Hey, you're not old!

Whap!

AKA "Rimshot!"

What she said.

I still think you're cute. But yeah, getting older is weird. Women in their 40s are oddly invisible. I think that it happens to men a little later. I keep on looking in my mirror expecting to see someone 20 years younger than I am.

Yes, it's VERY odd being invisible, sometimes. Living in a college town doesn't help with that. (I cringe at the callow, sometimes, knowing that I must've been something like that too. Kids! those! days!)

It's also tough when giving such weight to other people's opinions of you. I feel very fortunate in how my current drugs reinforce that woman-over-forty-and-don't-much-care thing. It's worse than job hunting, when you know that it really IS personal and not just a skills mismatch or something.

Women in their 40s are oddly invisible.

Not to me!

There's certainly some invisibility to being in one's 40s, I find. It's kind of interesting and kind of sad to note the people to whom I seem invisible and those to whom I appear interesting (thinking more of strangers than friends here).

Dear Fred, no matter your age I will always think you are perfectly Fred, and I will always love you for it.

K.

I stopped worrying about my looks months ago. As for usefulness, 30 years in government service helped me get over that one.

If it makes you feel better, I have never thought of you as attractive though I suspect others may have found you to be.

On a more serious note, as I work my way through parenthood, I am starting to also look forward to my role as a grandparent, though not too far ahead... I still have to finish with the parenting thing first. Still being a grandparent is nothing to sniff at. Adopting a surrogate would work as well.

There is always a role for us all... though sometimes it just isn't always obvious when we first go looking for it.

As long as you can take photographs real good, you're not useless.

attractive women were more interested in working with me to create real good photos back when i was younger and more attractive and i suppose i could do more buildings and landscapes and things but i am about out of hard disc space and my firewire sockets got broken so i cannot offload anything to CD which means i cannot scan in any more photos until i figure out some way around the storage problem which in fact happens to be one of the things contributing to my feeling especially useless and the snake just grins while it continues to consume its tail

"old" - just like all the rest of us
"useless" - hardly - you give us beautiful music and lovely photographs
"no longer very attractive" - says who???? - looking pretty cute to me

Kiddo, I deal with it every day, that "I'm old and useless and unattractive" shite. And I'm wrong every time I think it.

So are you. So allow yourself 10 minutes a day to say it, then allow yourself 30 second a day to tell yourself you're wrong, and another minute or so to remember what I said.

Because I'm always right, and I never lie.

Unfortunately you add to my smile lines most days, damn you!

hee

My work here is done ....

"…so *slap* wake up!"

Okay. If you say so Mr. Tirebiter.

That woman's trying to kill me!

The silver lining is that as our memory gets worse, one simply FORGETS that one is old most of the time.

Like someone above said - when we look into a mirror we are surprised to see an old person there instead of ourselves as we imagine us to be with our innner eyes.

Old means accumulated experience. Also some wear and tear that can be a pain to deal with, though.

Useless -- eh; there's just not that much useless going around, and I don't really think it's gotten you. Maybe your roles are changing and you're having trouble catching up or something, though.

Attractive -- All a matter of opinion. Have the people you care about decided you're unattractive? Seems unlikely.

Ah :P

Some days we all feel that way. It sucks. I hope you can gain some strength from all the people that surround you.

The last time I saw you, we were surrounded by friends and family playing music in a circle, feeling hardly old, or useless, or unattractive, dude :).

I wish I knew something to say to contradict your value judgment of yourself, but anything I'm likely to come up with would probably come off as a tired cliche' or insipid or mawkish.

I hope you feel better about yourself in the future.

What brought this on?

And, don't kick yourself -- I think just about anybody who was feeling old, useless, and unattractive would be bothered by the fact that they felt that way!

I feel that way sometimes, myself. And I agree with the other person who said, I keep expecting to look in the mirror and see somebody 20 years younger.

But I wouldn't trade my life experience or personal growth for anything, not even to be 20 again.

What brought this on?

Some recent environmental factors triggered an unusually strong symptomatic expression of chronic snuggle depravation.

I know, I know. I should shut up—there are people out there with real problem. But sometimes I just can't keep from kvetching.