The Freaky Parts of Getting Older

My husband and I are very active and healthy. However, we both tend to be clumsy from time to time. I have broken a foot bowling (but I got a strike and applause) and a wrist slipping on ice. And don’t get me started on the skin I’ve scraped off while body surfing on pavement over the years.

A while back, my sweetie got a late start to walk the three miles to his doctor’s appointment, and was hurrying, his mind on the time and not on the high spots in our aging city sidewalks. Only a block from home,  he tripped and went down hard, slicing his forehead open on his safety glasses, and grotesquely dislocating his little finger. Back home he bled for a trip to the ER. After a lifetime spent in the Emergency Room, we were waiting for discharge when a sweet young thing came in and announced that she was from the Occupational Therapy Department and wanted us to participate in a study.

She explained that she would come into our home and help us make changes to increase our safety living there. She had been alerted by one of their Emergency Room red flags: patient over 65 who fell. I was both freaked out and tickled. My sweetie’s first smile of the day showed he also saw the humor in this situation. I tried to let her down gently. “That probably wouldn’t be a good use of your time. When we’re in St. Louis, we live in a four-story townhouse; when we’re not, we climb 14,000-ft mountains. At both places we have lots of steps, hardwood floors or carpet, no throw rugs, and lots of handrails.” Her face fell. Her quota for studies was not going to be met.

After she left and we shared a laugh, it gave me pause to think. It’s nice that people are on top of that, even if we don’t fit the profile. Many people our age do, especially if they have chronic disease and are more sedentary. A diabetic with neuropathy who has reduced feeling in his feet and hands is at great risk for falling, burning, and other accidents. Having a survey of the specific home situation and getting a good medical history could save his life. An ER visit is a good trigger, especially if he doesn’t visit the doctor on a regular basis. In retrospect, we should probably have gone ahead with the study. It would have increased her understanding that “old people” come in a wide range of health and capabilities. Next time, I really will consider it.

What Really Matters

Okay, I admit there are a lot of changes at almost 65 that I’m not crazy about. What I’m totally behind, however, is that quality of life is firmly rooted in our relationships. It’s all about loving without reservation.

I love my husband to distraction and, sometimes I’m sure, his annoyance. I adore my son and daughter-in-law; and don’t get me started on those gifted fascinating creatures who are my granddaughters.

And ah, my sisters, rare women all. What would life be like without their support and perspectives? I love my parents with a touch of desperation, as they seem to be gradually slipping out of my embrace. I know our time together is fleeting. With all the others, it could be, but we don’t know.

Then there are those rare friendships that color my life and are totally worth fighting for. Friendships are chosen relationships and sometimes defy logic. Those friends we have chosen may resist our efforts to keep them, perhaps because they believe we don’t have, or no longer have, much in common. True, we may be going different directions with our lives, but I see 30 years of loving someone as enough in common and worth working on. And I see a burning common interest and the promise of achievement worth staying around for.

So focus on all the loves in your life and helping them flourish and shine. The aches and pains and things that go bump in the night pale in comparison to the light of those precious souls illuminating our lives.

I Was Right About Skiing

When I was about 11, my dad took me skiing for the first (and last) time. It was the most humiliating day of my life. I couldn’t stop on those darn skis even snowplowing like I’d been taught. Down I went. Down I went. Down I went. Just trying to get across an almost level area to the other side was fraught with peril. I started sliding, was able to grab onto a low sign before my feet when out from under me, and I was left hanging from the sign with an entire crowd of people laughing their heads off. I was never going skiing again! And I didn’t.

After a long and fairly accident-prone life, and being in the health management field, I have become convinced that as we age, by pushing ourselves, we will continue to function physically and mentally at a higher level longer than if we don’t. After last week, I’m thinking under certain circumstances, it can also get us killed.

Case in point: we belong to two different chapters of our University of Michigan alumni association: Denver and St. Louis. The Denver group has some frantically active members who do all kinds of things, including climbing mountains.

We found out they were climbing a numbered peak of 13,760 ft to apply for the right to name it: Wolverine Peak, naturally. Two weeks before that, they were climbing another “thirteener” so we decided it would make a good training hike. Now we have climbed 30 peaks over 14,000 ft, and two peaks of 19,000+ feet, including Kilimanjaro; okay, a few years ago.

So we showed up for the training hike to find 24 people there, all in their 20s and 30s, and us on the dark side of 60. The girls were all six feet tall with legs up to my armpits. They took off and we brought up the rear—and came pretty darn close to the top before we pooped out.

Now comes the big Name-the-Peak day. Knowing we are a bit slower than this pack, we start out 90 minutes ahead so we won’t get shown up too badly. This hike made the other one look like a walk in the park. We took the recommended route, which included an almost vertical scramble up a scree field of loose gravel with multiple snow fields. We could see the top beyond a field of huge boulders. It looked like we could shorten it a bit by crossing a very steep snow field. I led the way gamely, tramping across to about the middle, at which point my feet shot out from under me and I fou7nd myself body skiing down the mountainside over snow and rocks toward a precipice, with nothing to stop my descent. My poor husband had to stand there and watch, not knowing if he would be taking me home in a body bag.

My life and several others flashed in front of my eyes as I headed for the edge. Finally, guardian angel working overtime, I came to a stop on the edge of rocks. Frozen, soaked, scratched, and sore all over, I had more than 250 feet to climb up to regain my starting level.

The thing about near-death experiences is the adrenalin rush, followed by the rubbery legs. I think we both experienced that. We met up with the climbers near the top: five 20-something guys—and handed off the sign, so someone could take it back up and plant it. Limping home, I realized I had been right about one thing: Stay away from skiing. # # #

Making New Friends 201

I’m constantly losing things: my car keys, my coffee, my mind. You too? What we really, really hate losing, though, are friends, but lose them we will, whether from death, relocation, or diverging interests. So what are we going to do about it? If we have any hopes for a robust fulfilling life, being friendless is not an option. Time to find some new ones. It’s work, but well worth the effort.

My oldest friendship started in utero. Our moms were best friends and were pregnant together. To this day, we refer to each other as “womb mates”. She lives quite a distance away, but when we get together or email, we just take up where we left off.

Making New Friends 101

When we’re young, shared interests and attributes are all we need: I’m popular; you’re popular. We both have straight hair. (Okay, we’re not so popular and both our heads look like giant Brillo pads when it’s humid. Let’s be miserable together.) We both adore (or loathe) Justin Bieber. Let’s be friends! I had one good friend from high school (We fell into the not-so-popular chunky category), who kept in touch with other classmates and kept me up on their doings. When she was killed in a car accident, I lost my high school connection all together.

Making New Friends 201

Later in life, the rules change; hence: Making New Friends 201. The givens may include loss of old friends, like my high school buddy; messy divorces, financial problems, and health issues. How we view our world and our control over it have a different tint; and we bring all that baggage to any new friendships.

One thing is the same: we still want friends who are fun. And we don’t want them to be much slimmer or younger-looking than we are, or have a better plastic surgeon. So even though we weren’t born yesterday, we want to have fun with our friends and feel comfortable around them. Then we can safely share anxieties and catastrophes. But if we go looking for friends we can unload on, they won’t be around very long. They have their own woes.

My approach is to start with a shared interest. Join a group that does something you like to do: writing, quilting, golf, volunteering for a charity, church, walking, or working for a living. Starting with special interests means we already have something in common with the other members. From there, we can start spending more time with individuals who strike us as interesting. Whether they succeed depends in part on whether we make the effort to seek them out, rather than waiting for them to come to us.

Friends don’t necessarily have to share political or religious views. If we’re friends, we can agree to dance around those! I have this notion that I’m going to live to be a very old age, so having friends of different ages will be important for me. One of my friends works for the Red Cross, where I’ve volunteered for 35 years, and is much younger than I. She sees me as a mentor. I remember how older friends in my life helped me when I was starting out, so it’s an honor to pass that on.

I have another friend who works full time, so I hang out with her mother, a vibrant 85-year old who has a great sense of adventure and sees the humor in life. She’s a hoot! The two of us once spent a whole day standing in line to audition as extras in a movie being made in our town. She said it was the most fun she’d had in a long time.

More and more, I’m developing friends my own age because we understand the common issues we’re all facing, and can be silly together, and yet push each other to follow our dreams. Some of my best friends are relatives. They know all my warts and still like me. I have a cousin with whom I keep in touch; my three sisters and I have our own club: the S.P.S.: Sisters Preservation Society. They support me and won’t ever let me play the age card, even though I’m oldest. It’s by cultivating dear friends of all ages and ilks that we can share both our joys and sorrows with someone who really cares. We don’t have to go through life alone. We share a common lifeline that enriches us every step of the way on this all-too-brief journey.

Mary Jo finds humor an essential companion on this rollercoaster we call life. She gives humorous cancer survivor speeches, teaches Aging with Pizzazz seminars to promote senior activism; and fervently believes if we can get enough Baby Boomers involved, we can get the law of gravity repealed!

The Joy of Difficult

We can all recite our parents’ mantras growing up:

“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”
“If it isn’t a challenge, you won’t feel like you’ve accomplished anything.”
“Success is its own reward.”

And my personal favorite (The one I taped to my son’s desk):
“If you don’t have time to do it right, how will you ever find time to do it over?”

Well, here’s a little secret: our parents didn’t know that stuff until they were grown up. Even though their parents probably told them the same things, they didn’t really believe it until they had some years, experience, and challenges under their belts. And by the way, they are right.

I think about this more and more in my sixth decade, when things suddenly seem to be harder than they should. So when the going gets tough, do the tough get going, or go shopping? It’s about keeping our comfort zones large. Every time we pass on doing something because it’s hard or scary or we think we might fail, if we listen carefully, we can hear our comfort zone shrinking. Before we know it, our little lives have been shrink-wrapped.

If, instead, we push ourselves into something that scares us a little, and we actually do it, there is, just like our parents said, a sense of accomplishment—and competence. I travel a lot. Now, I could listen to CNN and get all scared and stay home, or I could take calculated risks and see wondrous things most people only dream about. Yes, something bad could happen, but if I take reasonable precautions and, as my dad has always advised, ‘leave the back door open’, I think the risks are worth taking.

But let’s get this straight: If we want an excuse for underperformance, we don’t have to look far. Here’s a big what-if: what if we weren’t allowed to use excuses? What if we had sisters, like I do, who won’t ever let me play the age card? What if we had to own all our own decisions, good or bad? Then when we succeeded, we could pat ourselves on the back. If we failed, then we could look at our decision, whap ourselves on the forehead, and not make that mistake again. Wow! Way different than being given a trophy just for showing up! Sometimes, life hurts, but if we own it, it doesn’t hurt as much as if we abdicate all our decisions to someone else.

Gosh, I just climbed a 14,000-foot mountain and it was really hard. I fell down and scraped up my shin, and the next day, I was sore all over. Ouch! But I got to the top and saw an incredible vista that so few people ever get to see, because I did the work and made it! And here I am, a girl with a senior citizen discount. Ouch again! And good for me.

Therein Lies the Rub

The problem with exercise is that you have to keep doing it. Now I’m a gal who likes to cross things off my To-Do list and be done with them.
1. Write the article due today – Check!
2. Take the roast out to thaw – Check!
3. Call my mother – Check!
4. Exercise – Check!
While the other things on the list aren’t done every day, exercise pretty much has to, because at our age, if we don’t use it, we really DO lose it. So every day’s To-Do list should have some form of exercise on it. Unfortunately, I’m a health writer and I’m always interviewing health professionals who keep giving me this nagging message.

Not only do we have to exercise almost every day, but we have to do it differently. A brisk walk is always good, but it doesn’t do much for our flexibility, and forget about our upper body bone mass. That takes resistance training, like weights and things. Our bones like nearby muscles contracting to keep their density. You can’t blame them. Who doesn’t like a good massage?

Flexibility requires gentle and consistent stretching. Otherwise we can forget about bending over to pick up our reading glasses. I’m not saying you should aspire to doing the splits. Stretching is so unglamorous and takes valuable time away from doing crossword puzzles. But it can save us many a sore muscle. A body at rest tends to stay at rest, yadda, yadda.

My above-mentioned health professionals have some suggestions for us and I said I would pass them along:
• Mix it up. Doesn’t matter what our age is, if we always do the same thing, we get bored.
• Walk most days of the week.
• Drag a friend to an exercise class: zumba or spinning or something easy to follow, so we can’t gracefully bow out.
• Take yoga: it’s great for flexibility, soothing monkey brain, and just relaxing. I gotta tell ya, I still hate Down Dog and I can’t get my heels on the ground to save my life, but it does feel great to have done it.
• Treat yourself to at least one personal training session to help you work out a plan with what you have at home or at your health club so you don’t end up hurting yourself and have to take a few weeks off. And a personal trainer is a great conscience.
Well, if we gotta, we gotta, so let’s keep moving and have fun doing it. No one says we can’t combine exercise with a little retail therapy or a fabulous latte.

Wired for Sound

One thing about coming of age in the 60s is that it was all about music. Maybe it’s the way my brain is wired but I can remember almost anything musical. Consequently, my brain is chock full of songs from the 50s onward. In fact it is so full of songs that I have trouble fitting other stuff in.

And those songs don’t stay put. They tend to pop up at inopportune times. It’s like an iPod on automatic pilot. At times, when I’m doing something repetitive that doesn’t require a lot of mental involvement, my inner iPod thinks I need entertainment and switches on. Naturally, I have to hum or sing whatever song comes up, sometimes startling passersby.

To make matters worse, I seem to have no say in the programming. My inner iPod plays whatever it feels like, and sometimes it surprises me. It’s just as likely to be a popular song, a show tune, commercial jingle, or a hymn. I never know. After an indeterminate time, the roulette wheel spins again and it switches to another number.

In a way, having an inner iPod is a lot of company, but I’m probably strange enough to people as it is without the humming thing. I might as well just throw back by head and belt out a chorus or two. At least that would seem more intentional than befuddled. Maybe I’ll just make ear buds part of my permanent wardrobe.

Therein Lies the Rub

The problem with exercise is that you have to keep doing it. Now I’m a gal who likes to cross things off my To-Do list and be done with them.
1. Write the article due today – Check!
2. Take the roast out to thaw – Check!
3. Call my mother – Check!
4. Call my son – Check!
5. Exercise – Check!

While the other things on the list aren’t done every day, exercise pretty much has to, because at our age, if we don’t use it, we really DO lose it. So every day’s To-Do list should have some form of exercise on it. Unfortunately, I’m a health writer and I’m always interviewing doctors and health professionals who keep giving me this nagging message.

Not only that we have to exercise almost every day, but we have to do different exercises to ensure we keep moving. A brisk walk is always good, but it doesn’t do much for our flexibility, and forget about our upper body bone mass. That takes resistance training, like weights and things. Our bones like nearby muscles massaging them to keep their density. You can’t blame them. Who doesn’t like a good massage?

Flexibility requires gentle and consistent stretching. Otherwise we can forget about bending over to pick up our reading glasses off the floor when we drop them. I’m not saying you should aspire to doing the splits every so often. And stretching is so unglamorous and takes valuable time from doing crossword puzzles. But it can save us many a sore muscle and downtime that encourages inactivity. A body at rest tends to stay at rest, yadda, yadda.

My above-mentioned health professionals have some suggestions for us and I said I would pass them along:
• Mix it up. Doesn’t matter what our age is, if we always do the same thing, we get bored.
• Walk most days of the week.
• Drag a friend to an exercise class: zumba or spinning or something easy to follow. If a friend comes, we can’t very well bow out.
• Take yoga: it’s great for the flexibility part, soothing monkey brain, and just relaxing. I gotta tell ya, I still hate Down Dog and I can’t get my heels on the ground to save my life, but it does feel great to have done it.
• Treat yourself to at least one personal training session to help you work out a plan with what you have at home or at your health club so you don’t end up killing yourself and have to take a few weeks off. And a personal trainer is a great conscience.

Well, if we gotta, we gotta, so let’s keep moving so we can, and let’s have fun doing it. No one says we can’t combine exercise with a little retail therapy or a fabulous latte.

A Few of My LEAST Favorite Things

When it comes to the things we love to hate, each of us has our own personal list. While some dreaded things will make most everyone’s list, like public speaking and okra, others are tied into our own personal history and associations they hold for us. Some, I know why I dislike them; others, well—I just do:

TV Political Ads: Obviously, there are no acceptable candidates for any race. They are either the mud slingers or the slingees. Liar, liar, pants on fire. Anyone who spends good money in this economy to trash an opponent will not get my vote. He/she can’t be trusted to govern in my best interest.

Cellphone Space Invaders: Why is it we never hear anything really interesting (like a hot stock tip or an impending holocaust) when someone decided to have his loud conversation right next to your ear? Do they really think we want to hear about how much they hate their mother-in-law, or the trouble they have finding shoes for the party? Zip it or go find a cave for your conversation.

Waldorf salad: This concoction of apples, nuts, and mayonnaise is generally liked by most people. For me, it is one of the few foods I just won’t eat, and I’m not really sure why. I know it has something to do with my childhood.

Mosquitoes: Okay, who loves the little critters? But many people are more indifferent to them than openly hostile. Mine has to do with the fact that mosquitoes just love me—for dinner. When other people are not touched or just checked out, I always seem to be the main course, and they get me in places hard to scratch—like my toes.

Scree: You have to be a hiker or mountain climber to appreciate this one. Scree is loose rock debris that can extend down a whole hillside or just the steep parts. If you are going up it, it’s like two steps up and one sliding step back. If you are coming down, you’re likely to do it on your tush—at least if you want to survive the descent.

Cart Parkers: Why is it that it never occurs to some shoppers to anticipate someone wanting to get by them as they park their carts in the exact middle of the aisle and proceed to read every food label in a section? Hello! People!

Serial Complainers: One of my dear friends and I have been walking partners for years, and we have one rule: We can whine for the first mile and then we have to fergettaboutit! No one likes to be around people who moan all the time. One of the best ways to have a happy life is to have a lot of friends. To have a lot of friends, we have to be someone they want to be around, and that means upbeat and positive, fun! So now I’ve had my rant and I’m moving on to cheerier things. You should, too.

Mary Jo is a freelance health writer who finds humor an essential companion on this rollercoaster of life. She gives humorous cancer survivor speeches, teaches Aging with Pizzazz seminars to promote senior activism; and fervently believes if we can get enough Baby Boomers involved, we can get the law of gravity repealed!

Over the Hill and Picking up Speed

I have a rich life that may at different times involve climbing a mountain, trying to get a llama across a creek, having my granddaughter sign my cast, volunteering with the Red Cross, and writing about the latest health information. I stay active, eat right, and avoid mirrors.

To my dismay, one morning I woke up perilously close to Medicare. Yikes! How did this happen? Of course, aging itself didn’t happen suddenly. It’s been chipping away at me for some time now. Physical issues like two bouts of cancer, mornings that too frequently involve un-kinking some part of my body, worries and loss of loved ones; all that is just part of the package that comes with the passing of years.

What doesn’t have to be part of the package is hand-wringing and wallowing. It’s the challenges of life that let us make the most of life—by conscious choice. We can choose to focus on our bounty of joys. We can choose to be people other people want to hang with because we just don’t have time for hand-wringing and wallowing. Each time another challenge sideswipes us, we get to make a choice: keep moving and find the joy, or lie down and wallow in it.

If we choose to keep moving (okay, maybe a brief wallow), we will run into yet another challenge. Same choice—again. The great thing about choice is that no matter how old we get (I’m on a 104-year plan), we get to keep doing it. If there is one lovely thing age brings, it’s a realization of our mortality and the desire to make each day count. People who are fun to be around are people who get it, no matter what their age; people who get that we have this one brief time on earth and choose to live it to the fullest.

Besides choosing to focus on the heartwarming, the poignant, the quirky and sometimes hysterical, I’m convinced that the good life includes staying connected and creating community, making each daily encounter as positive as possible, fighting comfort-zone shrinkage, staying active, embarrassing our children/grandchildren, finding romance in the ordinary, wearing funky tee shirts, and, perhaps, a tattoo—on some part of the anatomy that doesn’t sag.

My job in this column will be to ferret out the upsides of the inevitable and invite you along for the celebration. These will be your stories, too. I invite you to share your laughs or lessons learned about aging and spread the joy. Send your funny experiences and I'll share them in later columns.

Mary Jo is a freelance health writer who finds humor an essential companion on this rollercoaster of life. She gives humorous cancer survivor speeches, teaches Aging with Pizzazz seminars to promote senior activism; and fervently believes if we can get enough people involved, we can get the law of gravity repealed!