Most of the time, I like to think I'm still super young and hip, but some days I look in the mirror and I'm like:
So when this reddit user asked, "When was the moment you realized you're not young anymore," I simply had to read through the responses, and some of them already have me feeling like I've got one foot in the grave! Read through and see if you still feel young at the end of this post.
1. "When I had to start scrolling to find my birth year when registering for something online."
2. "When I flipped on an oldies radio station and heard songs I could remember being new."
3. The school I teach at had a spirit week last year. One of the days was Meme Day, where kids were supposed to dress up as their favorite 'VSCO girl or E-boy.' I have no idea what either of those things are."
4. "When I got really weird about the neighbor kids playing on my retaining wall."
5. "I was watching a rerun of Friends and realized the characters were younger than me."
6. "I tuned into the local pop radio station and couldn’t recognize five songs in a row."
7. "When a pack of teenagers were laughing and having fun outside, and I got really frustrated at the noise they made."
8. "When I realized that there are adults out there that have birth years that no longer start with 19XX."
9. "When I said (after a meeting with mostly young guys, about 18–20 years old), 'Let's go have a drink,' and one said, 'I don't normally go out with my dad's friends.'"
10. "When my back got hurt and never stopped hurting."
11. "A teenager asked me for directions, and my first instinct at 35 was to tell them to ask a grown up. Then I realized that to them, I am a grown up, and I felt terribly old. I also realized that I am terribly directionally challenged."
12. "When I took one good look at TikTok back when it was starting to really take off and I was like, 'I don't get this.'"
13. "When cashiers started apologizing for IDing me."
14. "I was at a concert, being pushed around in the front row, miserable. My back hurt, my feet hurt, I'd been there forever to get this great spot, and I remember thinking, Maybe the front row is for young people."
15. "When my friends and I started to speak about our gardens and tell each other how messed up and bad the current generation is. That's when I realized."
16. "When I made a reference to Captain Planet at work and people told me they had to google Captain Planet."
17. "Hangovers. I could down half a bottle of whiskey and still wake up fresh the next morning, but now even three pegs is enough to make me feel like a train wreck for a full day."
18. "That moment when I thought to myself, WTF are these kids wearing?, when I saw a group of high school kids at the mall."
19. "When I pulled a muscle in my jaw from yawning. It was severe enough I had to go to the doctor and he gave me muscle relaxers."
20. "A few months ago, I fell asleep on the couch like I did a million times before. This time, when I woke up, something was wrong. I was stiff and my neck wouldn't move the way it was supposed to. My back was stuck in a weird position, and everything (and I mean everything) hurt. It took about three days for the pain to stop and about a week to be back to normal. I don't sleep on the couch anymore."
21. "When exercise became mandatory instead of optional."
22. "The first time I ever left my kid with a babysitter and had to do the whole, 'Numbers are on the fridge, we'll be back at nine' speech."
23. "When I decided NOT to go to a bar for the evening. I realized it was too hot, crowded, loud, and expensive. I realized I would rather stay home with some good craft beer, watch a few episodes of Deep Space Nine, and then go to bed, safe and sound."
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.
Have you had any, "Damn, I'm old" moments? Tell us in comments below!
h/t: AskReddit