I was always the DD [Designated Driver] whenever my friends would go out drinking. I agree with your first assessment, RoJoHen. It wasn't sexist, merely observation.
LOL I finished school in 1984. And I watched the moon landing live on TV. I was born in the year both the Rolling Stones and the Ford Mustang had their debut (I'm older than either, though ). And Lyndon Johnson was US-President and Nikita Khrushchev was President of the USSR Oh, and later that year BASIC was invented. Australis, you beat me
I was born the year the Chevrolet Corvette made its debut. Eisenhower was President, the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, and "rock and roll" was what a boat does in rough seas. BTW, the USSR had no office of "president." Nikita Khrushchev held the dual positions of First Secretary of the Communist Party and Premier.
I'm 45, and my body started to rebel just under two years ago. I take longer to get moving in the morning and I don't have the physical endurance I used to. Of course being obese doesn't help, but I'm certainly not the spring chicken I used to be. Losing weight will help, but I'll never be a spry 20-year-old again (probably a good thing, as I was a complete unbearable know-it-all little cow at that age, and needed a good slap upside the head). My parents were 41 when I was born, so when I was younger I didn't really think of people under the age of 40 as old (as opposed to just being grown adults) because of the large generation gap in my family. My mother died of cancer aged 73, and my father passed away two weeks ago from natural causes, aged 87. I agree that anyone dying before their 80th birthday seems "too young", because my parents as well as my aunts and uncles have always been so much older than me, and most have lived into their 80s. As for young, anyone under 30 qualifies in my book. I still find it hard to believe that I work with people who were born after I graduated from high school, though.
I'm 33, and hearing music I listened to while I was in high school on the oldies station (K-Earth 101 where I am) makes ME feel old! Otherwise, nope, I still feel young. I still laugh at burps, farts and ketchup or shampoo bottles that make fart noises. I'm so immature, but I don't care, so nyaaaah! Right now, I see kids who were born after 9/11 who don't know a thing about it and I just want to smack their teachers and go "these young ones are the future, they should know what happened in their recent history to be prepared in case it happens again!" Something else that makes me see kids as really young are kids who were born around 1990 or later(I was born in 1980.) I remember watching Talia Joy Castellano's makeup tutorials and admiring how cute and young she was. Far too young to die of cancer like she did. She did her makeup, but she never tried to act older than her actual age. She was always so happy and bubbly. I generally say people aren't old until they start feeling their age. IE arthritis, health problems, etc. My dad is 65, but sometimes I look at him like he's 80 because he has Parkinson's and it's advancing really fast on him now. He moves like a really old guy. Then you've got my mom, who is almost 70, and sometimes you'd swear she's only 40 with how she's still active. She does have health problems of her own, but they're so invisible that if you didn't know she had them, you'd never know by looking that she's got them. I think it's sad how kids want to grow up so fast. I see 12 year olds bragging about having sex and I want to scream. When I was 12, I was still doing kiddy things like playing with my mermaid Barbie and pretending to be a mermaid in the huge wading pool all the neighborhood kids liked to play in. (I was so sad when the family who owned it moved away!) Age is just a number. When I look at it that way, I don't really think someone is young or old based on them saying "I'm 89!" or "I'm 11!" But I might think someone is old if they were old enough to remember where they were when JFK was assassinated. My grandma was 81 when she passed away in 1995. The first president she could remember was Woodrow Wilson. Now compare that to me, at 33 right now, and the first president I can consciously remember was Ronald Reagan. Oh God, I'm sorry if that was rambly and senseless.
I'm very sorry about your dad, macloudt. If you need someone to compassionately listen to your midlife experiences: health and fitness-wise I'm in much in the same situation you describe. Including being "equatorially challenged" I keep getting surprised when I look into a mirror. The image I have of myself is 20 years younger and 20 lbs lighter LOL. Memory is a funny thing. It might actually be fun to hang out online together and just whine about stiff joints, thinning hair, the difficulties to sleep a night without waking up 10 times or how much slower cuts and bruises heal all of a sudden. _C_ welcome to the board! (Better late than never. The welcome, I mean) I very much agree with you that age is a question of perspective. I found that the older I get the bigger gets the gap between my current age and what I consider to be old. Did you make the same experience? Thanks. I didn't know the correct word and completely forgot about teh possibility to simply look it up online LOL. I definitely need more sleep! Cool!!! It's been ages since someone called me baby (in either sense)