Immature?

Well, right now I am 42, in 9 months 43, and I feel so out of place with people my age.
Yesterday I went to a party where half of the people there were under 30 and the other half over 40, and even if the under 30 were not particularly vivacious they had a different look in their eyes, brighter, full of hopes, they insisted on climbing on the roof to watch the fireworks and they seem ed to insist on getting more out of life.
The over 40s, except for one, had instead this spent, tired look, not much enthusiasm for anything, even some who had no children or you know the "load of responsibility", and had nothing to worry about but themselves.

Is it just accidental? Are there a lot of over 40 full of life and still dreaming of a better future?

Some days, after this terrible year of disgrace and depression, I also feel tired and spent, like I have never felt before in spite of spending 10 years fighting a chronic illness, and I don't know what to do.
I cannot, will not lose the sparkle, but I wonder if that is just genetic - I know it's not, because I have seen 85 years olds with such sparkle, but then why do so many people just "fold" in life and content themselves with career and habit/routines?

Where are all the over 40 who want to have fun, new experiences, live an exciting life, try new things?

What do you think/feel about it?

Peaches said:

Is it just accidental? Are there a lot of over 40 full of life and still dreaming of a better future?
What do you think/feel about it?

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I get scared that it might not be about what you experienced or what happened to you, but that it might be a physical change in your head. I remember when I was in college I spent a few classes being told that adolescents have different brains than the rest of us and could not be held to account like adults, but once you become an adult it is presumed that you are static. What if, when you hit 43-60 or so your body itself changes you. Can it be an accident that most people have their first major illness here?

What if it isn't the things that we experience making us feel spent and lacking spark, but rather, something that all people experience.

I work with interns at work who are mostly 25 to 30. I enjoy being around them because they have that "spark" of nothing gets to them. There is no bitterness, it is as if they don't even know what it is. But me... the bitterness if flowing out of me constantly and truth... I am not even sure why. But when I was younger I had even more challenges than I have now. Interestingly you mentioned the penumonia, well I got that when I was 21 and taking final exams and I took the final exams and didn't think twice about any of it. Now I would be much more effected by something like that. Is it a state of mind or does my mind put me in this state?

Anyway I don't think you are immature. At my workplace they have these temp workers and they are all young. Now they are bright but the reason they are hired is because they are young. That is it.

I imagine life is like water. Eventually over time it carves away the hardest rock and makes the Grand Canyon.

SophiaGrace said:

I imagine life is like water. Eventually over time it carves away the hardest rock and makes the Grand Canyon.

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don't want to be the grand canyon, just want to be the water

Peaches said:

SophiaGrace said:

I imagine life is like water. Eventually over time it carves away the hardest rock and makes the Grand Canyon.

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don't want to be the grand canyon, just want to be the water

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Hmm.

I was thinking of people as being the rock and water being life slowly eroding them until there's nothing left but a big gaping hole of bitterness and careworn features.

You did a reversal of that. I think I like your spunk.

Your age doesn't limit you, Peaches - only your circumstances. Some of those circumstances can be changed and some can't. Health, finances, things like these...cannot be changed sometimes.
So while you (everyone) might have limits, you can do what you feel like doing (within those limits).
Just because some of us older people don't act like the younger ones do, doesn't mean we don't have a "spark" of our own. Personally, I don't generally enjoy the same things that younger people do. That doesn't mean I can't be/am not vivacious in my own right.
I'd rather paint my walls and take pleasure in the smell of fresh paint than to play video games.
I don't think that makes me less youthful. I know what I like and I'm OK with that.
If you feel like you'd be happier doing other things, by all means do what makes you happy. But do them because they make you happy - not cuz the young folks are doing them.

eheh, doing things because others do, that's not me, rather the opposite
but yes, I like to have that sparkle, young or old

I have that sparkle in me Does anybody want to share I will gladly give it them. Now come here Dear Peaches, I have got lots for you.

PenDragon said:

I have that sparkle in me Does anybody want to share I will gladly give it them. Now come here Dear Peaches, I have got lots for you.

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^^ LMAO!

Everybody I meet seems vivacious.

I treat terminally ill patients in their 60s dying of various diseases and they go on smiling and in denial to the very end.

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of optimistic, cheering humanity congratulating itself at the dawn of this millenium as we collectively drain the fossil fuels and rape this planet and all of its wonderful creatures.

I look forward to the collapse and to how everybody responds.

EveWasFramed said:

PenDragon said:

I have that sparkle in me Does anybody want to share I will gladly give it them. Now come here Dear Peaches, I have got lots for you.

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^^ LMAO!

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For laughing out I will give you too...
*passing sparkle to eve through brain signal *