Let’s see. So far we’ve had Black Friday that started on Thursday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and today is Giving Tuesday. The stores are playing Christmas music, the aisles are packed with way more stuff than during the rest of the year, and retailers want our money. On Black Friday my husband and I bought a can of stain ... Read More »
“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” Anaïs Nin, Winter of Artifice As I continue to go through things I’ve inherited and to clean out things I simply stuffed into some ... Read More »
Last night a friend (we’ll call her “Heather”) and her husband “Alan” came over for dinner. We had a lovely evening with good food and good conversation. I found myself thinking back to Still Alice, the movie I saw last weekend about a woman trying to hang onto as much of herself as she could while early onset dementia crept ... Read More »
When I was young I thought of older women as grannies. My grandmother wore her housedress most of the time. I never saw her wear slacks until I was a teenager and the extended family was at a lake in Minnesota where the adults, including my grandmother, were fishing. I guess when you’re in a rowboat catching slippery fish you ... Read More »
Every once in awhile I look around various places on the internet to see what I may be missing. I came upon this video about aging this morning and found it interesting. Check it out for yourself. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc4yK0zZ-cQ Face it: we live in an anti-aging society. The only actual alternative to aging is death, though, so why fight aging? Why ... Read More »
The whole process of aging is challenging. Things happen to remind us of what we no longer have or can do. For example, this morning I was behind a skinny little pretzel of a young woman in yoga. I’ll tell you, my body just doesn’t do what hers does. None the less, I’m grateful to be able to participate in ... Read More »
Only a few of those born into this world survive the vicissitudes of infancy, childhood and maturity. And this, by the way, is most fortunate; for otherwise if all lived to be old and the burden of caring for them in their increasing helplessness were thus added to the burden of caring for the helpless young, this would be a ... Read More »
Have you ever gone crazy with a new hobby? Did you go out and buy way more stuff than you needed to support this hobby. You didn’t call it stuff. You called it equipment or supplies, something that made it sound not only important but also necessary. I’m guilty of this. Over the past 38 years I’ve accumulated clown ... Read More »
What kind of legacy do you want to leave? Is it important to you that people remember who you are, that they have an accurate picture of the person that’s YOU? If so, it’s time to record our life story. Your parents probably began this when you were born. Most do. They go crazy with the camera and record ... Read More »
ecently I came upon an article about grief gambling syndrome, something I hadn’t learned about in my masters programs. It brought to mind one of my hospice patients who wanted to know if it was alright for her and her caregiver to go to Atlantic City to the casino. Since hospice is about living as fully as you can for ... Read More »
Todays Gray Matters Valuing the Wisdom & Purpose In Aging Well