It used to be we were only afraid of Covid. Now, what we fear most is that we have lost these precious retirement years all together. Boomers who were already retired when the pandemic began or those that retired as a direct result of the pandemic, were equally affected. Longtime plans for travel and family activities were put on hold. Initially, it was just one year. Then the one year extended to a second year. And now? No one really knows what the risks are, even if one is vaccinated. Chances of dying are lower? Great! What a relief! Wait a second! That’s the best-case scenario? There’s a fairly good chance we won’t die? Gee, thanks.

Almost everyone is vaccinated (let’s not even talk about why it’s not 100%) and yet we still have trepidation about eating indoors or flying somewhere on an airplane. What have we really lost? Time. Just time. But, it’s time that could have been spent with friends and family. Time to visit new places and try new hobbies and activities. Time for an in-person book club. Time to meet new people. Time to find a new love in your life.

The next thing to fear, thanks very much pandemic, is that we will make ourselves sick or crazy trying to make up for lost time. In our zeal to get back that lost time, we try to redouble our efforts to do everything and go everywhere. Perfect. Then we get sick because we’re so tired from trying to do too much.

It does appear at this moment in time that baby boomers are planning to break the metaphoric shackles that have been trapping us in our homes and hit the road. Fearful or not, we are ready to escape into the wide world. Be warned. Boomers are loose and they mean to have a good time, so woe to anyone who stands in their way.

But we will be as polite about it as we can, you can be sure.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

I am a boomer at heart although technically a member of the Silent Generation. I left the corporate world in 2010 but still engage in work-like activities to feel relevant and needed.

My network expanded since transitioning to my current life-stage. In 2017 I started a local group of senior adults with Judy, my wife. We migrated to Zoom when COVID derailed our lives. I also participate in many online discussion groups with peers across the globe.

I noticed a trend over the years. A portion of the ‘retired’ senior adult population complains about being lost. Both women and men have these feelings. The latter are less apt to confess for fear of seeming weak.

Being lost and lacking direction in our lives is difficult to admit for all of us. These feelings reveal themselves only when honestly examined. The root cause usually stems from a lack of purpose and meaning.

The lives of those caught in the maze were previously defined in terms of work and accomplishments. When work stops sadness and anger replace dignity and self respect. The motivation “to get up and make the donuts” in the morning escapes.

Many are lonely. Some never married, others lost their partners or have no nearby family or close friends. A child cared for an ill parent for years. COVID isolation magnified this loneliness.

Instead of being motivated, they listen to a negative inner voice in their head. It slyly draws them back to bed long after they should arise. Later the voice convinces them that it is better to eat, drink, watch TV, read the paper, work a crossword puzzle, etc. than to take a walk.

Then the same voice scolds them for being bad!

Chores are avoided; tasks become burdensome. Change is frightening and couples with anxiety. Mild, even severe depression may follow.

This hamster wheel existence repeats daily, as if starring in one’s own personal Groundhog Day movie. Perhaps they somehow have a reality check, perhaps not.

I have had similar feelings at times. Some were due to severe illnesses, others to low self esteem or sheer boredom.

Fortunately I never spiraled down into depression. Support systems and resiliency helped me bounce back and fight through setbacks.

Self reflection is one of the exercises I used to counteract these feelings of uneasiness. The steps are simple, the execution difficult.

List past activities that elevated you to get high on life, operate in a groove, attain flow. A place where you were lost in space and time.

Then ask yourself WHY? Repeat until you understand what truly brings you happiness or contentment.

Then devise an action plan. Pattern your remaining life’s journey around the sources of inner joy you exposed.

It worked for me through trial and error. I hope it works for you.

Michael Yublosky has been called a Renaissance Man by many but really considers himself to be an observer of life, an outlier and Don Quijote rolled into one. He is still active in the business world and can be found on LinkedIn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here in the City of Four Seasons, as my Western North Carolina town is known, we’re having a cold winter. My partner, a Southern man, feels it more than I do. He stands at the window, shakes his head at the falling snow and the swirling wind, and reports on the outside temperature every hour. My Yankee blood can take it. I want to go outside in the midst of a storm, throw snowballs and make snow angels. I tell him stories of the harsh northern winters of my youth, and the skiing, both downhill and cross country, as well as the sledding, skating, and snow shoeing I enjoyed in the frigid winter air.

I try to be patient as my partner complains. After all, studies show that older adults tend to have slightly lower body temperatures than younger adults, and over time our bodies are less able to regulate temperature. Our blood circulation—especially in our hands and feet—can also decrease as your blood vessels lose elasticity. And he experiences Raynaud Syndrome in the winter, especially in his hands.

Despite my stories and my appreciation of winter, it’s been a long time since I engaged in the winter sports of my youth. There’s no good skiing nearby, and I lack a close hill and a sled. No snowshoes or skates either. I love snow, though, and the beauty and quiet it brings to the world, especially now that I don’t have to commute to work in the winter. So I’ll be the one to pull on my good winter boots and heavy coat, wrap a scarf around my neck and don my hat and gloves and go outside in it. I’ll walk to the mailbox or the store on the snowiest days, sticking my tongue out to catch the flakes as I did as a child. But these days, I tread more carefully over icy roads, down the steps from our front door, and on the sidewalks due to the risk of falling. It’s the leading cause of injury in adults 65 and older, I hear.

I also heard the other day, though, about someone’s mother, in her 80’s, who joyously took a sled to a hill and rode down in the midst of our latest snowstorm, while her son, in his 60’s, shivered inside. I decided from now on, she will be my role model. Sledding anyone?

Lee Stevens is writing and reconnecting in Hendersonville, NC.

George of the Jungle? The Jetsons? The Roadrunner? Huckleberry Hound? Tom and Jerry?

How can any self-respecting baby boomer forget all the hours we logged in front of the TV (mine was black and white) watching cartoons on Saturday morning?

No one was worried about where we were or what we were up to as long as they could hear the TV was still turned on and we were laughing. Unsupervised time to ourselves to indulge our appetite for dogs that could talk and coyotes that could order explosives from the Acme Company. What could be better than that?

But first, we needed to slurp down sugar-filled cereal. Then we planted ourselves in front of the set and didn’t move for hours. Who knows what our parents were doing, but they were most likely relieved to have time to themselves and not worrying about what we were up to.

For me, a few hours of toons was followed by my favorite westerns. Wild Bill Hickok, Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, the Cisco Kid, and don’t forget Gabby Hayes.

The good news is that all that TV surfing was followed by outdoor play where we used our imagination (spurred of course by what we had just watched on TV) to invent our own play scenarios. Once again, no one worried about where we were or what we were doing. That is at least until someone went back into the house with a scraped knee or some other minor injury.

Sadly, for the generations that followed us, the Saturday morning fun ended when the networks realized they were not making much revenue from kids programming. They turned instead to sports and news while cartoons moved to after-school slots. G.I. Joe and Thundercats took over and they were really just half-hour advertisements for toys. On top of that, Congress decided to legislate more educational programming for kids. The ride was over,

But now kids can watch cartoons whenever they want via streaming services. And on their phones for crying out loud!! How can you miss the group watching experience if you’ve never experienced the pleasure to be had from that communal fun?

It’s some consolation that baby boomers can feed their nostalgic jonesing by going online where you can find just about every cartoon you ever watched as a kid (search YouTube for Looney Tunes and you’ll see what I mean).

Next thing you know, you’ll be Googling “penny candy.”

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

 

When I look back at my working life, I usually reflect on the negatives. I’m not purposefully a glass half-full kind of person, but it does seem that’s my default. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the positives, and there were a few surprises.

I was reading a golf psychology book, as I am wont to do, and there was a reference to the old nursery rhyme:

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

Life is but a dream

I’m not the first to realize this could be a beautifully simple guide to happiness. As I reflected on the meaning behind these lyrics, it occurred to me I sometimes row hard in the other direction because that’s the way I want to go, damn it.

But wait! Is there a benefit to rowing with the current? Going with the flow? Imagine.

Here’s where we come back to my work experience. I was stuck in a nice but dead-end job and couldn’t seem to find a way out. When I wasn’t working, I spent all my time on the job search. I had a few memorable interviews but no offers.

Only one person at work knew I was on the hunt. I actually didn’t know her well but somehow decided she was the one to trust. That’s a little telling, isn’t it?

Anyway, one day I whined I couldn’t get a job. She said, “That’s because it wasn’t your job. When it’s your job, the doors will open.”

Indeed. After interviewing for a job in Minnesota because by that time I would go anywhere, the hiring manager called to tell me I didn’t get it, but they thought I would be a good fit for their company. He offered to shop my resume around, and that led to an interview in Texas.

When they offered me the job, Dale and I stopped to think it through. What if it didn’t come with relocation? The next day they emailed me a document outlining the relo assistance, and it was amazing. Then Dale said, what about my job? Within days, he was laid off and got a nice exit package. And that’s how it all rolled out.

I went from a local utility in South Carolina to a large multinational Fortune 100 company, and while I was quite competent in my field, this was the big show. Easier for some than others. Having been raised by wolves, I had limited social acumen and not a lot of workplace savvy.

But I needed this job, and I was hellbent on figuring it all out. In addition to some great mentoring, the company offered lots of training, especially on the soft skills such as ethics, diversity and interpersonal communications, and I absorbed all of it.

Yes, some might say it was all about being politically correct, but at least we weren’t punching out flight attendants. I have developed new appreciation for having both feet planted solidly on the high ground. Only recently did it occur to me some of those nuances of behavior I learned at work are worth preserving in retirement.

Kind of like the monster’s transformation in Young Frankenstein, it turns out I liked having a calmer brain and a more sophisticated way of expressing myself. Communicating to make someone else more comfortable. Listening rather than telling. Remembering to say and instead of but. You do it enough, and you sort of become the person you were trying to be.

Even though I’ve previously harbored resentment over some of my work experiences, I can now see how the flow took me to a place where I could explore this better version my myself. The wolves had their charms but didn’t exactly give us a good head start.

That’s what I’ve been up to lately. Still learning. Sciatica is nearly gone. I’m walking a lot, playing golf and swimming. Lots of deep breathing – in through the nose, out through the mouth. I’m as surprised as anyone I could spend quality blogging time on all this touchy-feely stuff, but pain changes you.

And strangely enough, it’s not all bad if you go with the flow.

Donna Pekar is an aging badass (for real) who lives in California and writes Retirement Confidential.

 

Recently a long-time neighbor passed away. His family put a nine-yard dumpster in his drive…actually it took two of them to clear his house. A close friend died. There was dumpster in her driveway as well. Some thoughts…

In war time, a gold star banner in a front room window meant a soldier had died. Black arm bands meant someone had died. These days, a nine-yard, open-top dumpster in a driveway can also mean someone has died. The decedents are making decisions about the former’s left-behinds, the walls of books and bed clothes and arm chairs and drapes. Should some go to Goodwill, the library, the church’s second-hand store? Maybe a garage sale would slide the detritus into the slip stream of what we used to call ‘alley pickers’ and now ‘recyclers.’ But sometimes the grandchildren, even their parents just want to tear down the walls of stuff that have piled-up to form gramma’s castle, demolish the ramparts that surrounded her. They have lowered the drawbridge to a dumpster with its hungry maw swinging wide for the raiders to form a bucket line passing along yellowed board games, baseball bats and ruptured-gut tennis rackets, and clothes on hangers, and books in boxes and flower pots and bedspreads faded and lumpy—pillaging a lifetime of memories in paper and wood and cloth. If you know how to read it, it’s a sign to the neighborhood that someone among them has gone.

Understood, it’s not the same as purging before relocating. That’s a sign of moving on like a young couple relocating for work or getting a bigger house to accommodate a growing family—a positive hopeful sign. Nor is it like an elderly couple scaling back before settling into more confined quarters in a senior residence—removing accumulated clutter for a simpler existence.

Some dumpsters in the driveway, for those who know how to identify them, are like mobile grave stones in an unmarked, urban cemetery…someone’s gone to a better place. Bow your head as you pass.

Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara and his wife live in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. Read more at https://freefloatingstories.wordpress.com/