Relationships Archives

Contrary to some views that being single, especially in our senior years, is a bad thing, many are embracing the single life and all the benefits it can bring. Many are finding that being single gives them a life without tension and conflict. They have found fulfillment in other life choices – travel, hobbies. Seniors can find a very fulfilling and enriched life through other types of support systems. Seniors are enjoying their independence and living their life by their own rules and no one else's. The key to having a happy retirement is to find a new stage and a new audience for yourself to shine. Find a community that is expecting/waiting for you to show up every day or every week, that will give you the reason to get out of bed and dress up. You can find your new audience online or offline, you can join an existing community or create your own community. You want to give more than you take, you want the audience to see your value and appreciate you for your show up. Help Other Seniors Just read a story about local volunteers here in New Mexico where retired seniors help out seniors that are housebound or restricted in other ways. They fill the great need of being friends to people that may not have family around and some are unable to get out and visit with friends. The article was interesting in that it didn’t interview the recipients of the volunteering, instead, it emphasized the benefits that the volunteers felt they were getting from the program. The bonds and friendships forged with the seniors they were befriending. They felt their lives were very enriched by the selfless act they were performing. Warms the heart! Take A Mature Driver Courses I just thought I’d share a bit of info that I stumbled on - if you need some type of refresher course or reinforcement of good driving habits - there are courses available geared specifically to senior drivers. It’s online and can lead to a discount on insurance. I don’t believe this type of program is publicized enough to spread the word. Find Your Community On Facebook If you haven’t tried out Facebook – you ought to. I was leary at first – there are so many social sites and I have never found one that I was all that comfortable with but Facebook is a whole different story. Previously Myspace was the big boy in town but was geared towards younger more tech-savvy individuals. I joined it but never felt it was easy to read about others – the profile was not very easy to explore, sometimes the visuals were not that easy on my old eyes. Facebook is easy to read, easy to navigate and if you join, building your profile and uploading pictures is a very painless experience... Parents and grandparents are finding it the easiest way to keep up with their children and grandchildren especially if they are living in different locations. My kids live thousands of miles from me and don’t own a computer. BUT – via Facebook, I’m keeping up with their friends' activities which usually my daughters are part of. So via their friends, I can see pictures of my kids and keep up with their lives to a certain extent. Be A Foster Grandparent So, maybe you’re retired and finding yourself with too much time on your hands – and wondering what type of volunteering you are cut out for. If you have an affection for kids and can see how in this day and age, kids are often neglected and abandoned, foster grandparenting may be the right fit for you. Senior Corps has a great program. From their site, you can search by state to find a local program. You read in the paper all the time about single-parent families or children that are in a bad environment through no fault of their own. The input they can receive from a positive role model, someone who shows them some attention can change their lives forever. Find Love On Internet One of the biggest issues regarding senior life is loneliness from time to time. Such a sad condition and depending on the severity, hard to “fix”. I’m going to put my small personal experience here. I went through a divorce after 26 years of marriage. I don’t drink and love to stay home. I was lonely (had been lonely for many years during the marriage) -but my lifestyle didn’t make it easy to meet people. You have to reach out – I finally decided to use the internet to meet men. Match.com was my primary tool. Did it for a couple of years. Now I’m married to one of my Cyber guys – been together for 7 years and get along great. The internet can be a great place to connect with friends, meet new people and develop relationships. Even if you develop a penpal type relationship. Someone to connect with – someone with similar interests. I found it a life savior for me. Find Love In The Neighbourhood Most of us only wish for love, everything we do in life is to be loved a little bit more. Although this couple met late in life, that fact only enhanced their love and appreciation for each other. Like so many events in our life, it’s only when we are older that we appreciate the people in our lives. Carl Buck learned a lesson after losing his first wife when he was 39 years old. He regretted his long workdays and career obligations as a Boeing engineer that kept him from enjoying more time with family. He experienced extreme regret that haunted him for over 20 years. He remembered a nice woman who had lived in his neighborhood at one time and heard that she had recently lost her husband. He decided not to let the opportunity pass him by and he called her. They married 6 months later – despite the fact that Joan had multiple sclerosis and was wheelchair-bound. Carl retired to enable him to take care of her full time. They lived together for 16 years. Eventually, he was unable to care for her and was forced to put her in a home. To make the separation more bearable, Carl moved into a house right next door to the home she was placed in. He’s now able to visit her twice a day, scooting over to the nursing home in his walker. He spends hours sitting with her, feeding her lunch, and just talking to her. As I said – most of us only dreamed of being loved this much. Start A Blog I always think of the fun and informative strength we have with the internet at our fingertips. But, people have found more worthwhile causes and reasons to utilize the net. I read about a blog dedicated to the progress of a gravely ill baby. Miraculously, against all odds, the baby survived and is now home although not out of the woods. But the article was covering the benefits of a blog in this case. A family member suggested it to the family as a tool to keep everyone in touch on the day-to-day reports while the baby was in the hospital. Instead of exhausting the parents further after a long day spent at the hospital calling relatives and giving the updated medical condition, the parents blogged the report at the end of the day. The family and friends could be kept in the loop without expecting the parents to call and inform everyone. Took the burden of the parents and they say it ended up being very therapeutic. Family and friends could comment and encourage. The parents weren’t tech-savvy but with a little help, they found blogging to be a beneficial tool for their situation. Great story – especially since the baby is doing so well. Help Mentor A Teen A woman who was teaching English at a local senior living center also took on the job of helping a handful of teens to learn English after being adopted by local American parents. She chose to combine the two classes and has been delighted to find out that the combining has paid off more than she ever hoped. The teens learned very quickly from the residents and the residents enjoyed the interesting children with their experiences of living in Ukraine. Strange observation – the teens were surprised at the ages of many of the residents. In Ukraine, the average life expectancy for men is 61. Take A Retirement Cruise Have you heard of this concept? I like the idea but not for an all-year-round answer. But that is exactly what some seniors are doing. The low cost of cruising can actually be a saving to some. You have a room, room service, entertainment, and most importantly – food and no shortage of it. Everything included. Compared to the cost of some senior communities this is quite the deal. And of course, you can meet other retired friends, you might even find a new romance. Have A Working Retirement Holiday Well, sort of. A couple of years back, my future husband and I met 2 seniors while we were on vacation – who travel around the world, working at various tourists attractions – for example, they had worked the park at the Grand Canyon ridge for a few months and said they loved this carefree exciting life of travel and opportunity. Their kids were bugging them to settle down but they were having way too much fun. I picture my retirement as lying on a warm beach and possibly visiting the wonders of the world. But if your tendencies lean towards travel, this would be the answer. Get More Sister Friends Interesting fact of life – due to women outliving their male counterparts, women are pulling together to support each other in our last days. I never thought of it that way, but I have worried about living out my days alone, especially my very last days. It’s good to know the “sisterhood” sticks together right to the end. The fact is that there is a good chance that women will turn to their female friends at the end. Perhaps, the unfortunate fact is that men do not live as long as women will turn around at some point. Current studies show that part of the reason for the unbalanced life span is that women are better at heeding medical advice, more willing to go to the doctor and ask questions. It’s in our nature to share. In sharing, we learn. Give Birth To A Baby It’s beyond me why anyone would tackle being a mother at the age of 66. Even with a longer life expectancy, the numbers are staggering. A sixty-six-year-old UK British businesswoman is pregnant. Elizabeth Munro will beat the previous British record for having a baby. She reportedly underwent in vitro fertilization with donor eggs. The saddest part of this story is the desire for this woman to make this a private event and now that the cat is out of the bag, I’m sure the newshounds will make her life difficult, to say the least. It is hard for me to fathom since I looked forward to my senior years minus the children but everyone has different goals and different passions. But, 86 when your kid is in college? Hard to wrap your head around….. Move-In With Other Seniors According to census data, the cases of seniors living together versus tying the knot have gone up 50 percent in the past 5 years. Most of the reasons cited were based on financial consequences that come with marriage. Many seniors are hurt by marriage – widows stand to lose social security, pension, or survivor’s annuity income. It’s also a factor in nursing home costs – if Medicaid is necessary for long-term costs, a spouse's income and assets must be used to pay for the nursing care prior to the availability of Medicaid. No longer is living together considered taboo – is considered a smart move. Get A Pet Dog Dogs can comfortable the hearts, fill the waste lives and be a loyal messenger to most of us. And in the past integrate for decades their talents and comprehension have been tapped to assist humans to strike earthy stipulations and disabilities. Canine Solutions for Seniors is a good e.g. of the await we can embrace from canines. Lessons have been tailored to the dogs receiving in causes such as their age and temperament. The dogs have been taught elementary tasks – similar to support in removing dressed, sense to rapt someone of alarms, to pickup forsaken equipment – the precision is tailored to the needs of the individual. Another good choice – classes have been conducted to assist seniors to sight their dogs so they can keep their house pet and the house pet can sense to assistance the comparison out. A win-win situation. Start An Artistry Business Anne Cole is an internationally recognized violin maker. Her passion for restoring and building musical instruments reared its head when she was only a seventh-grader who decided to restore her school instrument which was damaged by normal wear and tear as well as graffiti added by various schoolmates of Anne’s. Cole is now 64 years old and makes her living doing what she loves – creating beautiful instruments for musicians from all over the world. Her craft is unique to each musician depending on what type of sound they desire. Not only are the instruments beautiful in sound, but the workmanship also put into the visual appeal is over and above what you will find. She also hand carves faces and designs that she chooses based on the musician. Cole is also a musician who makes for a perfect union between music and art. Visit Anne’s site to see her work. Try Weed With Friends Recently we have felt an opposite greeting to adults who chose to extract smoking weed. With the wider authorized acceptance, people additionally feel freer to verbalize up about their own personal have made use of marijuana. Baby boomers have been in the forefront of this transformation to ventilate there have made use of of of and to assistance show which smoking pot does not have you into a distracted violent dreg of the multitude as portrayed in impute madness. The government’s many new consults which have to make use of amongst people 50-59 has doubled to 10 percent in 2007. Some of these users never stopped regulating them by their adult lives whilst others have been people which took a mangle whilst raising their family groups and have been right away returning to smoking. Baby boomers contend they have been justification which smoking pot and heading a normal hold up and being obliged can go palm in hand. I found a story about an 88-year-old lady who detected pot in her 50’s and is right away an everyday smoker. She likes to relax and attend to songs and believes it helps her creativity. In further – she says it helps her corner pain. Be A Profitable Pot Farmer I find the developments in the acceptance of marijuana and the occupation of growing marijuana a very interesting phenomenon. A lot of progress has been made in the past 10 years to legitimize pot and educate the public to its benefits This leads me up to a story about an outlaw of our generation by the name of John Robert Boone. Boone is a 67-year-old Kentucky pot grower who is currently on the run from the law to avoid a life sentence for growing pot. He’s busted for growing previously and even served ten years at one point. He’s described as a “tattooed Santa Claus”. He hails from Kentucky and the citizens in that area have nothing but good things to say about Boone. They are supporting him in his current predicament and say they wouldn’t tell the authorities where he’s hanging out even if they knew. His friends claim that growing pot was a matter of survival for many farmers trying to keep their land and homes. His fellow farmers also say he’s a good guy that always helped others when they were down on their luck. It’s a great story about people taking risks for a good man. I think it would make a great movie. Time has changed, growing a certain amount of marijuana is not only legal but also profitable in many states. Read More Books Stephen King is one of the most well-known and successful authors of horror novels in our lifetime. Even if you haven’t read his books, you’ve probably seen movies based on his works. He’s now still very busy with projects. His sight has a full page of current and future projects. He’s involved with audio and online literature. His works have changed over the decades and so has my personal taste in authors so I’m not up to date on his most recent works but I feel like a handful of his novels will always be my own “personal classics” – The Stand (read it 4 times), The Green Mile (sobbed as I’ve never sobbed for a book before), and the Talisman (co-author Peter Straub). Still has many years and many novels in his – and our – future. Growing old with King! Start Estate Planning A phrase I hear often, working with various attorneys. Not something that is very popular this time of year. Holidays and all that good stuff. But a recent article I read as planted a seed for me – be concise and plan. Express your wishes while you are still on this earth. Do it for the ones you leave because if not – family conflict will ensue. You see it all the time. Even when there is not a big estate to leave, the family will find something to fight about. Plan For A Road Trip Well – another negative about this aging process – all the necessities when traveling. I remember the days when remembering to bring enough underwear was a priority, now I have broken down and bought one of these plastic daily allotments of vitamins and pills. I feel so out of sorts without my daily dosage of vitamin E and my Silver Centrum daily vitamin. So much for spontaneous trips. Planning has become part of my nature and now I am a big fan of these nicely sorted and labeled pill dispensers. Try Modelling I love this town and their ability to laugh at themselves and being willing to poke a little fun of themselves for a good cause. The ages of the models range from 62-92 for my local Senior Retirement Community. Last year the calendar was filled with senior women – this year the men got into the act. It is a great way to meet new friends and have a fun time together. Take Care Of Your Gray Hair In the past couple of years I’ve backed up on my dark colors – as I aged I could see what they mean about harsh contrast, lighten up as you get older, and all that great advice. I was reading an article recently about the increase of women age 40s–70s bucking the majority and sporting their gray color. I would love to go that way, but not all women are equally gray. Some are lucky to have better texture and color. Silvery color, thick rich texture. Mine is drab, ugly, stripped-down looking, straw-like textured, gray. Runs in my family. I’m jealous of these women that can forgo the cost, time, and intake of obnoxious fumes I’m still willing to endure for now. Hopefully, better hair products can get my natural gray hair into better shape soon, so I can age like those elegant retired celebrities.