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So, one Redditor recently approached the AskReddit community with the question what made you realize you are not young anymore? A heavy-hitting question, to be honest, and even more so for those in their older years.
While the upvotage was on the modest side, clocking in at a bit over 1,000 upvotes, it engaged quite a bunch of people across 3,700 comments.
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Growing old is definitely a surreal feeling—one that might have some overlap with the overall human experience, but mostly it feels very personal. After all, we all experience the world through very slightly nuanced senses, our fates are different, just like our choices in life, and thus we end up with a slightly different result in the end, making our golden years either great or not as much. If at all existent.
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But, there is overlap. A shared experience. Journalist and author Tim Dowling shared his take on becoming 60, and it’s pretty spot on.
Among the 13 points, he listed everything from physical to mental to experiential changes that he went through in his life.
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First, interestingly, is the idea that the real difference between being young and growing old is not physical, nor mental. It’s rather just the cumulative weight of all the years left behind you. Time doesn’t grant wisdom. It just progresses and gets compressed into what feels like a timespan that happened a week or two ago.
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Another factor of being old is having to deal with the colossal amount of everything that you’ve probably completely forgotten about over the years. Past holiday experiences, books read, shows watched, friends had—all of it gets shed with time. And that’s fine. Your brain simply conserves space by forgetting things it doesn’t really need.
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2. Later, a friend of mine worked with teens, one of those teens asked me if I was a skater "back in the day" making me realize my youth was in fact "back in the day" to some people.
3. Hearing music I loved as a teen/young adult on "classic" radio stations.
1. Also being mocked for listening to radio.
4. A couple years ago, I found out I was the same age as a co-worker's mother.
5. As of last year, 2 of my brother's 3 kids are old enough to drink.
6. Just now realizing I'm the same age now as Wilford Brimley was in Cocoon.
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We say "jij" to someone that's younger than you or equal to your age or in informal settings.
We say "u" to people that are older and in formal settings.
That's when I realized I'm getting old.
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There also comes a time when sitting down and standing up means making noise. It’s either your knees giving out a pop or you doing what realistically is an involuntary groan.
And there might be an experience when you might think someone’s following you around the store—turns out, it’s just your reflection.
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