Tag: positive aging

January’s Quieter Voice

January can be pretty loud. For many, it seems demanding. Get a resolution, a word, a challenge, a life. Make some damn changes, it yells. After all the excess of the holiday season, we often welcome this voice. I have heard it for years and usually stood at attention when it spoke. I needed some directional change.

But this year, it sounds a lot like a selah, a sigh. Have a seat, it says.

For so many years, January’s demanding voice led me to agree with the “New Year New You” theme. And I made lists and came up with words and set intentions. After all, how do we make changes if not intentionally?

But this year not so much. There’s a boatload of things that get harder as we get older. But there are things that get easier, more uncomplicated, as well. 

So if I had to choose a word, it would be one that didn’t demand anything. It would be the quiet, softly spoken word, CONTINUE.

Continue what you’re doing. Continue to put love as your highest priority. Continue to laugh, encourage, and be kind. Continue to eat well, lift heavy things, move. Continue writing.

I am realizing it’s time to enjoy the fruit of all those resolution years. Being content with where we’re at doesn’t mean we stop growing. But when we’re happy with who we have grown to be, we can be assured that “we can stay in motion with the same speed and direction,” Isaac Newton (in his not really written book), How to Enjoy the Aging Process.

So at this start of January, if we are prompted to make a change, we can trust that it will move us more fully into who we want to become. But if we don’t hear anything, maybe we simply accept who we have become and add it to the list of “Benefits of Growing Older.”

Maybe it’s time to focus on making THAT list bigger.

Let’s Lift

As we grow older, we are hopefully becoming stronger— physically, emotionally, and mentally. While we likely have glitches in all three, it’s possible to become stronger in big and small ways.

On I can hear everyone arguing about the aches in joints, the constant trying to remember where we put our phones, the fatigue brought on by loss and pain. 

I have the same arguments. But I’m challenging the notion that it all points to getting weaker. I think most of us would acknowledge we have made much progress in our thinking. Maybe we have set boundaries where there used to be none. Perhaps we refuse to beg for acceptance when we feel unwanted. We have learned when to say yes. And no.

Our thoughts about growing older matter and sometimes we have to push past someone else’s ideas. When I was diagnosed with osteoporosis, I was immediately prescribed medication. “You’re a female with a smaller frame. It’s inevitable.” Just the medical community’s long arm reaching for prescription drugs. Is that really the only answer?

So I did some research on how to build stronger bones. “Lift heavy things” was the biggest takeaway. So I bought a couple sets of dumbbells and started lifting. While I had to start at relatively light weight, I’ve gradually been able to lift heavier. I still haven’t had another dexa scan, which I believe will show change, but even if it doesn’t and I wind up needing to consider medication, I’m not going down without a fight. I’m getting stronger in the process.

All our collective experience, especially the hard things, has brought us wisdom so we can confront challenges differently. I had previously allowed someone to treat me poorly because of their need for power. Nope. Wisdom says never again.

And there’s so many ways to learn and grow. I love finding books that challenge my thinking. Not just clicking and scrolling my way to discouragement and even despair. But intentionally choosing what crosses my eyes.

It takes little strength to lift people along the way. Just a decision to be the reason someone feels seen. It can be a smile or a kind word to someone we encounter in our day. Or reaching out to someone we know is going through a challenge. It’s asking the question: How can I get out of my own small world?

I’m older than I’ve ever been. And I’m also stronger. I made a decision to lift: lift weights, lift thoughts, lift people along the way. One tiny degree more than yesterday. Older and wiser. Older and more emotionally stable. Older and stronger.

Let’s not allow others to define our season. What we think about our aging process matters.

Lightening Our Heaviness

An author I follow recently wrote an essay detailing how she felt out of sorts. She is in her late 40s and going through things with family and kids and career. 

Her first piece of advice to herself and others was to “empty your purse” so you can look at everything that’s in there. She was carrying heavy things and they were causing the purse to “cut into her shoulders.”

The purse analogy is a good one. But I couldn’t connect with it personally. My heart had been feeling heavy too. Why couldn’t I just empty my purse like she did?

And I finally realized that heavy things are different when we are in our 40s and mid 50s. They are often things that, to some extent, can be lightened. I used to say yes to everything. And then one day “the straw that broke it all” would get thrown in. And it became too much.

So I would sit down and figure out how to lighten my life. Maybe it didn’t get perfectly lightened, but it was a touch easier and my shoulder didn’t hurt quite so much. Everything is relative that way. 

But today? I’m pretty much doing just the things I want to do. That heavy feeling still creeps in though. Sometimes it feels like every cell in my body is weight training. 

During this season, my shoulder feels ok. But my heart? That feels heavy a lot. And I think that’s generally the case as we approach our 60s and beyond. We aren’t carrying things so much as we are carrying people. Obviously we carry people in our younger years too. But as we get older, we’re not doing 100 other things as well. 

Some of the differences:

1. We don’t just have children who are young adults; we have very adult children who are out making decisions and living their lives. And there’s often grandchildren in the mix as well. They go through all the ups and downs of life, and we feel all the bumps with them. There’s just not much we can do about any of it.

2. Our circle of friends is likely smaller, but we care more deeply about each one inside it. During this season, they are going through more personally, either with their families or themselves. There’s relational issues and maybe issues with their families. They are losing family members and friends they were once close with. We know their pain and carry it with them.

3. Fear can creep in over health, and the health of people we love. Everybody is going through something. We carry it all. Because we care.

It helps to acknowledge that this season is different. Very little is being written about how life changes in our 60s and 70s. And I doubt there’s anything much about the 80s and 90s. 

Most of what’s different today can’t be changed. There’s no purse lightening activity available. The most we can do is recognize all that’s in our hearts. I have found that getting together with a friend and just sharing life helps. Often, if it is a particularly heavy time, one of us will say, “You’re carrying a LOT right now.” 

Just having our hearts “seen” by someone who knows us well helps us breathe a little deeper. Sharing our hearts, and helping someone else feel seen by sharing theirs, may help to lighten heaviness just a bit.

Because at this season as well, everything is relative that way.

Conversations with Friends

I used to observe that when older people got together, it seemed all they talked about were health problems. I remember thinking how sad that was. Can’t they talk about something else, I thought. Change the subject.

But what I didn’t understand then was that all groups of friends talk abut what they are going through at that moment. There’s dating, career challenges, finances. Pregnancy, morning sickness, doctor appointments. Parenting, relational issues, toddlers. It happens in every age group.

Younger people may be uncomfortable listening to older adults talk about health issues. It can feel depressing. But when older people get together, it really helps to talk about all the things. The challenges of getting older are many. And we can’t really understand something until we walk through it. 

Our new “normals” have changed a lot. I am no longer working, my husband is about to retire, I have five doctor appointments this month. Yes five. I feel like my father.

But what makes it all seem more “normal” is that my friends are going through similar things. We share thoughts on what we do all day, how to find purpose in these years, the health challenges we face, things our older kids are going through, where we should go for coffee. And happy hour. You know, all the things.

No one need worry about us having these discussions. Most often, once we’re done being with our likeminded friends, we shift our focus to what others are going through. We probably have a little understanding of what they’re going through because at this age we likely have been there too.

So when we overhear a group of likeminded friends discussing things we find uncomfortable or obsessive, let’s remember that they are processing a stage of life that they’re trying to understand.

The subject doesn’t need to change. A good discussion with friends that understand is better than therapy. Well, actually, it IS therapy.