Tag Archives: aging

Making Up for Lost Time

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Why do we think we always have to make up for lost time? Is time really lost? Are those tasks that we didn’t do in the past causing us to vigorously complete them now? Why is it so hard for us to focus on the present? Why are we compensating for our past? Is frantically pushing forward for the wrong cause the right thing to do? How do we get rid of the thorn in our side that won’t go away or in my case, a thistle in my finger?

Do we want to die forever seeking something from our past, or do we want to move forward freely and become a part of something bigger and better? When I was a younger, fit woman, I listened to cassette tapes with my favorite workout specialists such as Jane Fonda, Kathy Smith, or even Heather Locklear. (Whoa! Talk about the 80’s!) There were many walking tapes and I strode happily into the distance with these women, one step at a time. They inspired me and even talked about taking things One Step At A Time or Moving Freely Forward. I was always seeking a faster pace, better results from workouts, generally always looking for something leaner, better, more, more, more! What I failed to realize is that our bodies aren’t built to keep up that pace. We can never get back that twenty-something body. It is just not the way humans are built. The faster we go, the slower we gain results. So, I realized I could take that mentality and slow down just a little bit to enjoy where I am at any time in my aging self and let life evolve. After injury, or surgery or just life’s disasters, I keep part of that younger mentality, but get right back up and try something different that will work better at my age.

All the pills and ads in the world about weight loss aren’t healthy and obsessing of what we woulda, shoulda, coulda leads us down a path that is depressing. I keep trying for perfection, and yet I can also be happy where I am at this point in my life. I’m not giving up, just slowing down a little and I am learning to live with that. Every day is a journey to stay alive in this world of crazy. If I can focus on putting that one foot forward, I can focus on being the person I want to be at any given point in time. I can be happy with my accomplishments and future that is wide open. Can you say the same thing?

Here are a few great quotes to ponder on where you are at this very point in your life.

  • “You just do it. You force yourself to get up. You force yourself to put one foot before the other. You fight. You cry. You curse. Then you go about the business of living. That’s how I’ve done it. There’s no other way.”–Elizabeth Taylor
  • “If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”–Harriet Tubman
  • “You were not made for failure; you were made for victory. Go forward with a joyful confidence.”–George Eliot
  • “Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”–Rainer Maria Rilke
  • “You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.”–Amy Anderson
    Quotes from: https://www.planetofsuccess.com/blog/moving-forward-quotes/

So when the world goes to H#!! and everything dies, there will still be roaches, mosquitoes and thistle. All of our concerted efforts are for nought if we keep rushing by. So let’s just focus on what we can do for the rest of our years and slow down a little. We will never make up for our lost time, so just be in the moment every moment every day of your lives. And, yes, my metaphor (or punishment) for my lost time will be digging up that ever-present, blasted thistle in my flower beds! (Why is it sooooo resilient?) Arrrggh.

I love you all and hope you are thinking good thoughts and making magic happen for all those folks who need you!

Are We Getting Louder?

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Or: Are We Just Getting More Hearing-Impaired?
Or: Are We Just Creating More Regrets by Ignoring Each Other for Ourselves?

Every time I venture out of my sanctuary world of words and gardens for errands, grocery shopping, the gym, and especially the innumerable Doctor’s appointments, I notice that the world is a little louder than it used to be. Usually, at appointments, I try to sit in a corner away from people so I don’t have to hear the loud phone conversations (crazy discussions that should be done out of earshot of others – can you dig it?),  incessant conversations about religion, about their children or grandchildren, or something even less appealing, such as sniffling (grab a tissue already!), clearing of throats, and other general bodily noises. But alas, as doctor’s offices get busier, there are more people with appointments at the same time as me and I must endure. Usually, I bring my headphones and listen to music, read on my phone, or just put them on to avoid weird conversations. But, alas, I forgot them the other day and it was a nightmare of noise. And no matter what time I get there, I always have to wait at least 15-20 minutes.

And what’s up with people answering questions about things you didn’t even ask about when you walk by them? So annoying. I have to stop mumbling out loud! And then they get mad at you when you talk back to them. So very strange. Ahh, the aging process…. We get unwanted advice about everything, even when we don’t need it and it is delivered in an even louder voice because they think you can’t hear! And has personal space disappeared in this crowded world we live in? I am simply asking  you to just back up a little bit when you are making a point, okay?

Okay so now that I am done with my old lady rant, I’ll move on. Let’s talk a little bit about regrets:
There are times when I want to tune out the world and not go outside. And yet, I continue to venture out unless I become that recluse that I’ve loathed and mocked in the past. There are many roads I’ve not taken. I regret some of the decisions, but I am where I should be for now in hopes of taking new paths every year that I live. There are many times when I wished that I’d act differently to someone, and I would probably apologize to those who I have hurt in the past if given the chance. But with every choice I have made, the positives still outweigh the bad. It is a powerful feeling to recognize this.

Unless we have a time machine, we can’t really change our past. It’s how we cope with the choices we’ve made that makes us who we are. It’s how we overcome our past behavior to become comfortable in our own skin and create a better world. So set your goals and you can control a little of your future. Resist and redirect your obsessive thoughts into something new and innovative.

So the best thing we can do for each other is to quiet down a little and learn to listen and feel what others are feeling around us. (Trust me that is a hard thing to do!) Make time to discuss what you want to discuss with your friends outside of public places such as the doctor’s waiting room! There is plenty of room outside in the sunshine (or shade on hot days) to rant, vent or just be loud to each other. Respect the people around you then go home to your sanctuary and create more fun food with your ever-present zucchini!

Chicken Salad and Zucchini Fritters!

My heart goes out to all of you tonight and hope you are not in those flooding areas east of us!

Every Wrinkle Tells a Story

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Or: Love and Respect through the Ages
WRINKLE: A small furrow, ridge, or crease on a normally smooth surface, caused by crumpling, folding, or shrinking; A line or crease in the skin, as from age; a clever trick, method, or device, especially one that is new and different;
a problem or imperfection; a fault
WRINKLY: adjective wrinkly; comparative adjective wrinklier; superlative adjective: wrinkliest-having many lines or folds.
Urban dictionary: A cute old person

So I haven’t posted since Mother’s Day and life has once again gotten in the way of my pursuit for harmony and peace. I broke my rib and it was a road that I had not wanted to take, and a painful one to say the least. I still hate emergency rooms and hospitals in general, and hope to never go back! Needless to say, the old part of me felt it. Although I am recuperating fast, I have learned something about paying attention to the little things in life, such as not carrying a ton of things in my hands while walking down the stairs! Knees don’t always work the way we want them to. From now on, one hand on the rail at all times. You don’t realize how much you must pay attention to little things as you age in order to live another day.

Having said all that, I feel like I am slowly accepting help when I need help, though I grit my teeth and chastise myself for putting myself into that situation. I appreciate my spouse, and forgive all his grumblings. I hope he understands everything that I do all the time during the day now that he has had to do it. I hope he appreciates me as much as I appreciate him every day.

He was a life saver in my grand scheme of the garden. This weekend, we weeded (thistle is my nemesis!), planted flowers and bushes, and planted some of the vegetables, except for the tomatoes. They are still in pots. The rain has been both wonderful and crazy. I love the green, but not the weeds! The raised beds have been a fantastic addition since I don’t bend as well right now. We’ll see what comes up!

I have been thinking about all the wrinkles that have come up in my life, especially since I now know that I am not invincible (I KNOW! Harsh reality sets in permanently!) Every day I try to have a positive attitude about these life lessons. I look at my physical wrinkles as an accomplishment, not one that needs to be faded away with all the expensive cremes from late night advertisements. I look at each one with love, and thank them for allowing me to be here a little longer on this plane of existence.

Wrinkles in life happen and that makes us grow. Sometimes we take a new direction each time there is a wrinkle in the road, and sometimes it is a better path. And sometimes we re-live our mistakes in our heads too many times and forget to take the new fork in the road. When we can resolve a current problem, we can move forward to the next phase in our life and accept that things are always changing. We have to drive around and as we process old blockages, we move forward.

If we can focus on the good even in the overwhelming chatter of the bad things out in the world, we can finish our work – the work that we were put on this earth to do. If the negativity begins to give you more wrinkles, try and take a step back and fix the problem that is disrupting your journey.

Try to read more about love and acceptance and stop blaming everyone else. Try to have a perspective that cares about the world, and all of its people. Do something wonderful each day, no matter how small the task is. Learn to appreciate your wrinkles, and how you got them. Learn how to learn something new every day that you live. Finish one task at a time and move on to the next. Before you know it, you will have lived a wonderful life and no one can take that away from you. Love who you are, wrinkles and all.

I send out love and positivity tonight to everyone!

Observations on Aging and the Unobtainable

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Or: I’m Allergic to Botox! Having never been in the Most Beautiful Girl in the Room Club, I don’t understand why so many of us women are obsessed with doing everything in their power to look young and beautiful forever. And then, make it our objective to diminish and pick apart the flaws of those who are noticed by a different sex more than we are. Why do we resent this acknowledgement of others’ beauty? Why don’t we women stick together and rally for all of our outer and inner beauty as well as all of our accomplishments? Why do we gang up on those that are either less beautiful, or so beautiful that others turn their attention to them? Why can’t we be happy with who we are at any given moment?

I recently read a series called The Wilder Widows by Katherine Hastings (who is neither a senior nor a widow, by the way). It was a nice light read and allowed me a minute to laugh at these senior and widowed ladies’ adventures and discoveries of who they had become. One of the widows that I found particularly discouraging about her thoughts of what she felt she had to be, and what her life choices were. She believed that she didn’t deserve unconditional love. The character grew up in a poor household and didn’t have anything. She was belittled for her long legs and looks when she was a child and swore she would rise above it all. She became a trophy wife and eventually a Las Vegas dancer. Each year it got harder and harder to keep up with the younger generation and the beauty regimens that include, Botox, or facelifts had begun to fail her. When her husband died, she inherited his wealth and status. She continued to be the life of the party and had many sexual encounters with younger and younger men. But, she hadn’t yet found true love (if there is such a thing). When she finally decided (with the help of her friends) that she could take a chance on a person she loved, she had a hard time with showing him the real person underneath all the spackle. But, like any true love story, it all worked out in the end. She told him her real age, and what was happening to her body, and he took her into his arms and said he loved her and wanted to grow old with her no matter what.

We all obsess over what we should feel and look like. Although the media has gotten better at portraying beauty and joie de vivre in women of all shapes and sizes, there are so many of us that still feel the pain of being the weird, nerdy shy kid (me), or that tall skinny kid (my sister), or that really poor kid, or that fat kid down the street that everyone teased, or that kid who dressed funny because they didn’t identify as a male or female. We didn’t fit into the perceived mold, and felt estranged of what a kid should be (the portrayal of what was a normal kid) at that time.

We all age differently and we have to try and accept where we are at any time in our lives. Sure I can’t keep up with the twenty-somethings, but that doesn’t stop me from exercising. Sure I don’t look like what I did in my twenties, but I am happy where I am at this time in my life. I stopped obsessing on finding just the right outfit and wear what I want. Now, if I could only find the right shoes to make my feet happy, I would be in heaven on earth!

Aging can enlighten us, or inhibit us. If we use it as an excuse because we are afraid to try something new, we miss out. If we fear of being left alone, because our spouse might go before us, we need to embrace the fact that one of us will probably die before the other and prepare ourselves for embracing some alone time. If we have FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) we need to do all the things that we want to do together while we are alive. A friend of mine who became a doctor once said to me: “Currently, there is no cure for aging.” While that is partially true, we should think about the concept that aging does not need a cure because it is not a disease. We have to take that personal responsibility that we will change as we age, and that’s okay. We can focus on what is important at any given time and save the rest for a later date. If our skin gets dry, we use lotion. If we want to keep our hair gray, that’s okay, but a little color can go a long way. If our body hurts more than when we were young, we just do something different. It’s okay to slow down and walk, instead of run. It’s okay to take a day off and rest. And, if we forget names, we keep a journal and/or make lists of things that are important to us. We can take steps to enjoy all the times in our lives. I plan on being that 130-year-old grandma who has a whoop-it-up dance party to celebrate my life. More information on age and aging and other subjects on how to live a great life can be found in my book Discover the Life You Want to Live.

What we look out on the outside doesn’t define who we are on the inside. Everything we do in life and our actions in the world is a part of who we are at any time in our lives. To some women, image is everything. Accepting ourselves the way we are at any given moment is the most important thing we can achieve in life.

David Brooks in his book, How to Know a Person stated that “A person is a point of view [emphasis mine].” He said that “Your mind creates a world, with beauty and ugliness…and you live within that construction….” We all have our perception of beauty and staying young. We can embrace the world at any time if we support each other and respect where we are at any given moment.

I love you all tonight and hope you are having a wonderful night wherever you may be (in time and space!)

See the Beauty in the Dark While You are Still in It

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–Quote for title is from The Flower Sisters, by Michelle Collins Anderson
Even in the darkest times, the stars will shine in the night skies, and bring hope to those who look up. Darkness can be calming, or it can become a nightmare. It’s how you interact with it that makes your life better or worse. If you can embrace your life as it is, knowing that the sun will, indeed, come up tomorrow, you can live in your own skin. You can accept that there will always be dark times, but hope does spring eternal, and we can look forward to another day of living.

Today was a reflection day of where we are going and why the turmoil is making us frazzled human beings. A co-worker died just a few days ago and it was a shock to my system. He was younger than me, and seemed in good health. Although we didn’t know each other well, we shared funny jokes and silliness. We had just said “Hey” to each other a few days ago and didn’t think anything of it. Sometimes I feel I am lucky that I haven’t gotten there yet, aches and pains and all. And sometimes I wonder what it will be like when my time comes. Will there be an afterlife? Will I come back? Answers that are beyond me at this point even though I ponder it. I hope for a very long life and sharing knowledge and love every day that I am given on this planet. I hope this co-worker found peace and happiness wherever and whenever he is in this time-space continuum. In Anderson’s book, The Flower Sisters, the grandmother was an undertaker for her small town, and had this to say when receiving a body and regarding death: “No one is special; no one is spared. It is a concept that is both infuriating and comforting, depending on my mood….”

As we age, we all think of ourselves as that eighteen-year-old kid who was bright-eyed and prepared for anything: going off to college, or trade school, traveling the world, or to fight in a  war. And we fled our homes in hopes that our lives would have meaning and we would make a difference in the world. We wanted to change who we were. We wanted to be different from our parents and ancestors. Yet, we understood that we couldn’t change where or who we’d come from, but those old places we lived, depending on the history, the good and the bad feelings, would stay with us throughout our lives. Many of us decided to stay close to home, and live our lives, in close proximity to our families and on our ancestors’ lands. But many of us ventured out into the world and tried to become someone else. The memories and heritage would always stay with us, but some of us knew that we wanted to create a different community and raise our families with those who were more likely to embrace a future that would be better for all.

Hopefully, we all found our place in the world, and our stories mingled with those new people in our lives. Hopefully, we were able to reconcile where we came from and where we were headed: towards a different future.

There will always be those heritage memories and some of us are able to reconcile our past with our current states. Some of us write about these memories to help us have a heart that is full but also open to new adventures and live a life that is full of love.

It’s hard to think of yourself as aging and needing help in the future. It’s hard to talk about parents that are gone, or aren’t aging as well as you are. But, we have to take care of our past, and our elders and pass on this sense of duty to our children.

My hope is that when we need help, our child will understand that it’s okay to help us take care of ourselves. We don’t want to become elders, yet it is going to happen. My questions for tonight are: “Why is this such a hard concept to those in power? Why is our country diminishing those in need right now?” Is it because they are afraid to get old? Don’t they understand that no amount of money will buy you out of your ending? It will happen when it happens.

I am taking this opportunity to tell the world this: Take care of yourself, but also take care of your elders. It’s okay if they weren’t the greatest parents and grandparents to you. They did the best they could. And I would like to tell the people in power: Take a moment to reflect before you cut services to those in need.

I love you all, and hope you can wrap your arms around those you hold dear. Hold them close as long as you can.