Feeling the passing of time

I recently looked through my wedding album at my GD request. It made me decide if we both get to our 50 wedding anniversary which is soon I don't want a big party.
I inherited both my mother's and GM's photos and like looking at the old ones which my mum luckily named. We have two hat boxes full for DH but my MIL has written things like my gran,not her name. Some are way back in Victorian times.
I have no photos of my paternal grandparents except my parents wedding. We had someone come along like Primrose and say they would get sorted and they never did they meant nothing to his wife and she burned them.
I do have one very special one of my great grandmotherx3 and one of my own grandfathers somewhere in France during WW1 all the men from different regiments and towns in our county are on it with a board saying",Gathering of the clans".

I love looking at old photos. I have inherited my mother's and grandmother's photos.

Like my mother, I have always written on the back of photographs. Usually the date, location, people in the photo and their ages if they were my children. It is so frustrating not knowing who, when or where a photo was taken.

I do need to cull them a bit though. I have two huge storage boxes full of photos. Mine are all in their original paper folders but the older ones are just loose. I am planning to get rid of ones with just scenery and random ones of elephants at the zoo (taken by my uncle about 70 years ago).

I have some fantastic Victorian family portraits and wedding photographs from the early twentieth century. I don't know who they are though. I don't think I will be able to bring myself to throw those away. It would be nice to donate them for their historical value but I don't know how I would go about this.

I am an only child and find it quite sad that I am now the only person who was witness to many of the photos - holidays with my parents etc.

Strangely, though I love photos, I don't have any on display in my house.

Since the advent of digital photos I have hardly any physical photos. I rarely take a photo these days.

Fancy that - I also had a time when I was pondering my age (66) and wondering how much time I had left. I think reaching pension age did it for me. I still feel quite depressed at the thought of dying, especially now that I have young grandchildren. My mother died from dementia and that is always in the back of my head. Her last years were awful and I would hate for my family to have to go through it.

I like looking at old photos. I enjoyed the time when I was young with small children. I've tried to make the most of all the times I've gone through and have happy memories. At 76 I enjoy each day. My DH died in his early 50s so I feel so grateful to be still here.

56 is older. But not really old.

Fwiw, and I have written this elsewhere, I have spent some of this year pondering my age as well[early 60s].
With help from posters on here, I have worked through the issue. I have come to the conclusion, and looking around people I know, that now is not really the time to spend too much more time on this.

Amongst people I know, it is relatively rare for people to die before 75 at least.
I have decided for me, I will reassess my age when I hopefully reach 75.
And for now, I will carry on enjoying living!

Goodness me, 56 is no age at all! My son is 59, my daughter 55 and neither of them consider themselves even remotely old. My grandfather died at 56 in 1949 as a result of gas and shell shock from WW1, but even then people considered that he had died far too young. My DH and I are both over 80, and although we are clearly old(ish!) neither of us considers ourselves to be totally past it! My parents died early, my father at 28 (WW2), My mother at 68, my stepfather at 67. I was lucky, as an only child, to inherit all our family photos,which had been left to my mother. They are fascinating and give real insight to long ago. I do sometimes feel that I've been here for ever! I can remember the day the LATE King died in 1952 and the late Queens coronation + much more besides! To the incredulity of my 16 year grandson!!

Lovely sentiments foxie48,

Unfortunately, I don't have many photos of family now. My mother, in her wisdom of seeping into Alzheimer's, threw loads in the bin!!
Also, my children's dad had quite a few of us all, and friends, in a bag at his ex's place and her then bf threw the bag out when the binmen were there - I'll never forgive him for that, the evil &%£#@&%

Grandma70s

I love looking at old photos, of family or anyone else. I like to see photos of people who have died, and I love photos from my childhood and youth. It’s nice to realise I once looked like that!

The Victorians used to like taking photos of dead people, but trying to make them seem alive.
I'm sure that's not what you meant by liking to see photos of people who have died, but it took me straight to imagining the Victorians and their strange habit! 😅

I find it funny that in the very old photos tiny little boys and little girls all wore dresses and you couldn’t tell them apart. Often the boys had lovely curls which disappeared as soon as they were about 4 or 5. Very cute. Also the little sailor suits the young boys wore.

56 is so young. I married my second (and current) husband at 56. We've been married 20 years and together 28 happy years.

I love looking at old photos, of family or anyone else. I like to see photos of people who have died, and I love photos from my childhood and youth. It’s nice to realise I once looked like that!

Widowed in 2016, photos of my dear DH upset me and even the happy family photos when the children were young, such golden times and half the time not realising it, thinking they would last forever…
But, we carry on, still in happiness, but a different kind.

Do you ever look at a photo' of yourself when younger - randomly - and are suddenly hit with the feeling that the gap between that time and now has just passed almost in the blink of an eye?

Not so much photographs, but the passing of time for me. My Mum died when she was 68 following years of ill health (RA) resulting in her being housebound and later bedbound for years. She was able to do a little with DD1, but was helpless and dependent on others by the time DD2 arrived. At 72, I am now four years beyond her lifespan and in uncharted territory. Both DD’s are as old/older than I was when she died and I now have 2DGSs and as an only child, on a steep learning curve, trying to do my best to help in whatever ways I can.
I hope my Mum would be proud of my efforts.

My father was only 48 when he died but looked younger. To coin a phrase, ‘tall, dark and handsome’. Mum died at 67 but looked older from excessive smoking and had been very unwell for the last year of her life. I am now 70, which neither of them managed. I have some wonderful photos of when they were young.

I only have 2 photos of me as a child. One when I was about 6 months and another when I look about 3.
I’m afraid I can’t relate to the OP at all. I was still in my prime at 56.

When I go into my bathroom in the morning I always look at myself and say "still here, make the day count". I'm nearly 75, have lived much longer than either of my parents and sadly have lost too many good friends along the way. I've had a couple of occasions when I have faced my own mortality and I felt absolutely calm, fortunately it wasn't time for me to go. 56 is really quite young and the truth is, the older I've got the happier I've become. There are compensations!

I don’t like looking at photos from my younger years - they remind me of how much time has passed and how little is left. I also have photos going back to the nineteenth century. My Mum did her best to put names to them but many will remain either a guess or completely unknown. It’s such a shame that they weren’t named at the time.

Biscuitmuncher, it’s always sad to look at a photo of a family member who has gone and especially to think that the photo was taken not long before they died and that they died at a young age. People from the past appear older than their years to us because fashions in clothes and hair have changed so much. Maybe your Dad was ill when the photo was taken and that would have aged him. Don’t dwell on it. You are still young - young enough to be my daughter and I’m 72. I don’t look or feel old. You’re young! Celebrate that.

Awful what happened Primrose53.

That is sad MayBee70. I can see how it can get to that.
I dont watch my wedding video much. Partly because a significant number of people in it are no longer alive.
And yes op, some of them look old even though they were only mid 50s at the time.

I havent got all photos in albums[yet].
Have partly been pondering whether to give several of the loose ones straight over to the next generation, divided equally, and they can decide themselves what to do with them.

I love looking at old photos I ve got so many, a whole bookcase of photo albums, because young people now keep them all on phones Tik Tok etc etc when my grandkids visit from overseas the first thing they do is get the albums out I ve got old ones from generations back I love looking at them quite the opposite of others on here

HelterSkelter1

Years ago an aunt told me she couldn't bear to look at old family photos. And I thought how odd that was.

These days I feel the same. They leave me feeling so sad. I am in my 70s and now older than some of the relations pictured. At 56 you are nowhere near old! Fashions worn in the past and hairstyles made people look much older than they were.

I put so much effort into photo albums. I would put other things amongst the pictures. Hand prints, cinema tickets, certificates. I now can’t bear to look at them: it’s made even worse by the fact that many friends that are also in the photos have died. I always used to think that, if my house was on fire the first thing I would rescue would be my photo albums, but I don’t think I would now

Sorry, got a bit distracted 👆
Most of us are at the age, when we’ve got to be careful who give the house keys to. It’s got me thinking !

Primrose - what an awful thing to happen. She was obvious a close relative (she had the keys to your Mum’s house). We are all at THAT age.
Btw , I wish I was 56 again 😂

That's a real shame Primrose and seems spiteful