Is there a particular "scary age" that you especially fear? What makes it scary?

I'm 28, and I'm actually looking forward to being in my 30s - it seems that you get more respect after 30, and I don't know why people fear that age or consider it "old." to me, a 30-year-old is still practically a baby. Maybe this has to do with the fact that I'm friends with a lot of people in their 30s and 40s, and I'm in a relationship with a man who's 42.

My personal "scary age" is 50. I'm hoping that it will become less scary in the 21 and a half years remaining on my approach to that number.

-- ann monroe (monroe@chorus.net), April 14, 2000

Answers

It's funny but when I was in my late teens and early twenties, I used to say that I thought I'd be dead before I was 40. I wanted to live fast and die young, do all those dangerous things that I'd read about or seen on TV. Racing, sky diving, scuba diving, being a secret agent... this was how I would meet my end. Now that I'm a milk toast, white bread, and vanilla kinda guy, I mean HOW DANGEROUS IS IT TO DRIVE A BUS??? I'm actually enjoying the knowledge and growth since I turned 30, and hope to use it for many years to come. How does that song lyric go... Life seems mighty precious when there is less of it to waste (thanks to Bonnie Raitt). And I was probably never going stop that madman from blowing up the world anyway.

-- Pete sublord of Homemade Cake and Safe Driving (PLeMay816@aol.com), May 03, 2000.