This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

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I always have back pain. I just attribute it to "lol old, also sit up straight dummy" at this point.

Had surgery three weeks ago to correct a compressed ulnar nerve in my left arm. Incision is taking it's sweet time healing all the way.

The rest of my 40s are going to suck, aren't they.

A Full Torgo Apparition (Phil D.), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 16:28 (twelve years ago) link

Upper, lower, middle back, Morbz?

le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 16:29 (twelve years ago) link

left middle-lower

Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 16:31 (twelve years ago) link

Saggy mattress? I can definitely trace my back pain to mattress + increasing girth.

Steamtable Willie (WmC), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 16:32 (twelve years ago) link

Yeah, I try to sleep flat on my back w/a pillow under my knees when I get back pain.

le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 16:36 (twelve years ago) link

well I sleep with my bed titled to ease the acid reflux. But yeah, mattress is old and crap.

Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 16:39 (twelve years ago) link

Lord Paillasse?

Tilted means your back is still bearing weight.

le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 16:44 (twelve years ago) link

usually sleep on my side (the right since pain started obv)

but pain is not as bad as it was in January.

Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 16:47 (twelve years ago) link

Seen a chiropractor at all or anybody, really?

le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 16:52 (twelve years ago) link

as an ILXOR in my 40s, I can confirm that GOOD POSTURE is urgent and key - even making the effort to sit up straighter at yr desk can have a tremendously positive effect on neck and back pain

Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 22 February 2012 16:58 (twelve years ago) link

I sleep on my side as well, and trial and error has led to this successful formula: an extra pillow to straighten my neck, and a pillow between my legs to elevate my top leg and straighten my spine. I'm still grinked up in the morning, but it eases by my 2nd cup of coffee.

Steamtable Willie (WmC), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 17:45 (twelve years ago) link

I see my GP every summer, and that takes effort.

Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 22 February 2012 17:53 (twelve years ago) link

ppl our age really can't eat Indian food w/out sacrifice, eh?

Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 6 March 2012 16:24 (twelve years ago) link

tmi

curmudgeon, Tuesday, 6 March 2012 16:35 (twelve years ago) link

nine months pass...

wow, earliest sign here of my back pain that turned out to be Something Serious, unrelated to posture. Had no idea it started in winter.

Hesitated this time before throwing out mailing w/ AARP card.

saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Friday, 4 January 2013 16:45 (eleven years ago) link

My vision has gone 'bifocalish', ie I gotta take the glasses off to read.

― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, August 27, 2008 11:05 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is driving me fkin CRAZY. I just got new frames, which I love, but I only get to wear em 15% of the time. I opted not to get the progressive lenses bc I was afraid it would be annoying but...

Also damn but I (b.1970) spent 2012 feeling just physically OLD.

~farben~ (Jon Lewis), Friday, 4 January 2013 16:53 (eleven years ago) link

I feel great, I realize I'm fortunate to remember things other people don't, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. My sister doesn't remember our grandfather, for example - he died in 1975. I think she feels this loss, it's a piece of her history she can only access through pictures.

one year passes...

a sign of middle age truculence ids you're stil lwilling to put up with the morning after Indian food.

(yes i have passed out of strict eligibility for this thread, whatcha gonna do abt it?)

images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 February 2014 17:04 (ten years ago) link

two years pass...

Hi dere

Just noise and screaming and no musical value at all. (Colonel Poo), Saturday, 6 August 2016 11:05 (eight years ago) link

one year passes...

Welp.

Pascal's Penisés (Old Lunch), Thursday, 7 September 2017 10:22 (seven years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB74GuvPBh8

imago, Thursday, 7 September 2017 10:25 (seven years ago) link

lol u old

Wesley Shackleton explained "look at that beast." (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 7 September 2017 11:27 (seven years ago) link

When I was a young, I lolled as a young. When I became an old, I put away slacks that only went as high as my waist.

Pascal's Penisés (Old Lunch), Thursday, 7 September 2017 12:03 (seven years ago) link

three months pass...

Oof. Hello.

Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Thursday, 28 December 2017 15:59 (six years ago) link

Whassup fellow elders!

calstars, Thursday, 28 December 2017 16:33 (six years ago) link

Two months to go then I'm hitting the next thread up, bye-bye 40s it was (not) fun

めんどくさかった (Matt #2), Thursday, 28 December 2017 16:58 (six years ago) link

Three years and two months for me still, so let's see how the last quarter of fortydom plays out.

Ned Raggett, Thursday, 28 December 2017 17:09 (six years ago) link

http://blog.mtgprice.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Pain.jpg

I have 47 months of my 40s left. Wheeeee!

Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Thursday, 28 December 2017 17:14 (six years ago) link

on the plus side - I've felt so jaded in my 40's, that rather than worrying about illness and mortality, I started thinking: let's not be so reductive about death here.

calzino, Thursday, 28 December 2017 17:27 (six years ago) link

one month left for me.
~ sigh ~

mark e, Thursday, 28 December 2017 17:59 (six years ago) link

Same. Thirty-one days exactly!

Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 28 December 2017 18:52 (six years ago) link

See y'all in a few months!

iCloudius (cryptosicko), Thursday, 28 December 2017 19:02 (six years ago) link

I feel like I should throw a party but I have hearing damage and it would basically involve me having a five-hour migraine and hiding from people. I do want to celebrate, though. Just trying to figure out how.

Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 28 December 2017 19:07 (six years ago) link

post that effortlessly sum up being in your forties tbh.

Fizzles, Thursday, 28 December 2017 19:08 (six years ago) link

and lol at calzino. eventual death doesn’t seem nearly so much of a bad deal as it once did.

Fizzles, Thursday, 28 December 2017 19:08 (six years ago) link

Seriously, sadly.

Just realized even though they just started that my 40s are already 1/40th over. Guess I need to hurry up and write that book or whatever it is I'm doing with this stupid 'life' thing before I'm a brittle dusty mummy.

Encyclopedia Beige and the Case of the Bland Sandwich (Old Lunch), Thursday, 28 December 2017 20:51 (six years ago) link

My own (hopefully distant) death, although unwelcome, has much less fear and anxiety for me now compared to the not-that-far-off deaths of certain people around me. I know I'll cope when they pass on, but being 18 and not having to think about any of that seems like it happened to a different person in a different century (oh wait that last part is true). OTOH all of that is usually blocked out by the constant front-and-centre problem of not having any money.

Zings Can Only Get Better (snoball), Thursday, 28 December 2017 21:00 (six years ago) link

Old Lunch get busy ! Stumbling forward pretending you know what you’re doing is fun

calstars, Thursday, 28 December 2017 21:45 (six years ago) link

40s not working out so far

rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 28 December 2017 21:58 (six years ago) link

9 more glorious months

Lyudmila Pavlichenko (dandydonweiner), Thursday, 28 December 2017 22:00 (six years ago) link

just under 12 months left gods willing

I think I learned a lot of stuff this decade, unfortunately a lot of it was learned the hard way but at least I learned.

unless personal growth is a sick trick our brains play on us to disguise the march towards oblivion

a Rambo in curved air (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 28 December 2017 23:13 (six years ago) link

“God wiling” is right. One of the things I’ve realized is that I can be struck down any day now.

calstars, Thursday, 28 December 2017 23:15 (six years ago) link

unless personal growth is a sick trick our brains play on us to disguise the march towards oblivion

it’s this

rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 28 December 2017 23:43 (six years ago) link

i recently became one of these :(

reggae mike love (polyphonic), Thursday, 28 December 2017 23:44 (six years ago) link

My own (hopefully distant) death, although unwelcome, has much less fear and anxiety for me now compared to the not-that-far-off deaths of certain people around me.

yeah :( ... I feel like the past year has been a consistent stream of people I know dying, some older, some fellow 40-somethings, some much younger. Apart from that, my 40s are so much better than my 30s.

sarahell, Friday, 29 December 2017 09:38 (six years ago) link

I remember someone telling me that 40 is the cut-off point for "promising". By then, you've either delivered on your promise or you haven't.

But enjoy your 40s, people. I'm in my early 50s, and I can report it's worse.

Zelda Zonk, Friday, 29 December 2017 10:31 (six years ago) link

I remember someone telling me that 40 is the cut-off point for "promising". By then, you've either delivered on your promise or you haven't.

But enjoy your 40s, people. I'm in my early 50s, and I can report it's worse.


although i feel it sometimes, i don’t like that idea of “unfulfilled promise” very much.

one opposition to that you see cited quite a lot is “oh look at these amazing people who didn’t start doing the thing they’re known for until they were 40/50/60 etc” but i don’t find that very helpful either.

but there is an implication behind it which is, there is emotional and external material, a “you in the now”, which you didn’t have before, which characterises your experience in a way you won’t have felt before.

of course that may not always be very pleasant. i remember earlier this year, very sober, having watched a brutal, melancholy film (Maurice Pialat’s Nous ne viellirons pas ensemble/We Won’t Grow Old Together), doing the washing up late at night, in silence, feeling alone and failed, but also very much me - aware of myself, my age, my state.

as i say it wasn’t pleasant but it wasn’t bad either. the sort of feeling you might get when examining a life under a bare, high-wattage bulb. it felt mine, and i didn’t really care for anyone else’s thanks, and i certainly won’t deem myself a failure or having failed to deliver promise by any one else’s definition of “success” or society’s current views about what “success” looks like.

was reading this maggie nelson interview earlier this week

I think I'm more of a Beckett-like thinker — an "I can't go on, I will go" kind of a person. I believe what you are saying is true about imagining presents and futures, but the form that my optimism often takes is an attention to the things I think are good that we have right now

that is not the same as being “grateful for small mercies” god help us, and it’s certainly not the same as telling anyone to cheer up, but it is a way of saying “there are resources available to age that youth does not have, even if, or perhaps especially because, some of them are not unequivocally cheerful or happy. without wishing to be complacent or speak on behalf of everyone too much, there are good things there.

also went round an exhibition of ilya and emilia’s kabakov’s installation pieces yesterday. and one was an unending, badly lit, soviet era apartment corridor, with the reminiscences and blurred black and white photos of snowy townscapes and parkland, of ilya’s 80-year-old mother. she’d been born in 1902 i think.

her entire life was spent living in cramped quarters, having to desert loved ones, or being deserted by others, or being moved on by the authorities, getting employment and losing it again.

she did endure tho. and at the end she said her past miseries had faded and she was only aware of the current state of things - for her that was relative comfort in an apartment her son had finally been able to buy for her.

that is before it got demolished and she had to move on again aged 80.

not entirely sure what the message is there - maybe “life can be endurable misery with death at the end, so do what you can and feel the heft of your own person and space in the world”

idk. talked myself into a corner innit.

Fizzles, Friday, 29 December 2017 13:56 (six years ago) link

posts very much in character

the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Friday, 29 December 2017 14:08 (six years ago) link

agree about the inadequacy of "potential" and "failure" as concepts - they're just wrong ways of seeing the world, and super-especially wrong ways of seeing oneself. one of the things i've been working on with my counselor. my potential was always some shit other people were trying to lay on me, until the point where it internalized. but i don't think i care about most of that tbh. the paths i cd've taken would have had their own quiddities and agonies, and i don't believe any of them would have taken me any closer to who i want to be.

acceptance isn't acquiescence. i think i'm beginning to understand the satisfaction of that bare high-wattage bulb. think it throws a lot of unnecessary baggage into the shadows where it belongs.

a Rambo in curved air (Noodle Vague), Friday, 29 December 2017 14:16 (six years ago) link


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