Accepting Aging Gracefully

We have been leasing a fantastic island cottage for several years now.  It is a wonderful old 1920s cottage, the island is situated on a beautiful lake, and we have spent many peaceful, relaxing and enjoyable weeks during the summer months engaged in island living.  We have friends on the lake and many friends and relatives who spend the summer nearby.  It is a perfect summer lifestyle.

However, one day the owners will decide to sell the island and we agonize over whether we would be able to buy it.  Given that we are in our 60s and are only going to get older, that we invested in a fantastic kitchen extension on our house a few years ago using our Home Owner Line of Credit, and really don't want to tie up our savings (not to mention some of our cash flow) on a second property, it is highly likely that we will decide that it doesn't make sense to buy a cottage property at this point in our lives.

I have to admit that losing access to this cottage will be devastating to me.  I love being on the water, I love the laid back lifestyle, the privacy, and the fact that we connect with so many friends and family in this place.   I'm always trying to concoct schemes that will make buying the island a possibility.   My husband is less disturbed about losing access to the cottage; he takes the more philosophical view that we will find new and interesting things to do during the summer; he has no great interest in ever renting a cottage again.  As a retirement planner, I would probably advise someone else in the same circumstances to do the practical and rational thing, i.e. let it go, but as a person I might say that not all decisions in life should be based solely on rational thinking and that sometimes decisions based on emotional considerations should be pursued.  What do you think?

Selfishness

I am slowly developing a theory about aging that I don't really like.  In general I resist the notion that as people age they become cranky, hard to get along with, self-centred and rigid in their views.  Whenever someone tells me that they think that older people are overly self-focused I feel the need to point out that personalities don't change all that much over time (as confirmed by many studies in psychology).  It follows that anyone who is selfish later in life probably always was.

However, I am collecting anecdotal information on this issue and this has prompted me to question my defence of the elderly.  First of all, my husband has been fully retired for many years.  One of the most common views about retirement and one of the things that people say they look forward to the most is being able to "do what I want to do when I want to do it".  My husband certainly lives by this creed.  The bulk of his time is spent doing what he wants when he wants.  What I've noticed is that the more he has had the freedom to live this way, the more he wants to.  In other words, if there is something I want him to do (or something someone else wants him to do), and it doesn't perfectly align with what he wants to do, then we have a problem!!  Getting him to shift off his agenda isn't easy.  It stands to reason that if, in retirement, most people are able to indulge themselves doing what they want, there may be resistance to giving this up in order to please someone else.

The second phenomenon I've been noticing has to do with people my age who are trying to help their parents.  A youngish sales woman the other day told me that her parents live in a small town in Quebec and are reaching a point where they can't really manage a large house and property.  Her mother accepts that it is time to downsize and to perhaps move closer to their daughter in the city.  Her father doesn't see it this way at all and is extremely reluctant to sell, to downsize and to move.  Their daughter is a single parent and is trying to juggle fulltime work, being a mother, and also caring for her parents at a distance.  While she understands her father's reluctance, she feels he doesn't appreciate how hard it is for her to help them when they live two hours away.  He doesn't seem to be taking into account the impact of his choices on her.

I do believe that it is important in later life to be living in the place you want to be, but it is also important to appreciate the impact of your choices on your adult children who really want to be of help.  Decisions around where to live should, at the very least, take this into account.

Can you overcome aging?

My brother-in-law and his wife visited us at our cottage recently and she and I had a very good "dock" discussion.  She is someone who has always been interested in the spiritual side of life and she told me that she is exploring, through her regular meditation, the aging process, and how she can take charge of her own aging.  She believes that the power of the mind may be such that she can actually fend off some of the symptoms of aging this way.

There is certainly quite a bit of research that indicates that, if we use our mind well we can control, to some extent, our state of health, both mental and physical.  While not really disagreeing with her, I noted that there does come a time when it is healthy to accept a newly developed limitation flowing from the aging process and that fighting against such limitations, just means we are in denial about the aging process.  I am fascinated with where one should draw the line between fighting the aging process and yielding to it.  If one wants to age gracefully I think it's important to accept this fact and to adapt accordingly.  A good example involves knowing when to give up driving.  This is a tough decision to make and those individuals who make the decision themselves demonstrate what I'm talking about.

Turning 60

I am still in touch with a group of women that I knew in high school. We were all in the same program so had our classes together. Over the years, we have kept in touch and as the day approached when the oldest in our group was going to turn 60 we decided to celebrate these birthdays. This has taken place over the course of the last year and a half. The youngest person in the group turns 60 on December 31 and that will bring our birthday celebrations to an end.

It has been fun to get together, either for a drink, or dinner out, or dinner in, to celebrate these birthdays. Much of the time has been spent reminiscing about those years we spent as teenagers. It's amazing when we compare notes. Some people remember things that you've completely forgotten and sometimes your memories are contradicted by the memories of others. For example, I have always believed that I was sitting in a math class, when they announced that President Kennedy had been shot; this weekend several of our group said Oh no, we were in an exam at the time. I was outnumbered but it means I have to change this long standing image I have since it's just a little off.

For this last celebration, some of us journeyed to Toronto to see Jersey Boys, as well as to celebrate the last birthday. What a great way to end our year and a half of celebration. We could hardly sit still as song after song by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons took us right back to the 60s.

Some of us are retired and some aren't yet. Some of the group still look young for 60 and some look 10 years older. Most of us have put on either a few pounds or alot of pounds. Some are married, some are widowed and some never married. There is no question that reaching the age of 60 is an amazing accomplishment, however I must admit that when I tried to decide what to put on the card of the last person to turn 60 I couldn't bring myself to say what a great time in life being 60 is. Having recently left 60 behind, I have to say it hasn't been all that swell. Health issues in particular have reduced my quality of life at times, like having sciatica for 3 months. However, health challenges aside, it really is comforting to reach this age with friends that you can share both memories and today stories with. It makes it all seem so much more manageable.