whittier


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## C'est Moi (Jan 3, 2018)

SeaBreeze said:


> ...
> How about you?  Do you sometimes have bittersweet emotions when thinking of your younger years, and feel a bit sad that you're in your twilight years?



Yes, I think it's quite common to have those emotions.  I try not to dwell but I find that I sometimes think of things in relation to "time I have left."   Ugh.


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## Olivia (Jan 3, 2018)

C'est Moi said:


> Yes, I think it's quite common to have those emotions.  I try not to dwell but I find that I sometimes think of things in relation to "time I have left."   Ugh.



Oh, wow, is that ever true!


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## AliceNWonderland (Jan 3, 2018)

I cry at midnight every New Years Eve for all the losses of the year and years gone by.  I think about how I am not getting any younger and also see all the people on tv and in music aging.  I try to think of it as a part of life.  The younger generation will take over when we all are gone and it will be their time then.  It is still our time, though, and to use wisely with the precious time left.


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## Olivia (Jan 3, 2018)

It doesn't bother me to see celebrities age. What I don't like is when I know an actress or actor is my age or older and they look so young.  It bothers me when it makes you think that's what you're supposed to look like.  Of course, I know they have stuff done and they need to look good for their careers. 

As for the younger generation,  I try to tell myself that just like me at a younger age, they don't think they'll ever get old. But you know if they'll lucky, they will, just like we did.  It makes me feel a little better.


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## IKE (Jan 4, 2018)

SeaBreeze said:
			
		

> Do you sometimes have bittersweet emotions when thinking of your younger years, and feel a bit sad that you're in your twilight years ?
> 
> 
> I miss being in my 20's, 30's and 40's.......68 is just a few days away for me and when I think about what lies just around the corner I don't like what I see.


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## Aunt Bea (Jan 4, 2018)

I get a little sad and nostalgic when I realize that I'm spending more and more time looking in the rear view mirror than I am at the road ahead.

Calvin was mighty lucky to have his faithful companion Hobbes by his side!


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## Warrigal (Jan 4, 2018)

Love the Calvin and Hobbs take on this topic.

I have just reread this topic from the beginning and note that it is about 2 years old. In an earlier post I was cheering my new artificial hip (2015). Since then I have had a knee replacement (2016) and two shoulder replacements (2017). I consider the time in which we now live to be a time of miracles and have absolutely no desire to return to my past.

Yes, Hubby and I are aging but we have been all of our lives. Yesterday I visited my GP to gets some scripts renewed and also to get a medical report to verify that I am still fit to hold a drivers licence. I was pleased to get a good report and to be able to inform him that I no longer need daily pain killer medication. I am so much better off today than my mother was at the same age a generation ago.

From time to time I remember the dear people who are no longer living but it is with a sense of deep joy and gratitude that they were once part of my life and it comforts me to know that when I am gone there will be people who will remember me with affection too.

When my version of Hobbs comes to lead me to the Final Frontier I will be ready and willing, having lived a long life that is not given to every child born into this world.


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## C'est Moi (Jan 4, 2018)

Smiling Jane said:


> I'm sometimes surprised by the people whose deaths really bother me; it tends to be unpredictable. Oddly, they are not usually the most famous celebrities but people I liked. Warren Zevon and Levon Helm were a couple of those.
> 
> ...



I'm the same way; really felt the loss.     (I'm still a huge Warren Zevon fan; my phone ringtone is "Werewolves of London."   :zombierolleye


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