When did you stop feeling young?

[Roy M.]

So when did it end for you?

[Techie]

About two years ago when chronic sinusitis started zapping my energy. I can control it with Nasacort but it has definitely taken my energy down a notch. However, I still due 20+ mile bike rides and try to active in the summer.

[Myssterry]

Haven't yet. :)

[bonny]

Wanted to add a comment to my vote. Although I started thinking that my chronological age couldn't be classified as "young" after about 35, it is hard to say whether I have stopped feeling young. :)

[cdrdash]

Feeling young ... I don't really know but I think that when I hit 30 I felt I couldn't claim being young anymore so that is what I put as my poll response.

I also find "feeling young" to be difficult to define and I sometimes find that "feeling young" is put forward as a positive wonderful feeling when I think it could be negative. When I was young I was often confused and stressed so when I'm confused and stressed do I feel young? Nope, I feel confused and stressed. And now that I'm over 50 I sometimes find myself feeling secure and confident in how I am so does that mean I'm feeling old. Nope I'm feeling secure and confident.

On the other hand I certainly do find myself saying "I feel old" often meaning mostly that my body is wearing out and I'm feeling the tiredness and soreness of it or that I am remembering all these things that everyone around me is not remembering and thus I feel old. But when I really think about it, it just doesn't really make sense to "feel" an age. I feel feelings which are not really necessarily related to age.

I'm rambling ... . Its an interesting concept this "feeling an age" and has set my brain buzzing this fine Friday afternoon.

Cathy

[trishdale]

I just turned 58 last month and I have to say I didn't start to feel old until I hit about 56. I started menopause at age 50, but I was breezing through it with no problem (I was actually loving it...lol) but then two years ago I started noticing my skin was getting drier, noticed a few gray hairs popping up, and it seemed everyday I looked in the mirror I saw something new that wasn't there the day before...lol I try to keep myself busy and keep up a social life to keep my mind off the aging thing and it works most of the time.

[iff]

when i stopped dreaming

so not yet, not ever i hope

as gabriel garcia marquez said "you don't give up your dreams because you got old, you got old because you gave up your dream"

although i did feel old in 2011at the age of 27 as i read a book written by a person a year younger :(

another theory, i think from author per peterson is "you get old when you realise you still feel young"

[Sarika]

Haven't yet, so I voted for the last option. Have a feeling unless something traumatic happens I'll never stop feeling young.

[Sally]

On any given day I feel anywhere between 13 and 93. It's been that way all my life.

[Flyaway4me]

I still feel young

[daveb]

I don't know how to answer this. I know my body is different than it was 40 years ago, but I wouldn't say I feel old or young or anything.

[yellow]

I think I became aware of getting older somewhere around 35. One day I woke up and was like "whoa I'm in my mid 30's". Now that I'm over 40, I wonder where the time went and what the hell I've been doing?! I don't generally feel old until I'm seen by a doctor who's younger than me, or find out the CEO of a company I like was born when I was in junior high. It's all relative though, and truly is relatively meaningless :)

[korik]

This is a trick question. I feel very young and very old at the same time.

Because I've done nothing with my life and still live with my parents, I feel like a child. (NOT in a good way. Obviously.)

My joints, especially my knees, sometimes cause me problems and I feel my body is very old sometimes. (again, not in a good way.)

I don't know how to answer, because I don't know how I "feel."

(I'm 35, ....about 5 weeks until I'm 36, btw.)

[WhenSummersGone]

26-27 for me. I'm 28 turning 29 next month so I feel old lol.

[Guest Sheka4]

I stopped feeling young when I had to deal with life and it decided to roundhouse kick me in the stomach.

[daveb]

Numerical ages never bothered me. I don't know why some people see a number like 30 or 40 or 50 and feel like it makes any difference from one day to the next. I mean, one day you're say 29, then the next day you're 30. You don't suddenly become "old" (for those silly people who think 30 is "old"! :lol: ). :P

The only numerical age that really mattered to me so far was 18, when I could start voting. The next one will be whatever age I can retire at.

[Schrecken]

I'm 44 and it hasn't happened yet. Though I will say that there are times when I do feel like I'm 85 years old when I first get up in the morning due to stiffness from severe arthritis in my spine and I have to wait a while before I can even bend down and pick anything up off the ground. But most of the time I don't have that problem, and barring physical things I still feel quite young. The only difference, psychologically speaking, between the way I was 20 some years ago to now is that I am much wiser and more mature.

[Sally]

I think the older you get, the less you think that age as a number has any relationship to reality. But maybe I think that erroneously because I'm old enough that my thinking instrument has degraded.

[Autumn Sunrise]

I may have messed up your system :D When I voted I was thinking in terms of "young, middle-aged, old", and although I can't remember for certain, I think I probably stopped regarding myself as "young" when my youngest child started high school, which was when I was 41. So, for me, "When did you stop feeling young?" equated with "When did you start feeling middle-aged?", rather than "When did you start feeling old?" In any case, it's a very fluid thing - this perception of age - there are so many things in my life that affect how I feel about myself on any given day.

I'm 70 now, and sometimes (in my more pessimistic moments), I feel rather old, but most of the time I still feel more like middle aged, and hoping I still have a good long time ahead of me.

So, "You makes yer choice and takes yer pick", but I think my votes may not be very helpful :P :lol:

[ellastokes]

I remember being 14, and someone mentioned how at this age they were still experiencing their childhood, and I was like "!!!!" No....I'm already adult. I would say that I think my childhood stopped around 7/8.

[Mulan]

I hope I never stop feeling young at any age. When I was little, I thought at 30, people got old. When I celebrated my 30th, I didn't feel old per se. I'm 33 now yet I feel like I'm in my 20s with a heart of a teenager. I don't mean to say I'm immature or cannot handle serious stuff but this is the way I feel. I'm curious, go getter, calculated risk taker... and I love being me.

As the song goes, age ain't nothing but a number.

[Xavy]

I neither consider myself young nor old. Does anyone else feel that way ?

[DexM]

I was 19. That was the end of my life. I'm a curmudgeon, a cynical man, but things did change when I hit 32. I feel more in the way of hope and optimism, I enjoy life a lot more, but I have seen too many terrible things, done too many terrible things and shared my life with too many ill people. That has scarred me to a degree. My body is old and beaten up. I think like an older person. (I'm 36 by the way) But I also have experience because of that. It enables me to help and support people. It allows me to listen. Some people don't like talking about miserable death-y stuff, it scares them, but I don't mind, and that makes it easier for others to sort out their issues.

I don't feel young. But I don't have a problem with feeling old.

[Spotastic]

I still don't really feel old, and I'm just 32, but I think I stopped feeling young shortly after I got out of the military. I was 25 and my body had deteriorated to the point that I needed a cane to keep walking. After another year, I needed to get a wheelchair. Now I use a walker most days, and I still need to lay down for about an hour at least twice a day. It's why I can't hold a job outside the home and needed to run my own business with my wife. My brain's processing has been slowed a bit as well due to the pain medication that I need. It's rough, but I get through it and it's not really a big deal to me anymore. I just definitely don't feel young.

[Corretto]

I've been 'youngless' since I can remember!

[DexM]

I still don't really feel old, and I'm just 32, but I think I stopped feeling young shortly after I got out of the military. I was 25 and my body had deteriorated to the point that I needed a cane to keep walking. After another year, I needed to get a wheelchair. Now I use a walker most days, and I still need to lay down for about an hour at least twice a day. It's why I can't hold a job outside the home and needed to run my own business with my wife. My brain's processing has been slowed a bit as well due to the pain medication that I need. It's rough, but I get through it and it's not really a big deal to me anymore. I just definitely don't feel young.

I do think that pain at an early age and the reasons it is there, are responsible for making you feel older. It just isn't natural. The pain relieving, be it sitting down or medication, isn't what others your age are doing. I had a bowel complaint, quite a severe one, for eight years. The pain was horrendous, I was 20 and I hadn't told anyone, but it hindered my life in many ways. Having to find an excuse to sit down made me feel abnormal, and most of the time I had to say I was tired. That gave those I was with the impression that at the age of 20 odd, I just couldn't handle simple every-day things.

I do admire the "dealing with it." That's the hardest part of living with pain.

[Perseus]

I think I grew up to fast. I stopped feeling young under 20 years of age.

[Igzat]

I either still feel young, or have never felt young. I'm not sure which.

[Sleeping Elf]

I'm nearly 50 to be precise I'm 48 but definitely don't feel it. I still feel very young. I live with my parents I suppose that is very much for me a factor. Always thought before I knew about the existence of asexuality that my lack of sexual experience was a factor in how young I feel (and still do) and how I find it difficult sometimes to relate to many of my colleagues who are married with families. It makes it difficult to share and make close friends when you don't have mutual ground on which to talk that's why many of my friends are now online via social media.

[Yeast]

If feeling old is feeling pain I've noticed that as I age I become more and more insensitive to pain. I figure I'll die when the pain gets bad enough to kill me. One thing I've noticed is that time now passes much faster. Almost as though I was accelerating to the speed of light. What I mean is that 20 years seemed a long time a long time ago. Now weeks seem to be what days used to be. Getting older has impacted me much more intellectually than physically. All the things which were important to me are now viewed as somewhat ancient. I look at all those old photographs from the 1940's and how old they seemed when I was a child. Yet this was the 1960's. Just 20 years. What was relevant to me happened 40 years ago. In terms of the 60's this takes one back to the roaring 20's. Ironically things didn't change the same way. I'm still a little shocked to hear all those old 1970's pop tunes played all the time. Almost like listening to ragtime and Dixieland jazz. I'm left wondering if things really change after all. I still have the same consciousness I had back in the womb. The past was brighter but mostly because I was naive. I was shocked to learn that people could be willfully ignorant. I've tried to avoid cynicism and I learned how poisonous hatred could be a long time ago. After all is said and done I'm just happy to be alive.