I vividly remember, during my senior year of college, watching alumni return to campus for their ten-year reunion. All of these people appeared so old and established, and many even held the hands of children of their own. I remember thinking that ten years post-grad felt like a faraway lifetime that would never come. So, when I recently received an email about my own 10-year college reunion, I had to sit down for a second. Ouch.
So I couldn't help but follow along when I saw that redditor u/Traditional-Arm-6114 asked, "What made you realize you are not young anymore?" Here's what people had to say, including some responses from the BuzzFeed Community and a few of my own.
1. "When you are excited by kitchen gadgets. Don't you dare take the joy from the pasta maker add-on to my KitchenAid mixer."
2. "One of the guys I work with pointed out that I could be his mother. I was appalled at first because he’s 23, and that couldn’t possibly be right. But then I realized I’m 39, and it’s absolutely possible."
3. "I'm from the Netherlands, and here we have two different words for 'you.' We say 'jij' to someone who is younger than you or equal to your age or in informal settings. We say 'u' to people who are older and in formal settings. Suddenly, younger people in restaurants or stores say 'u' to me. That's when I realized I'm getting old."
4. "When my little cousin asked me if she could play 'classic rock' while I was driving, and then she proceeded to turn on Blink-182. I had to pull over and just stare at her. I've felt old ever since. Oh, and hurting my back while sneezing doesn't help either."
5. "Coming home and trying to hang out with old friends. Realizing we had nothing in common anymore beyond the memories."
6. "Seeing my older brother's age makes me feel old. I noticed my 38-year-old brother was starting to bald, and at that moment, something clicked: We're all getting old. In my eyes, my brother will forever be 17 years old, but that thinning hair makes him seem our dad’s age."
7. "When I had to ask, 'what the f*** is a rizz?'
8. "Having to scroll really far down for my birth year to show up on an online form."
9. "Realizing that if I get pregnant three years from now it will be considered a geriatric pregnancy..."
10. "My teenage niece loves TikTok and sending me memes. I consider myself relatively young, but I still have no concept of the humor in any of them. Every time I have to ask her what a new slang word means, I die a little inside."
11. "I have body piercings that are old enough to drink 😥."
12. "I turned on the Grammy Awards this year, and I had no clue who the majority of performers were. Years ago, I knew all of them."
13. "For me, it’s when celebrities pass away. I’m always like, 'No way! They’ve been around since I was….’ Oh no! The math is the worst part..."
14. "The moment I started considering 9 p.m. as 'late' and got excited about buying a new type of vacuum cleaner."
15. "I remember going to a Best Buy years ago, and the guy ringing up my order looked at my license and said, 'holy shit, you were born the year I graduated from high school.' Now, I've had these exact thoughts and totally get where he was coming from."
16. "Recognizing the fact that I've been out of high school for about as long as current teenagers have been alive."
17. "I was a camp counselor one summer before college. Now, my campers are starting to get married. I wasn't mentally prepared for the first Instagram post where one announced she'd had a baby."
18. "When Gen Z'ers tell me what year they were born after I've had an adult conversation with them."
19. "Realizing that I now feel excited to decorate or clean my house."
20. "Learning that Dr. Dre is 58 broke my brain. My heart will ache once I can process the information."
21. "When a song from my youth plays on the radio and the DJ calls it a classic or an oldie."
22. "I'm 39 and pregnant. I work in the OB office where my own doctor works, and there are a few women my age. But the majority make me feel ancient. They're like 23 and breezing through their pregnancies. I'm delighted to be pregnant, but it's painful and exhausting!"
23. "When I started acting like my parents and wanted to stay home rather than go out to parties."
24. "My knees crack when I get up. Also, I do that weird dad groan when I go to stand."
25. "TikTok. When this social media platform dropped I just instantly morphed into a dinosaur 🦕."
26. "Seeing the stats of an Olympic athlete who was born on my 18th birthday really did me in."
27. "I always used to think professional athletes were so much older than I am. Now I'm 35, and I'm older than most pro athletes. In fact, a lot of them look like babies to me."
28. "Kids born during the year I graduated from high school can almost all drink legally now. Talk about feeling like a dinosaur."
29. "I was talking with the daughter of a friend who is 15. She said to me, 'Harry Potter is an old people thing. I wasn't even born yet when it came out.'"
