This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

this thread is amazing.

unperson what's your podcast??

in real life i'm in my 40s but on ilx I'm always 28 btw, this is just a cameo

unperson what's your podcast??

Interviews with musicians, 45-60 minutes long, once every two weeks. Next one comes out on Friday.

http://burningambulance.blubrry.net/

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/burning-ambulance-podcast/id1296224800?mt=2

for real though, do we have 60+ ilxors?

Yup. I'm 63 and counting. I have strong suspicions about a few others, but I seem to be the only one who puts a number out there.

I was mad for newsgroups back in the 90s but now at 47 I find ILX to be the Platonic ideal of an online community.

and shit, only a little over 3 months from being 48

Reading this thread with trepidatious anticipation; I'll be joining you in 17 months. I was 21 or maybe just 22 when I started posting.

I am thy father's spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night

57

yay oldies

I was 29 when I first started posting here too.

― pplains, Monday, January 1, 2018 6:29 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me too. Eleven years. Jesus.

So I turned 40 and it was p good. Despite my thread revive and "oof" post I'm excited for my 40s which I think this will be my best decade yet.

People generally think I'm a lot younger than I am and often guess anywhere from 28-32 which I've always taken as a compliment but lately I've begun to wonder if it is indicative of some kind of immaturity on my part and not just the fact that I look young. I don't know. My worrying about this is probably more a projection of my own fears of not being adult enough than anything else because most of the time I don't really feel that much different than I did when I was 18.

People used to regularly express surprise when they'd discover that I was roughly a decade or so older than they assumed but within the last couple of years the reaction has been more along the lines of 'yeaaaaah, that seems about right.' It's been...humbling.

I used to get stopped for police line-ups with 40 year old blokes when I was 21. Once one of the filth reassured me in a very sensitive manner: "don't worry you look older than your age, lad"

xp

yep, that's been one of the fun differences between my early 40s and late 40s

Middle-Aged Lunch OTM.

we're close to our "twenty years of ILE" bash

Yup. The exact 20th anniversary of ILX as a whole, starting with the birth of ILM, will be in about two years and seven months or so.

All of you hush and let me enjoy looking young thing while it lasts, dammit. ;) Also, I noticed little crows' feet for the first time recently and was kind of excited about it so it's not something I'm stressing about too much tbh.

hello I am 41

First posted here approximately 15 years ago – was 17 at the time. This place begins to make more sense once you hit 30.

ENBB, you might be the youngest 40something in here, so congrats.

I've always been told I was an old man ("born in a leisure suit," as my father used to tell people.) I embraced it back then, but now that I'm actually turning into an actual old man, it's not as cute anymore.

We were watching a mid-morning showing of Pulp Fiction on AMC yesterday. Between the Old People Personals commercials that were running in the breaks and that whole "Wait, you just ordered a five-dollar milkshake????? dialogue, I felt like I was 100.

Ha the five-dollar milkshake????? dialogue thing occurred to me sometime over the last year and made me feel ancient too. Don't think you could get one for under that at a diner around here now.

Hello I am 41 2! I've been here approximately forever.

I think this decade is going to be the best yet. This getting older thing has really brought the benefits, ime.

Also a member of 41 club. Also get told I look younger than I am but I think that is starting to change. At least I think I've aged - a few more grey hairs, I've put on a bit of weight (always used to be skinny but I'm 16 stone now) etc etc. I did get ID'd for booze in shops twice in 2017 though which hadn't happened to me for 6 years.

I was 27 when I started posting here...

i have been on ilx since 2002 or 3?
so since i was... crikey... 26 or so

we are old, father william

i like not caring as much about ppl i dont know and what they may or may not think of me
that is the thing about my 40’s that i looove

Yes.

I can be painfully self-conscious and over the past year when this has happened I've sometimes told myself "fuck what anyone thinks you're awesome and almost 40 who gives a shit what anyone else thinks?" and it has actually worked. I mean, sure, I still have to actually remind myself of this but it's a start.

the thing that happens a lot for me is the realization that the person i'm talking to and hanging out with is literally young enough to be my child.

Yeah but that's been the case for a while now.

xp I'm still painfully neurotic but my mum told me at Xmas she stopped giving a shit a couple of years ago. She's 58 so maybe by my mid-fifties I won't be a complete wreck mentally?

I mean at least for me it's something I started realizing of teenagers about 10 years ago that if I'd had a kind when I was a late teen then current teenagers could technically be mine. Also, when i worked for that youth center and was only 2 years younger than one of the girl's on my caseload's mom.

Woah young mom!

And ok lol maybe we can hope for that. Also, my mom was on the older side (she passed 6 months ago at 78) so I think that just seems especially young to me.

I haven't quite figured out how to stop caring what people think about me (although I've definitely come a long way in recent years) but I've realized lately that I'm not really concerned with trying to impress anyone anymore. That feels like a solid start.

xp
Sorry to hear that ENBB. My wife's mum had her late too, she's 84 now, 5 years older than my grandma

Weird to look at old ILX posts from 2003-2004 and think "wow what immature twentysomething would say something like th--ohhh"

ha, yes

x-post Thank you, CP.

It's kind of crazy how we're nearly the same age but have parents decades about in age. I would still like to parent in some form (whether my own bio kid/s or adopted/fostered) and sometimes worry about being an older parent but I honestly don't think I would have been ready much before now at all.

*apart* not about oops

U all old af but <3 anyway

deems you’re older than all of us in spirit

Deems is our Yoda, hundreds of years old and forever hitting us in the face with his staff.

"Page-turners, they were not. The adaptations, even worse."

hahahaha

Lol

Unbelievably I forgot to tell you guys about the major corner I turned last week in my journey to senescence:
Bought myself a motherfucking lanyard neck cord thingy for my motherfucking bifocals, you fuckers! It’s such a relief. Why yes, I am the caretaker of this property.

People used to regularly express surprise when they'd discover that I was roughly a decade or so older than they assumed but within the last couple of years the reaction has been more along the lines of 'yeaaaaah, that seems about right.' It's been...humbling.

Yep, me also. Probably the gray in the beard gives me away. Or the thin hair on top. The circles under the eyes? Hard to say really. Surely it's not a reduction in my boyish joie de vivre.

My 40s started rough but have been pretty great, all told. Best decade of my adult life, for sure. I'll be 49 this fall, so ... hope the trend continues into years that start with five.

https://i.imgur.com/faJ2rWF.jpg

That one was easy. xp

Jon not Jon, it better be one of these and not one of those modern-looking lanyards.

https://i.imgur.com/h5h5DlX.jpg

^ uncanny resemblance to deems (xp)

great, now I have Shane MacGowan in my head singing “...and they called him the irish yooo-da”

xps