#Growing Old

[dreamsteddie]

Eddie gets legitimately upset as the years and decades pass and Steve just keeps getting hotter to him.

Steve at 25 getting fitted with his first pair of glasses causes 26 year old Eddie to miss the bottom step of the stairs in their first apartment.

Steve in his early 30s whose body is starting to show evidence that his metabolism is no longer that of a 20 year old in their prime. He has a soft middle covered in hair and a slightly softer jawline. The image of Steve coming out of the shower to join him in bed makes him want to chew on his own fingers.

Steve at 40 with grey hairs showing up along his temples that unlock an affinity for the Older Man look Eddie had never given much thought before the love of his life was suddenly a DILF.

Steve in his mid 50s with full salt and pepper and wrinkles carving paths around his eyes and in the valleys of his hands. Eddie thinks Steve looks like a damn model, still with that famous Steve Harrington volume to his hair, while Eddie is starting to thin a little at his hairline. (Steve tells him every day how handsome he finds him, but Eddie doesn't think the unfairly attractive get to try and hype him up. He'll take his opinions from the brutally honest, like Erica Sinclair, thank you very much.)

Steve and Eddie getting close to their 70s, their skin is soft and fragile now. Steve has a smattering of age spots that situate themselves happily between his smatterings of moles and freckles and some of Eddie's earliest stick-and-pokes have faded away into distant memory. Eddie loves to kiss every new spot he finds on Steve even when his back protests the reach, and if he forgets which ones he's kissed already from time to time, well, he doesn't mind doing it again. Better safe than sorry.

Steve and Eddie at the end of their lives. They look so different than they did when they started their lives together, both barely over the threshold of their 20s. Some of the details they forget, but luckily they have several scrapbooks chock-full of the best moments of their best years together, so Eddie will never forget how annoyingly beautiful his husband has remained through a lifetime of love.

[davidtennantgenderenvy]

On David Tennant and Aging

So, I’ve seen a lot of posts in response to Tumblr users’ habit of affectionately calling their favorite middle aged dudes “old men”, David Tennant in particular, saying things like “clearly you’ve never met an actual old person”, “omg you talk about these guys like they’re 80”, “please be normal about people aging”, etc. And on one hand, all of these statements are objectively right and true! But as someone who’s always been really fascinated by and found a lot of beauty in getting older (which I’ve explored in some of my writing on A03 because nobody else is going to do it for me), I’d like to provide a bit more nuance on how I think this label applies to David in particular.

David, obviously, in literal terms, is not “old”, at least not to me- I don’t personally consider people old until they get past 60. 52 is middle aged, simple as that. And yet, when I see David stuck with the “old man” label, it still somehow feels weirdly right, for a number of reasons.

It annoys me so much when people say David “hasn’t aged a day since Doctor Who”, because, well…

He clearly has. A lot. He’s got forehead creases, deep crows’ feet and eyebags, and I think that post-Fourteen we’re gonna see him rocking the grey temples a LOT more. He also has the voice of an older man now, his upper range is still there but the default is much more deep and rich, with a gravelly, rumbling quality that just goes straight through you. I personally think Broadchurch was when David finally started to embrace looking his age- Alec Hardy just wouldn’t have been served by Ten’s fresh-faced boyishness.

Obviously, these are the kinds of changes you’d expect any 52-year-old man to have, but something about David just makes it all seem a bit more… intense? The expressiveness of his face combined with his almost gaunt frame makes his wrinkles very prominent, and when he works his voice to its emotional extremes, his lower register can sound positively ancient, to devastating effect.

David, I think, is someone with an old soul- I don’t think he could be as good as he is at playing ancient characters like Crowley and The Doctor if he weren’t. He has lived so many lives, given so much of himself to so many characters, often incredibly tragic ones, and I think it wears on him. David also has five kids. FIVE. Do you know how exhausting it is to be one of the hardest working actors alive and be a present, loving father to even ONE child? But David somehow does it anyway! Nowadays I see him and my heart breaks because he looks so tired, so weary and fragile. But he’s all the more beautiful for it to me because I know that that is because he is kind. He’s a deeply empathetic person who feels and lives to the absolute fullest, and that story is written so clearly on his face, along with every other story he has ever been a part of.

There’s other things about David that make the label endearingly fitting- his utter hopelessness when it comes to technology, for instance. And he’s just got that warm, wise, grandpa energy too sometimes- look at that above Fourteen picture and tell me I’m wrong!

I once showed my friend who’d only seen David in Doctor Who and Harry Potter a picture of David from Around The World in 80 Days. It was a particularly emotional scene, and his face had just the most beautiful expression of compassion and sadness, every wrinkle on full display. And she said, in a less than complimentary fashion, “he looks so old!” Which, of course, offended me quite a bit at first. But to me, referring to David as old almost feels like a badge of honor, something he’s earned by living fully and selflessly, working hard and being wise and compassionate beyond his years. I think David himself is secretly more than a little insecure about the fact that he’s getting older. There’s sadness behind every jovially self-depreciating remark he’s made about his age in the past year, particularly in comparing himself to Ncuti Gatwa. I know how much David struggles with his impostor syndrome and how people perceive him, and I can clearly see in his eyes the fear of being discarded, the anxiety he feels about if he’ll still be as loved as he was back in 2007 now that he’s closer in age to King Lear than he is to Romeo. So I hope David knows it’s a privilege to watch him grow older, to watch his soul and talents deepen with the crinkles around his eyes. If I, in my silly goofy tumblr girl-ness, call David Tennant an old man, it’s because it’s a label that suits him beautifully- even if it isn’t TECHNICALLY an accurate one yet.

[rhondagettingfit]

Yes, I want to look better naked, but as I'm a grandma now I REALLY want to do things like oh, get on and off the toilet by myself in 20 years. I want to not break my hip walking up the stairs. I want to be able to do whatever I want to do cause I'm strong enough to do it.

[wowlookwhosspirallingagain]

i forever will be grieving the childhood i could have had if my parents healed themselves first before having a child

[diamondsandcigarette01]

growing old is a privilege that everybody should learn to love

[diormarmont]

"They wrinkle like the river, sweeten like the dew. And as silver as the rainbow scales that shimmer purple blue. How can beauty that is living be anything but true?"

[amorinthewater]

When I say I want Jegulus art, what I mean is: buff, few white stray unruly hairs, wedding band James Potter and soft lines, sharp jaw, and all smiles husband Regulus.

That’s what I want. I want domesticity, I want craving, I want love and I want them long term.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Quaeris, quid doceam? Etiam seni esse discendum.*

Seneca

You ask, what may I teach? That an old man must learn too.*

Marcel Duchamp plays chess with Eve Babitz, 1963.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"The strange thing about growing old is that the intimate identification with the here and now is slowly lost; one feels transposed into infinity, more or less alone, no longer in hope or fear, only observing."

[Einstein on growing old, as mentioned in a 1953 letter to the Queen of Belgium]

[Physics in History]

[dreamertrilogys]

me + all my friends <i want! i want!>, walk the moon / wetsuit, the vaccines / people we meet on vacation, emily henry / portugal, walk the moon /ferris bueller’s day off / t-shirt weather, circa waves / the raven cycle, maggie stiefvater / is this it?, the greeting committee

[cowboyjen68]

16 y/o lesbian here! love your blog, and i can only pray to be as cool as you when im your age! your blog gives me something to look forward to :)

I have been through so many changes in life that have brought me to now and it looks very different than the life I thought I was going to have. Looking back my future plans changed and adjusted often AND often without me even realizing the path I was on had drastically altered from my original intention.

My advice is to enjoy the moments you like while they are happening but also remember bad times pass and often can lead to a new evaluation of goals, which can be a good thing.

Don't go into debt for someone else. Take it easy on your back and knees. Most things you try out of youth or impulse do not have to be used to permanently define who you are. I say MOST and a good question to ask yourself before taking a risk is "Can i recover from this or is it worth the chance that I cannot?"

Explore ideas out loud and on paper. Find friends who can and will support you BUT also will call you out on BS or point out you are lying to yourself about love, money, life and jobs. These friends are gold. They are not always right but thinking about things and defending actions can gain you valuable insight.

I did not see myself where I am at any point before 5 years ago and I would change very little because my experiences have made me me.

[letterstoyourlove]

[scavenger-nightly]

theres nothing better to me than devotion. like yes u may hurt me and we may argue but i love u anyways. sometimes i hate u but i wouldn’t trade u for the world. ur so lovely and when u are hurting so am i. I trust u with my life. I love u

[kroz-zivot-srcem]

[wintermintangel]

Craig of the creek single handedly brought back ska and reinforced the young black nerd in me that liking dnd at a young age was cool :)

[mikefrawley]

Winter's Setting Sun

Having outlived our old world long ago with heads bowed, we yet walk alone slowly fading into winter's setting sun seeking a better place to call our own Falling through her blustery darkness remembering a time we were not blind and the love we cherished now long ago praying one new day might be so kind