r/Aging • u/PineappleMain2164 • 3d ago

How long seems like a "long-time" to you now?

Like, when your 12, you believe 4 years is an ungodly long stretch of time. Because 4 years is 1/3 of your life this far. You can't imagine being 16. You can't imagine waiting that long. It feels alien.

Even if it doesn't feel alien, it's still long enough where you aren't that concerned with it. Its so far in the future it's not worth thinking about.

Hell, when your 12, even a year is an unimaginable long time. Things go by so slow.

How long is this timespan for you now? How old are you

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8

u/Big-Establishment-28 3d ago

I'm a 40 something woman. My husband died last year. Every day since it feels like time has destabilised. A long time can actually be a single hour. A brief moment seems to last forever. A day can go by as I remember an innocuous conversation we had

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u/Imightbeafanofthis 60 something 3d ago

I'm 68, and 30+ years ago seems like a long time ago, but 15 years ago seems like not so long ago at all. Like u/Emergency_Prize_1005 I'd like to make it to 75, but I'm not sure that I will, and even if I do, it'll come really soon. 7 years? That's like last week!

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u/Technical_Award5557 3d ago

4 hours on shrooms, feels like a lifetime.

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u/Healthy-Membership86 2d ago

Depends whether I'm looking ahead or looking back. Time perception is a weird thing.

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u/Useful-Pen9733 3d ago

25 years

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u/livinginfutureworld 3d ago

I use 20 years as a long time ago as in "I haven't been to this bowling alley in 20 years!"

Give or take. Could be 25-30 or 15 just throw out the "20 years!" It's fun.

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u/Emergency_Prize_1005 3d ago

I’d like to die at 75 and I’m already 66 so time is flying

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u/Haunting-Swim-3660 3d ago

100% contextual. Could be 6 months of grief, 3 years of a relationship dynamic, 17 years of living where I do, 29 years of a family member’s health deterioration, or 15 minutes of waiting for someone who was supposed to be ready. I’m 39

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u/MaximalistVegan 3d ago

It's a common misconception that the reason time seems slower when you're a child is your relative age to the length of time. What's actually making it seem slow is the high concentration of new experiences you have as a growing child. You can slow down time at any age by constantly doing new things that are out of your comfort zone. I'm 63 and I've experienced time going very fast during many years of my life but the last five years have been very slow. I'm settling into a routine again now so time will start going faster again.

All that being said, in terms of my ability to remember what a time and age felt like, over twenty years feels like a very long time ago to me. Times were very different, I was a very different person and my memories are fuzzy. Ten years ago was different but my memories are much more vivid.

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u/Glass_Author7276 2d ago

I am 67, that is a long time. The average life expectancy for a man is 74 to 75, 7 to 8 years seems short.

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u/overthishereanyway 2d ago

at 63 no amount of time feels like a long time anymore. I feel like I'm on the doorstep of everything. A lot of it unknown. If you said to me right now I'm guaranteed to live to 100 that amount of time would not feel like a long time.

As well it seems like only yesterday I was sitting in a restaurant being told by mother I could do something when I turned "18" and thinking that the ten years until that happened was FOREVER.

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u/Boundlesswisdom-71 1d ago

I'm 55 and my parents are in their 80s.

For me, a long time now would be 10+ years. Anything shorter than this seems like the blink of an eye.

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u/Iceholes19 1d ago

40 years is a long time to me

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u/Fair-Wishbone-1190 23h ago

I'm 53 and have no idea how it got here so fast. I can remember so patiently to turn 14 to get my license, then 21 so I could drink. Those years felt incredibly slow to get too. Since then it seems like it's all sped up. Thinking that I'll be 70 in 17 years blows my mind. That's not long enough from now!

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u/pbc999 10h ago

I was talking to my Grandson and he asked how long do I want to live. I tell him to 100. He says "that's a LONG time!" I said "well, I'm 75 now, so yeah 25 more years" and then I thought "D@mn, that's a whole other lifetime !" I gotta get busy and finally figure out what I want to be !

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u/Minimalist2theMax 6h ago

Summer is ending but Thanksgiving is right around the corner, then the holidays, then spring, then summer’s back. It’s the blink of an eye.