Category: Staying sane (Page 10 of 12)

Oh my aching….

07/27/2015 / Laura

Enough already!

So you’re over 50. You’ve always been pretty healthy. You walk, exercise, keep in shape. When you see people who don’t seem to follow a healthy lifestyle, you tsk tsk them. Think they’re lazy, or wonder why they’ve given up. Don’t they want to live a long life? Aren’t they concerned about that bulging belly?

Then it starts. One day, you pull a muscle in your back. Okay, no big deal. You take a pill, get a massage, and go easy for a bit. Surely it will heal soon.

But it doesn’t. At least not completely. Isn’t that aggravating. Oh well, it could be worse.

And then it does get worse.

You jam your thumb. Stub your toe. Step off the porch and sprain your ankle. Now you have pain in several parts of your body, and you’re starting to list when you walk. What’s the deal here?

Where did your fit body go? Now you can’t go to the gym because it hurts too much. You can’t swing the golf club because your back is shot. Riding a bike doesn’t go well with your sore ankle. Even your dog is suffering because you can’t walk your usual distance due to your sore toe.

You’ve become one of them…the people you used to mentally chastise. People who are on the couch watching the Tour de France instead of walking on the treadmill. The more you stay away from the gym, the harder it is to get back…or even remember why you were going. And it seems like this happened so fast.

It just doesn’t seem fair that after a lifetime of doing the right thing, you feel sabotaged by your own body. As though you are Gulliver and all your aches and pains have tied you down…and you wake up and can’t move. And what’s the deal with these bruises that seem to pop up if you even slightly brush a wall or lean up against a car? So attractive.

All the lines, the marks, the wrinkles…they suddenly seem to define you. Yet inside, you’re 30. Sort of. Maybe you’re more like a fun-loving 30-year-old who likes to nap. And wears a big hat in the sun. And groans a bit when you get in and out of the car.

Who doesn’t?

It’s not that an ice bag or bandage or heating pad or bottle of Aleve doesn’t help us…thank heavens the opposite is true. We heal, we get back in shape, we get moving. It’s just too important to live as healthy as you can stand, so you can live a long, enjoyable life. That might mean a new knee, acupuncture in the back, foot surgery, or whatever is on the horizon.

Parts wear out. But these days, we can replace a lot of them.

Or reach for the oil can, like the tin woodman. It’s okay.

Maybe some aches and pains are Nature’s way of telling us to slow down and pay attention. To not make leisure time so grueling, and instead of trying to outrun aging, just let it be. Pace ourselves, so we can stay in shape, be healthy, and live as independently as possible.

Because getting older takes some muscle. And it’s our turn to flex it!

“You know you’re getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there.”

George Burns

Second (or third) time around.

07/13/2015 / Laura

Have you seen the movie “I’ll See You in My Dreams”? Blythe Danner plays a woman of age who fills her days with lunches on the patio, happy hours with friends, a little golf and memories of her early career as a singer. She has been a widow for 20 years and has stayed out of the dating scene…until a friend convinces her to try “speed dating”. I won’t give anything away, but I will say the results are hysterical.

She does later meet always handsome Sam Elliott, also at a point in his life where he’s tired of being alone and “testing the waters”. Again, without revealing any plot points, suffice it to say that meeting him gets her to thinking…is it too late? Is she too entrenched in her daily regimen to welcome in a romantic partner?

Is what she had so many years ago enough for a lifetime…or is it ever enough?

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I enjoyed this movie for many reasons. Blythe Danner is such a talented, glowing woman whose natural beauty shines through her wrinkles. Sam Elliott is fully white-headed and also just who he is. They don’t play games. Or try to look 30. Or immediately grab on to one another because the hourglass is emptying. I think they just meet where they are.

And I think they can do that because they are older.

it’s Nature’s last laugh it seems. When we’re young and smooth-skinned and non-bald and no stomach, we attract a lot of other attractive young bodies. But our minds can’t quite catch up sometimes. And then when our minds have figured out what truly matters and what doesn’t, we don’t feel attractive because our jeans don’t fit anymore and we need glasses and it’s a little harder to last on the dance floor.

Fear can grip us.

Do I want to try again?

Will my heart get broken?

Will he/she leave me for someone younger?

Do I have the emotional energy to date again?

Will my children accept someone new in my life?

And then the whole online thing. So many people are doing that. Some have success, others find frustration…it somehow seems backwards to trade applications and match your strong points…before ever meeting to see if that spark is there. But in today’s world, meeting people—especially after age 50—is like searching for a mouse in a cornfield. You know he/she might be out there, but you have no idea if you’ll ever cross their path.

And speed dating? Wow. They say we decide in the first 30 seconds or so whether we want to see someone again. But gosh…I fear I’d drop my index cards with my carefully written opening lines, knock over the water glass, and somehow impale myself with a fork…before I even got a word out.

Imagine who that might attract.

It’s a minefield. It brings us all, no matter our age, back to our most basic vulnerabilities. Yet in some ways, it can be easier. If we stay authentic. If we allow the other person to be the age (legs, eyes, stomach, hair/no hair) they really are. If we remember what matters most.

If we can laugh together.

And if we can just enjoy now. What do you think?

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.”

Rumi

No more hate.

07/02/2015 / Laura

It needs to stop.

The hate.

The gunfire.

The arson.

The names.

The glares.

The insulting flags that spread hate.

The indignation.

The entitlement.

We are spirit. We are all here together on this tiny planet in an unfathomably immense universe.

We are all scared, vulnerable, and trying our best to make it to the next day.

We need each other.

WE NEED EACH OTHER.

So let’s take a breath. Pray for one another.

And consider what love thy neighbor really means.

Peace be with you.

Thoughts on marriage.

06/11/2015 / Laura

Someone in my family has just celebrated a wedding anniversary. 42 years.

I think that’s amazing, because it seems like you just don’t hear about that very often. Maybe it’s happening all the time and it just doesn’t make news, while celebrity messages of 18 months grab the headlines.

To me, any couple that achieves a milestone like that is to be applauded, supported, and even studied. Obviously they didn’t go into it thinking everything was always going to be rosy. They understood there would be challenges and conflicts and bad days.

Yet they built a foundation that was strong enough to survive it all.

I’m wondering if that’s a lost art these days. We live in a very disposable society. If the phone acts up, no worries, a new one comes out next year. If you get bored with your car, well go get another one. Animal shelters are filled with dogs and cats that someone decided they didn’t really want after all.

And then there’s social media. How many relationships go sour over Facebook? How many people break up with each other over Twitter, or even more sadistically, via a text?

Where’s the glue that used to help keep couples together long enough to achieve an extended warranty?

It sure seems like couples from WWII and the 1950s stayed together longer. There just weren’t as many options for taking off, starting over, and tossing away a relationship.

Or did the movies just make us think things lasted longer…and were happier?

People are definitely marrying at older ages than they did back in the 1930s and 1940s. These days, a first marriage that ends in divorce usually lasts about 8 years. The good news more people aged 55 and older are getting remarried. Not surprisingly, men are more interested in doing this than women, maybe because studies show men enjoy more health benefits from marriage than women.

Still, I think instead of being so consumed with the latest headlines about who is cheating on whom and which Hollywood couple just made the front page and so on and so on, we should be lauding those who stay together. Through lost jobs. Sleepless nights with a newborn. In-laws. Forgotten birthdays. Recliners and football games. Tears, arguments, and disappointments.

Those who trekked through it all and made it to moments of joy, togetherness, support, fun, and friendship.

Here’s a few odd stats about marriage:

A certain sheikh and his bride decided to have a big wedding—at $100 million dollars, it holds the record for the most expensive one ever (so far).
The oldest couple to divorce (according to the Guinness Book of World Records) had been married 36 years. Both were 98 when they divorced.
The shortest Hollywood marriage on record was between Rudolph Valentino and Jean Acker. She apparently changed her mind during the service and then locked her husband out of the honeymoon suite.

One of the longest marriages on record lasted 86 years, only ending with the death of the husband at the age of 106.

I want to believe boomers are pretty good at sticking together. I want to believe that love prevails. I also know that sometimes the healthiest and best thing is for a couple to part ways, and there’s no shame in that. None of us knows what goes on behind closed doors and when it’s over, it’s over. I certainly don’t have a success story to tell in matters of the heart.

But to those of you who still look at each other over the morning cereal bowl after 30, 40, 50, 60 years and beyond: congratulations! You are the true celebrities.