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<p>My wife just cut her down the back hair. I think she now looks like a middle-aged Lauren Bacall, which is a lovely thing.</p>
<p>I remember the big 4-0! <em>beams</em></p>
<p>Me too, MM! Those were good times I tell ya…good times!</p>
<p>Oh gosh… I got my first gray at 21 and now at 26, I pluck them out all the time. You guys are all very lucky. I do plan to dye it once there are too many to pluck, but I’m hoping the number will plateau for a while. I just don’t want to be 30 and have huge streaks of gray hair. I’m petite and girlish looking though, with slightly rounded cheeks like a little kid, so I still get carded for R-rated movies sometimes. I figure if the rest of me looks young for a long time, it’ll be good… the gray is easier to hide than other things.</p>
<p>garland - my soul is a middle-aged hippie lady. It’s just my exterior that channels Carly…</p>
<p>Never wanted to pluck any hair–always figured it’s best to have hair & be able to figure out whether to dye than to pluck & have less & less to work with. Hubby started going grey in HS & now has a handsome silver-grey head of hair. It’s very becoming and looks perfect on him. My D was indignant on his behalf when he related that someone asked him if he was a grandfather & told him that he should have told them he started greying in his teens. Hubby just smiled–several of his friends do have grandkids anyway–we just met & started our family later in life than they. No regrets here!</p>
<p>Alu, I hear ya, (except I don’t know who Carly F is…). so far, I’ve been lucky to be in a life where the middle aged hippie lady thing works professionally, too. The corporate look woulda dang near killed me!</p>
<p>kind of sucks for you guys. i’m only 17. hopefully stem cell research will be reasonably mature by teh time i am like 50. then i can grow organs and stuff hopefully and a few extra years presumably in a fairly young body.</p>
<p>Actually, there are a lot of nice things about maturing–loved being a teen & beyond, but am VERY happy with my current life and happy the “original parts” are still holding up well. </p>
<p>fastMEd–wpuld NOT expect to ave “stuff grown” to give you a young body when you’re 50–lots of problems with transplants & other “trade ins” on the original parts.</p>
<p>fastMEd, the key is taking care of the parts you already have. This involves boring things like watching your weight, not smoking, and (as you grow older and start to develop medical problems and “risk factors”) taking your pills and following your doctor’s instructions. I wish it could be more glamorous, but it isn’t.</p>
<p>The big shocker comes the first time a health professional says something like “Now that you’ve reached this age, we need to start being concerned about [fill in name of tedious health issue that won’t go away].” For me, it happened at about 30, and the issue was periodontal disease.</p>
<p>Marian–you’re right. I would add exercise to the list of “things to do.” B/c I was always slender, people said “oh you don’t have to exercise” as if that was something you only did to try to lose weight. Haha. Now I’m just trying to stay flexible. Use it or lose it.</p>
<p>And don’t think we’ll be able to grow new organs at will either. Even if possible, do you think it will be cheap?</p>
<p>My great uncle recently passed away. He was over 100 & played doubles tennis up through his mid-90s, where he lectured as professor emeritus at the local flagship U. He kept all his body parts working properly & we all aim to follow his good example. He & his wife lived in their home with a housekeeper until their respective deaths.
I don’t believe there will be any “reset button” on humans for centuries & even if there is, I imagine there will be all sorts of unintended & unexpected complications. Really, it is best for all of us to take optimal care of our original equipment & marvel that we were issued such good parts, functioning as well as they are.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, I was surprised when Eisenhower died. No, really. He was old as the hills then, and from my wee youthful perspective on life, I figured all old people were freeze-dried and never croaked. My principle of freeze-dried aging still applies to oldies like Tony Bennett whose silky amber voice still rocks, btw.</p>
<p>As for that coma, dstark (yadda, yadda, I enjoyed the little varmints)…Last night, SluggyH and I realized how far we’ve come from that special place of raising teenagers when we were walking home last night under a full moon slightly buzzed after a great dinner at a fab new sushi place in town. We spotted a gaggle of high school kids ahead of us on the sidewalk. Hard to explain why we both felt like Moses parting the Red Sea as we walked through the center of the murmuration. Or, why we felt as though we had stepped over an invisible line into the fourth dimension. </p>
<p>These kids weren’t orphans. They all had parents who were at home wondering where their kids were, and at the same time, enjoying the opportunity for a peaceful evening. A junior on a Friday night might have a Midnight curfew. A senior, who knows – 2 a.m., maybe, depending on whether or not he/she has a girlfriend or boyfriend and wheels. The next day’s mail might bring an expected or unexpected progress note. While switching the calendar to February, some mothers have begun to think seriously about graduation.</p>
<p>We were there a year ago. It’s a different scene, now. Our daughter spent two days in bed with the flu this week and had to miss work, but she got her letter of recommendation from her Physics professor to study in Copenhagen next year. Our son is driving his new car to college this weekend for the first time. He shaved his head last weekend because he was tired of his hair. </p>
<p>We finally got to use our guest room (a.k.a. our daughter’s former bedroom) over New Year’s when he invited a classmate to spend the night at our house. We loved this girl, and I tried real hard not to ask her what kind of flowers she would prefer for the wedding.</p>
<p>Yes, dstark – I do know what you mean. ;)</p>
<p>…;)</p>