At what age did you realise you were "old"?

At 73 I am usually able to maintain the delusion that I am not old. That is until I inadvertently catch sight of my reflection in a shop window and wonder who the old biddy is.

Grammaretto

I find myself getting more critical of other people's parenting.
I serve in a cafe as a volunteer and last time a mature parent (could have been a young gran) started to ask her 2 yr old charge which cake he wanted.
I began to tell the parent that the child was far too young to have an opinion on the cakes when I heard myself and stopped in my tracks
Disapproval wasn't going to encourage customers and anyway it's none of my business.
I am left feeling very old with old fashioned opinions.

Oh, I just so agree with you. I come out of the early 20th century and find myself using the word 'lovely' on most occasions now to mask my inner 'Victoria Meldrew'.

Last week, I realised I'm almost 75yrs and NOT 33yrs (which I felt like) so THAT'S why I can't run up and down the stairs quite so quickly

Bellanonna how awful for you but you are alive and enjoying life so well done!

I’ve never thought of myself as elderly. Until April. I was doing a class at the gym, felt dizzy, and left the class. I remember getting to the stairs but nothing else till I woke up in an ambulance. I had lost several teeth (front of course), fractured my nose and jaw. It’s an ongoing treatment problem and for the first time I look old! Maybe at nearly 83 I’m entitled to but have never considered myself old. It was the first time I’d fainted and that bothered me most of all. However while I’m waiting for the cosmetic improvements I’m glad that I can still walk and feel my normal self while recognising that I could have done far more damage. I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel really old though.

My mind has never had an age. - it is just my mind and seems much as it always was.

In the last year I have twice had to do cognitive tests. The first one was part of a research project, and because the test results showed no sign of mental decline andd all the scans showed no physical brain deterioration, I have been invited to join another project looking at a sample of people like me to see how and when dementia develops - if it does.

However, the one that made me feel old (I am 79) was after I had a TIA earlier this year - and was referred to another research project at my local university hospital looking at people who have had strokes.

Part of the assessment was a set of standard cognitive tests, and the medical staff's clear amazement that at my age I could do all of them without error, made me realise the institutionalised ageism inherent in young people that, if you reach, effectively 80, your mind must have lost its edge.

I know that strokes can affect brain clarity, but the doctors had already seen my brain scans, so they already knew that my TIA was too slight to cause brain damage. It was very much they were amazed that anyone my age could do well in these tests.

Yet, we have a lot of friends, our age and older who would do as well as I did. DH is still working. He spent the afternoon working on a complex engineering problem that he has been asked to suggest solutions to. Others are leading voluntary groups, negotiating with local authorities, running reaerch projects.

In fact DH recently had an emergency referral to hospital and part of his medical assessment was a brief oral 10 question cognitive test, which he waltzed through. Over the hours I sat with him, I heard this test being administered to a succession of older, and ill people being brought in and nearly all got through it just as well as he did.

Realising you are old is closely related to what other people see you as, and realising that you have got to an age where everyones expectations of what you can do are falling and amazement that you can still do things you always did, is a key part of this realisation.

I find myself getting more critical of other people's parenting.
I serve in a cafe as a volunteer and last time a mature parent (could have been a young gran) started to ask her 2 yr old charge which cake he wanted.
I began to tell the parent that the child was far too young to have an opinion on the cakes when I heard myself and stopped in my tracks
Disapproval wasn't going to encourage customers and anyway it's none of my business.
I am left feeling very old with old fashioned opinions.

Looking at some instructions for new medication I discovered I am now in the "special advice for the elderly" group - that's 65 and over, and I'm 66

Ageing

Achievements dwindle with the passing years,
As muscles shrivel, and one's scant of breath.
Brave hopes give way to health-related fears,
Bold, optimistic thoughts to dread of death.
The bracing morning walk becomes a stumble
Along the garden path to get some food
Out of the garage freezer; then a grumble
That wretched weeds have grown where plants once stood.
The joy of serious reading now depends
On gathering the strength to lift the book
And drive one's weary eyes through chapter ends,
Before sheer boredom lets one off the hook.
But there is one small triumph left to me:
I make it through the night without a pee.

Perish the thought that the book in question might be Hilary Mantel's massy tome "The Mirror and the Light".

In my student days I was in a production of Dick Whittington that included the couplet "What you see on stage is The later Middle Ages." I have decided that I am not old, just later middle-aged.

When I had to apply for my driving licence, I wanted to keep the larger vehicles d towing categories so had to go for a medical and another eye test. Doc didn’t know me (I never go!) and so I said see you inn3 years time.

I feel old when I walk through the glamorous cosmetics departments of large stores and the young girls trying to sell expensive perfume completely ignore me. I deliberately stop and ask them for a sample.

Back in the Spring a couple of friends were coming up to 77 and were not happy about this. I asked what the difference was between becoming 76 and now 77 and they said it is nearer to 80. I thought that was not important, but now nearing 77 myself I suddenly feel as if I am getting 'old'. It could be that aches and pains have got a little bit worse, and the recent hot weather seems to have worn me out. I think Covid and lockdown slowed a lot of people up and it was difficult to get that momentum going again. I am extremely pleased though, that when getting on crowded public transport I am now always offered a seat. DH is three years younger than me and I am very pleased that he still has the strength to do heavy lifting and serious gardening. However, he decided that painting the outside of the house was a task too far and for the first time we had people in to do it!

I asked a very dear neighbour this question. She is 80, and not too well. She said ‘When someone I loved many years ago died, I had never told him and now couldn’t. I was too old to do anything about it , other than keep my grief to myself.”.
I thought that incredibly sad.

Forever 21 in my heart and mind. My body reminds me daily I'm not. Though having had Fibromyalgia since my 40s I do.put it down to my disability more than anything

Sukikoo - wise words . Yes it's a privilege to get older. I always say I had friends who didn't make it past 50 ! So it is an achievement and we should be very grateful .

Lots of interesting responses! And my response is that it’s only this year after I turned 80 that the thought occurred to me that I shouldn’t be putting off the things I want to do, or the places I want to visit - because life doesn’t go on for me indefinitely! And I found that a sobering thought. I still play tennis a couple of times a week, just taken up playing pickleball - and love my spin classes at the gym - I’m always there at least twice a week. We have a small garden that I love to potter around in, and I also rent an allotment and grow my own veggies…..so it’s not that I don’t have the energy or have lost the desire to keep active and busy ……it’s just this niggling thought that planted itself in my brain that reminds me - hey, you’re 80 now …..and you won’t be around enjoying life as you do for ever!

Waiting to get off a tram, as the doors opened there was group of early teens waiting to get on. One leapt forward to climb aboard but his friend pulled him back saying "let the old lady off first". I looked behind me for the old lady, before realising he meant me - I was about 35 at the time!

Two years ago sudden onset of arthritis, especially knees and hip. Then to rub salt into the wound my daughters 50th birthday this year [ shock ].

My head says I'm still 19 inside but my body must look older, as I realised when a shop assistant called me "dear".

I’m 64 and went to pick up some fish and chips for my 11 year old grandson who stayed in the car with his grandad, on my return he said was the lady rude to you I answered no why, he said mum thinks she’s rude but she probably wasn’t to you cos your an elderly
Everyone says I don’t look my age but I felt twenty years older after that had to laugh though 😂

The only time I feel old is when I have to scroll down for my year of birth, or if I have to say my age out loud! It’s such a shock as inside I still feel young!

Looking after my twin baby grandsons five days a week has given me a new lease of life. I feel useful again.💙💙

Discovered I was old in 2020 after the arrival of the pandemic. Maybe it was all that labelling as "elderly vulnerable" that became a self-fulfilling prophecy, or maybe it was just a gradual loss of confidence in going out after lockdown periods and the suspension of normal activities (interest groups etc.). Now approaching 80 and definitely old but grateful that I can still take part in pilates and U3A groups (even though I'm likely to forget dates, lose my glasses, mislay my hearing aids etc... )

....assuming I DO outlive my present cats!

When I realised that, after my cats go (they're now aged 15 and 11), I shouldn't contemplate getting any kittens. I shall get older cats from a rescue centre.

I was 70 in April and realise that I have old skin! Also, my daughter thinks we should be buying a bungalow now ready for when we can’t manage stairs. On the other hand, she is now 42 and believes she is pre-menopausal. She has read that daughters tend to copy their mothers concerning the menopause. I was 48 when everything stopped.