Thoughts on impermanence.

[icarus]

It occurs to me that my birthday is coming soon.

It occurs to me that I'm coming up on 40.

It occurs to me that if I live till I'm 80, that's the half-way point.

It occurs to me that my dad's health issues started when he was in his early 60s.

So it occurs to me that I really, conservatively, have 25 years left where I can (hopefully) function as I do now. (Yes, I know many spry people in their 70s and 80s and my grandfather was one of them, though he was an early health nut and took better care of his body than I have.)

Hmm.

Comments

[jaig.livejournal.com]

How does all the time feel? You know, with the past 40 years going.

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

It's funny, I was thinking something similar this morning. I just turned 40 and had my first mammogram--sort of a milestone--and I heard on NPR this morning that everyone aged 60 should get the vaccine for shingles. I sort of bookmarked that in my head the same way I did getting a mammogram, and realized that it's going to be another 20 years before that milestone. Which is currently half of my life, and thinking of it that way makes it seem like a long way into the future. (Which is my long-winded way of saying that this is the first thing in a long time that's made me feel like I have a *lot* of life/living ahead of me.)

[alchemine.livejournal.com]

I'm turning 35 in a couple of weeks, and the same sorts of thoughts have crossed my mind. So far, I'm reassuring myself with the knowledge that my dad, who will be 60 in December, still keeps up with men a third of his age at a very physically demanding job (loading and driving newspaper trucks).

I guess I ought to start taking better care of myself now, but that would require distasteful measures like wasting eight hours a night on sleep. I'm not sure I'm that worried yet.

[wenelda.livejournal.com]

wait, wait... there's a vaccine for it??

>:( and here i paid over 200 dollars to get medicine for it when i had it. i feel cheated.

[ursula]

To quote my father on his 59th birthday: "Sure beats the alternative!"

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

The vaccine costs around $160, but I think they're recommending it for people who have already had shingles too (I'm fuzzy on that bit). You can probably hear the whole thing at the npr.org site--it was on the Morning Edition health section at around 8:40 a.m. today.

[wenelda.livejournal.com]

son of a bitch! i don't know how i feel about the fact that i "need" a shot that senior citizens get. :/

[bruinsfan.livejournal.com]

I actually took comfort a couple of years ago in finding out that I have freakishly early-onset high blood pressure. The thought of gradually becoming invalid and senile late in life as I saw one of my grandmothers do, or becoming more and more decrepit as my father is currently doing, scares me a lot more than flat-out dying. Barring accidental death in the next 30 years I'm probably going to go out by stroke, and odds are decent that it'll be a quick cerebral M-80 rather than a series of gradually worsening smaller ones.

[greenling.livejournal.com]

Happy (upcoming) birthday.

Ignorance is bliss, eh? May you have exactly as many years as you need.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Like water running down an increasingly steep mountain.

1 - 20 was sooooo slow, it was eon before every birthday.

My 20s were gone faster than I thought, it was a bit of a shock when I hit 28. I guess I had overblown ideas about what I'd accomplish by the time I was thirty. (I was pretty depressed about 30.)

My 30s. Shit. I'm still on 34-35. I'm not sure how I got here so fast. I'm fairly certain that a few years must have skipped forward, like a skip on a CD. At least four years are missing in there.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

May you have exactly as many years as you need.

That makes me wonder. How many years do I need?

Next thought: as many as possible.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

WG wants to go quick and fast. He says if he's ever disabled, just shoot him like a lame horse. (I tell him no way in hell, because he does say it very emphatically.) My nightmare would be if my mind went.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ha! Okay, I like your dad.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Sleep? That's important?

Oh maaaannnn... I just got "regular eating" down. More or less. Now I have to sleep, too?

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Right. *puts it on the to-do list* I forgot about that. And given my grandmother had breast cancer I'd better get on the stick.

20 years... when you put it that way.

What gets me is that WG and I have been together now for ten years. *blinks* I guess it's a serious relationship. Who knew?

Icarus

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

Listen you young pup, life doesn't stop when you're over forty. Sure I need reading glasses now, and I'm never going on the terrain park on my snowboard.

But the sense of perspective is very nice.

My favorite beautiful things are transient. Fireworks, sunsets, I'm not interested in static pictures that "catch them at their height". It's the movement, the transition, the fact that the height is fleeting that appeals to me.

All you people on teh intarwebs, you're transient bits on the screen to me, too.

[goseaward.livejournal.com]

*points out that you still have more functioning years left than years I have been alive :D*

[ursula]

Me too ;)

[jaig.livejournal.com]

Aaah. *snug* Never thought it that way, but yeah, my birthdays feel so far inbetween right now, come to think about it.

[bruinsfan.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on that one. My Dad's been disabled for the last 25 years, so while it wouldn't be cakes and tea I know how one goes about coping and would have excellent advice to draw on. As long as I had my eyesight and ability to draw I think I could deal. But once dementia or other mental incapacities pass a certain point, there's no you anymore—terrifying.

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be turning 46 soon. In some ways, I feel like I'm 150 years old already, but in other ways I'm still only 14. *g* I've already been having health issues for about 8+ years, though. I'm working now to get stronger and healthier and I think I am better than I was 10 years ago and definitely better than five years ago. :-)

I try not to think about how many years I might have left. *g*

[harveywallbang.livejournal.com]

man, and i remember when me and my friends turned 15, we all were freaking out like 'OMG WE'RE HALFWAY TO 30'...whatever, man...
one of my friends just turned 16, and i told her the same thing. that she was over halfway to 30. same reaction...
youth is so funny...course, compared to most, i'm not one to talk... i'm still way young... *sigh*
i thought turning 18 was gonna be scary....for some reason, 20 is really scary feeling to me...and that happens next year.
but it's all perspective...

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

You forgot to call me a whippersnapper. ;)

Listen you young pup, life doesn't stop when you're over forty.

No, it doesn't.

I'm thinking more along the line of long-range planning. If there are certain things I want to do before I die, then if I'm forty and I haven't made much progress on them maybe I should re-examine how I'm using my time.

All you people on teh intarwebs, you're transient bits on the screen to me, too.

Indeed. Might I enquire how old you are at the current moment, oh transient bit?

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*points out that neither is very long, heh.* ;)

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ah, see, this is why I'm not allowed to have these moments of contemplation of my own impermanence at home. The boyfriend, he is also 46, and this only encourages a bark of laughter from him.

I've already been having health issues for about 8+ years, though. I'm working now to get stronger and healthier and I think I am better than I was 10 years ago and definitely better than five years ago. :-)

I should have no complaints. My brother has had serious health issues since he was 21. It's all good for long-range planning though, isn't it? Those moments of looking around and going, "Okay. If I have this much time to complete project X, and it's going to take this much time (tack on a third because I always underestimate) then I'd better start... oh. Now." :D

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I remember when I was 17 I ran into someone I hadn't seen in... ten years. I couldn't believe that I'd been around long enough to have that happen. The thought process is the same. Only the numbers get bigger.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yes. I have a friend whose mother suffered from dementia and she turned into what she was as a child only considerably more crabby. I guess if we work on our fundamental good qualities then even if dementia hit we'll be in better shape.

Icarus

[enname.livejournal.com]

I drift along with no sense of time or scale or age really. My age is there but I never feel it, never remember it and kind of get suprised when I realise that it is supposed to measure passing time. It measures time but I never really think that I am that age, just that I am now I suppose. Now and then nothing. Or now and insanity. Seeing as how all of my grandparents have had either senile dementia/alzheimers, I figure I have until my sixties before going stark raving mad. Better use it before I lose it. Tell the truth I'd be pleasantly suprised to die before losing my mind.

Twenty-five years is still a quarter of a century. Not precisely a short span of time, even if it also is only brief. Gah. I suck at this linear business.

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

Whippersnapper.

I'm 44.

I remember a conversation with a friend of mine about how he turned fifty, and kicked over all the traces to do what he most loved. Lives in near-poverty, but part of him is happier. In a few years, I'll probably kick my traces, too, but poverty isn't on the game plan. Too queeny for that.

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

Ah, see, this is why I'm not allowed to have these moments of contemplation of my own impermanence at home. The boyfriend, he is also 46, and this only encourages a bark of laughter from him.

*g* I wasn't laughing, though.

It's all good for long-range planning though, isn't it? Those moments of looking around and going, "Okay. If I have this much time to complete project X, and it's going to take this much time (tack on a third because I always underestimate) then I'd better start... oh. Now." :D

hehe Oh yeah. I've been reading your posts about going back to school for a long time, and have been contemplating it myself for almost as long. *g* In some ways, I feel like I am too old, though. Then what? *g* If I thought about it too much, I think I wouldn't do anything at all. :-)