This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

I walk or bike a few miles most day, that's how I commute and get around, but I can't say I feel any different when I sit all day

That said, I'd almost always prefer to get high and watch history documentaries in my underwear and/or eat nachos and drink pinot grigio while playing a mandola.

I am a simple man.

daddy told me: be a simple, mandola man!

I'm actually enjoying going to the gym more than I ever have before, just doing cardio and some basic weight stuff, nothing crazy, but pretty regular when I can. Been super busy with work/family stuff the last few months and have had fewer opportunities. I really feel the difference between when I exercise regularly and when I don't, physically and psychologically. Feel a bit better about everything when I'm exercising more, everything seems more doable and manageable.

Absolutely. I've been limited the last six weeks due to travel, work, and illness. This week is the first time I've been able to go and start getting my legs back and it makes such a difference.

My boss bikes to work every day - she uses an ebike. Maybe a 3-mile, 15-minute ride, along a very established and popular bike trail.

I'm 15 miles away, which would take a an hour-plus even under ideal conditions. So I do bike/train/bike. That is, I bike (or scoot) about half a mile from home to my nearest train station. Then I take my bike (or scooter) on the train, then bike (or scoot) a half mile to the office.

I can do this twice a week in good weather. Not sure I want to be doing this in February or August, but November is perfect.

i did the bike/train/bike thing every day, it was about like ymp's and it was pretty easy and great. and still way less time or frustration than driving and parking in the city, even with reserved parking. recommended. also recommend ebikes, but not from personal experience.

from one who knows, until you live in amsterdam, wear a damn helmet eh? no guarantee but worth it. if you're accosted while riding without one by some shitheel, i support severe abusive language. but if you're in traffic wear one FOR YOU.

Hunt3r speaks wisdom.

So many people use the app-based temp bikes/scooters here, and almost nobody wears a helmet. They almost all ride on the sidewalk, they often put more than one person on (frequently a minor), and they are generally a menace.

Tangentially, I know a head injury expert, who broke it down like this: imagine something goes terribly wrong and you, as a pedestrian, are the victim in a car accident.

Let's say you start with a settlement of a million dollars. If you weren't in a marked crosswalk, cut that in half. If the walk light wasn't in your favor, cut it in half again.

Since hearing that, I strongly prefer crossing streets at designated crosswalks and with the walk light in my favor. No, it will probably never become an issue, but I'd rather be in a strong position if it should come to pass.

Ditto helmets. Do I always need a helmet? No. Do I always wear one? Yes. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

try having your partner of 15 years, at the then-latest moment of extreme stress and disappointment, tell you "you're not the person i married."

some things are not recoverable. no insurance will make you whole.

you're not the person i married

To which one plausible response is "well, neither are you." I have been married 22 years and it would be very surprising if we had remained the same. Sympathies to you Hunt3r

Thanks. Yeah, we are now at 22. I can assure you she is the same lol. It’s kind of annoying.

One of my romantic criteria has always been "generous capacity for change, but general lack of capacity to become evil."

I am okay with my wife cganging and surprising me - in fact I find that prospect exhilarating. But I want the surprises to happen within the context of the basic goodness we perceived in each other from the beginning.

Like, over time, people change. Take up yoga or needlepoint. Learn to play the oboe or ultimate Frisbee. Embrace Islam, or Goth culture, or go vegan. Okay. Cool cool, we can adapt.

A change toward incompatibility - or, conversely, a refusal to accept that your partner is allowed to change? Different kettle of fishies.

My wife and I are at 21 years of marriage. I have now heard of several couples in the last couple of months having had issues at 22 years. Fingers crossed.

you know what I miss is healing after you get hurt, or getting well after getting sick instead of having things just drag on and on and on

is lowerbck pain the price we all pay in our 50's from being the upright vertebrates instead of horiozontal like nature seems to have intended

― | (Latham Green)

not in my 50s but god the back pain is hitting hard this week

they wanna do an MRI and a DEXA to check for bone density

all i can think about is those TERFs who keep saying that i have the "bones of a man"

i fucking wish

apparently they don't do back braces anymore, they've found it can cause muscle weakness. we'll see what the physical therapist suggests... what with the scoliosis i'm not sure what "sitting upright" actually looks like

at least since starting estrogen i've been able, for the first time in my life, to understand what people mean when they say "relax"

A change toward incompatibility - or, conversely, a refusal to accept that your partner is allowed to change? Different kettle of fishies.

― don't let days go by, Listerine (Ye Mad Puffin)

it's weird. i am, in fact, demonstrably not the person my ex married... that causes problems for a lot of marriages, but not for mine

what caused the problem was that i _kept changing_. she said, i wish you would just stop changing.

it took me a year to figure out that, contrary to her insistence, she _had_ changed since we married. we all change, all the time. sometimes people grow together, sometimes people grow apart. we both knew that, both agreed on that, going in... people change and they're not compatible anymore and that's not a failure, that's not anyone's fault.

there was, of course, more going on in our relationship. there were a lot of things left unspoken, a lot of fucked up things we didn't acknowledge

thinking about this:

some things are not recoverable. no insurance will make you whole.

― digital chirping and whirring (Hunt3r)

i was... i was relying on her to make me whole.

i was thinking today about the old jimi hendrix song "51st anniversary". and hendrix meant it a certain way, it wasn't something he wanted, but i always thought it was a romantic song. i wanted that, not just the "happy ending" but the pain hendrix sings about too. i wanted to reach my 51st anniversary with someone, to go through all that with someone. i wanted the life i saw my ex's grandparents have, feeding each other when they couldn't feed themselves and whispering sweet nothings to each other.

it might have been possible with her. i was 33. it's not possible now. and yet... i don't see that as a loss. i'm living on my own, have been for a year, for the first time. i was never able to take care of myself, before. always needed some woman or another to take care of me.

the last two years have been really hard, really painful. those two years cost me a lot. hurt me a lot. i'd never felt that kind of pain before. people i loved - not just my ex - are gone from my life forever. i loved those people, many of them, more than i loved myself.

so now i'm whole. there's nobody i love more than i love myself. i used to expect people to care for me in ways that... nobody can care for me in those ways, really, except me. i have four more years - three and a half, really - until i reach my 51st anniversary with the person i love most in the world. i feel like i got a good shot of making it.

the nhs obviously monitoring this thread because i have now been asked to shit in a box

Stop throwing up on the carpet too, while you're at it.

i'm a-shittin' in a box
i'm a-shittin' in a cardboard box

Sorry, I prefer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt0spqQtMKg

I think this is relevant to this thread bc it's a generational thing, but I hate that sketch with a purple passion.

You can also tell who belongs in this thread and who doesn't by who recognized the "Baby Come Back" melody in it.

I do not belong in this thread, but if you're waking up sore and your back is hurting you might want to evaluate your mattress.

When I was a kid I could sleep on a pile of rocks and feel fine, but now when my mattress gets old I can feel it in the morning.

while that's true, until you're in your fifties it may be harder to get how this decade is kind of turning point for the body, it feels like to me anyhow -- I say this as a person who in his fifties achieved a level of physical fitness I'd literally never had before, presently arrested by sports injury, praying for healing & doing my PT. but the 50s bod, it is its own zone, at any rate, I could not have really grokked how true this is from the perspective of my 40s

having said that anybody with back pain should yes absolutely ask "how old is this mattress and is it serving my needs?"

the nhs obviously monitoring this thread because i have now been asked to shit in a box

the box just cracks me up, it's so humbling. what's up mr. cool guy. still keeping up with the music I see! not goin' gently into that good night, nossiree, not you. here, shit in this box and mail it to us then, if you're so cool

My HMO just has you shit on a piece of wax paper in the toilet... then you take a swab with a little thing that resembles a thumb-drive... wrap it in a biohazard bag and drop it in the mail

lacks the romance of the box imo

I measure myself against Larkin's "Aubade", published in his mid-fifties. Do I have similar experiences? Yes. Do I react to them as he does? No, so I must be doing ok...?

Best part of the box is putting it in the mail bc you have to deposit your deposit in yet another box

I’m 2 years away from 50 but they made me crap in a box a couple years ago

I'm way past alla that as Ive already had the bum cam, but they still send me the test in an envelope every few years anyway.

My HMO just has you shit on a piece of wax paper in the toilet...

While we're on the topic I got the results today from a lone polyp they took out at my look-see a few weeks ago. "Adenomatous," which is not cancerous but can be pre-cancerous, whatever that exactly means. Very common, they say, not to worry, eat a good high-fiber diet come back in five years.

I could probably stand to increase fiber tbh. Anyone have favorite ways to do that that aren't just, like, adding fiber to juice or whatever?

Metamucil (or its generic equivalent) comes in capsule form now. It's the easiest delivery system, imho. Certainly easier than having to mix it up, let alone trying to maintain a high fiber diet.

I hated broccoli when I was growing up, but at some point realized it was really nutritious so I decided to make peace with it. Now I absolutely adore it and cannot imagine an evening meal without it.

popcorn is pretty high in fibre

Psyllium husk (aka metamucil) is easy but I would start slow.. like one capsule after a meal, then gradually upping it... it can definitely cause a bloated feeling, and numerous runs to the toilet

Tipsy forgive my cynicism but there is a whole industry devoted to everyone being "pre-cancerous." That is, if you don't have cancer, you are merely waiting for it to arrive. That is a standing assumption for a sizable chunk of the medical industrial complex.

Most very old people (90+) will likely have some cancer somewhere. In prior centuries, they would have died before this became evident (or was masked by some other condition).

Something else might kill you first (heart disease mostly, but liver disease probably wants to be in the running as well). The only question is whether the "something else" gets you before cancer does.

Yeah this is why I pushed back (and I *really* had to push hard) on the hospitsal demanding I do a follow up colonscopy. They found a few polyps. They got rid. The procedure itself is way more invasive, and especially these days with the risk of either covid or MRSA , why the fuck would I want to do an invaside procedure I'm not sure I have to?
They rang me. Emailed me. Sent letters. I called and told them I wanted off the waiting list. They said theyd contact me again in 3 months. We did this dance for a year, and at one point they called my effing MOTHER (who freaked out cos she had no idea what was going on) bcs I hadnt calld them back? Even though I'd said I wanted to leave it? GAH. It was a whole thing.

Thanks YMP, good perspective. I did read that 50 percent of everyone over 60 has adenomatous polyps — something to look forward to y'all — so it doesn't give me a lot of concern. And yeah, I know past age 70 or so they only even do the scope if there's some specific reason — because anything you develop at that point is unlikely to be the thing that kills you. (And even if it does, you'll still be clocking your expected lifespan.)

I fully expect die of something else WAY before my colon gets me. Ditto cholesterol or my prostate gland.

I may be severely deluded (correction, I am probably severely deluded) but right now I find myself more worried about climate change, gun nuts, car accidents, my booze-beleaguered liver, and - fuck it - zombies.

In what I presume will be a massive shocker, I suspect the medical industry has a bias toward recommending tests that are (1) easy to administer and (2) lucrative in terms of reimbursement.

I literally went to see someone about a hernia and came out with a colonoscopy appointment and a recommendation to do exactly nothing about the hernia.

Both of my grandfathers survived colon cancer, and they took no care of themselves. They were really hard to kill. I like my odds.

Perhaps it was only semicolon cancer.

IRL LOL

I will say, my dad's dad actively wished for death for a while after they took part of his bowel.

lol ymp

Colorectal is easy to catch, easy to fix, at least compared to other cancers.

Wait around for the "perforation" and you'll be the one they're depositing into a box.

Hello knee pain, my old friend
I've come to talk to you again

I am not sure if this is the right thread for this particular ventfest but fuckit.

Two days ago I went to meet my son's school bus and the bus was already there. (For context, it is a special ed bus and if I m not there, they leave and take him back to school and it becomes a Whole Thing.)

Annnnyway I started to run to catch up with the bus. There was a jogger with a dog, and I tried to dodge around them but tripped My face, my glasses, and my phone had a serious disagreement with the sidewalk.

My wife was out of town, I needed urgent care, and my son was having a meltdown. Also my phone was smashed, which meant that anything requiring two-factor authentication (which is a lot of things) would be impossible for a while.

Of course I will be okay about maybe I will someday look back on it as comical - a parenting injury! - but right now I just feel stupid and embarrassed.

Plus my face looks like hamburger and I don't know how to go to four business meetings and a follow-up doctor's appointment without having to address the whole episode.

oh ymp, i’m really sorry.

Ouch dude, that sucks. And I don't know about you, but for me physical injuries hit a lil different now. Not that I have many of them. But just much more aware of overall corporeal vulnerability and how long any one thing can take to recover from.

Yikes, that sounds painful. Hope you mend quickly.

i've hit my face on the pavement a couple of times while out running, i know that pain well and fuck me does it hurt! you never really think about how little cushioning your face has compared to other parts of your body until you whack it full-force into a slab of concrete. but the worst bit is that longterm it's left me feeling a bit wary and vulnerable in moments where previously i wouldn't have had a care in the world. anyhow, heal quick ymp!