grow older better

Tag: Aging

Aging: Make It Great

10/29/2025
Tis The Last Day Of April

OK, it is the last day of April but you know what? I still have to say that old rhyme to remember whether April has 30 or 31 days.

How many of you still have to say: 30 days hath September, April, June, and November?

But getting back to April. I am always reminded of the T.S. Eliot poem, the wasteland and the first paragraph of it.

“April is the cruelest month, breedinglilacs out of the dead land, mixingmemory and desire, stirringdull roots with spring rain.”

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

As one with a PhD in psychology, I know that suicide starts spiking in April. They go on rising through the rest of spring and into summer. Spring is a more suicide prone time of year than winter. One would think that the bleakness of winter would lead to more suicides, but it is spring that is the time of year when people commit suicide. I’m not going into all of that here. I’ve spent many years talking and giving workshops on suicide and suicide prevention. But it does peak now, and it’s something to be aware of. That could possibly be what Elliot is referring to as the cruelest month – but it doesn’t have to be cruel.

Spring is a beautiful time of year in the northern hemisphere. It’s when things start to bloom, colors start to appear. Birds are welcomed back – singing their joyful songs and building their nests.

Above is one kind of allium I planted last fall; there are several around my garden. The second kind has not fully opened. It is also purple – why, you might ask? Those are the two varieties that Costco had when I was there last Fall.

Above is an enlargement of a cardinal that I had been hearing and it finally sat still long enough for me to take a photograph. It was further away, so I enlarged just the portion of the picture where you can see the cardinal. They are very easy bird to spot because the male is bright red.

———————————

But given it is the last day of April, I thought I would reflect back on this month. It started with my being engaged in a blog challenge to post every day, full well knowing I would not meet that challenge. [I do know my own history.]

But in getting prompts every day, I did start re-working on some projects that had already been half completed. It’s a very good thing for me.

Anything that gets me back to stuff that I haven’t finished in the past is good.

I also learned that I have to get better at writing faster. I was there at one point but because I got away from it, it was those use it or lose things, and I need to get back to writing and finishing blog posts more quickly. Which means that I have to reset my templates and get my head back into the blog post writing, or article writing, or short form writing. That again is a good thing and it will happen in May.

The biggest and best takeaway from April came as a major thought yesterday while attending some very relevant online business sessions. That I even sat through all the sessions that I sat through was remarkable because I have been so not into the business aspect of life these days.

A few of the concepts hit me smack in the head – and sometimes it takes a real smack in the head to make me realize what I should be doing, so I’m going to do it.

And I decided to give myself an award for my April inspirations – because why not?

04/30/2025
Growing Older Better

My Take On Aging

There is no golden ticket

There is no ticket, activity, pill, etc. that “magically” works to improve your aging process. There are many things that you can do and very often it takes all or many of them. It’s often trial and error to see what works for you. Buying into the hype of “this is what you need to be healthy if over 50” is usually not true.

It requires work

Movement is your friend. You don’t have to run like in the image but walking around is perfectly acceptable as is weightlifting, yoga, core work, Pilates, or anything that makes your body work, but the work is necessary. If you’re in a wheelchair or bedridden, be sure to check what kind of exercise you can and are able to do.

And a bit of a caveat here it helps if you start moving when you’re younger, but it’s never the wrong time to start moving.

It requires good nutrition

Good nutrition does not mean expensive food. In fact, one of the most nutritious and least expensive foods is beans. If you have dietary restrictions, you have to think about that – if you have a garden, you can grow a lot of nutritious food. You don’t even actually need a garden – you can grow in pots. I did container gardening for years. There’s a lot of good food out there, but be a label reader – that is important. That’s too long a conversation to have for now. I’ll come back to this at another time.

It requires using your brain

Keeping your cognitive activity working is something that also helps with aging. So keep [or start] doing things like crossword puzzles, or most any kind of puzzle, learning new things, going to classes, or doing classes via apps or online.

04/05/2025
There Is No Magic Starting Date

What Is A Good Starting Date?

For me? Any day of the week/month/year!

Any day is a good time to start

for me, waiting for a specific day or time for a start never works – my brain is not like that

It’s why I do not do new year resolutions – they are made to be broken! In fact, I learned a new thing this year. There is actually a date that people quit their new year resolutions. It’s called quitter’s day and it’s the second Friday in January!!

In years past, I already knew that people quit their health club workouts early in January and I really never paid attention to the fact that it was a specific date. I learned that this year and it fits with everything I know about people’s making promises to themselves.

We humans have a hard time sticking with some of our specific promises to ourselves. So why punish ourselves for it?

In fact, why do it just consider any day your starting day? No promises needed!!

Q1 being gone posts are annoying

does telling someone the first quarter of the year is gone create positive or negative thinking?

Maybe we are all like the moon – visually, it cycles through quarters but always returns to full. And full moons are seen as omens – so why not think of quarters like the – they aren’t gone and the good omen-ness of them will soon be back!! [it’s now April 1 and the next full moon is in 11 days.] We’ll go through the rest of the crescents and have another full thing happening in 11 days. Why worry about what quarter we’re in? It can be the beginning, middle, or the end of whatever you want to consider your quarter.

I know for some people if you tell them they missed a quarter their first thinking is oh well I might as well miss the next three. Someone I knew used to say “I’m going start this on September 1” and when she didn’t start on September 1 she’d go “oh well I’ll wait till next semester.”

We all have very personal relationships with time and how we manage it.

It’s MY start!!

and it might not coincide with anyone else’s timeframe

I’m not driving so therefore I do not have to stop and start with the signals that I see. I’m a good driver. I pay attention – but blogging, writing, publishing, are not the same as driving for me. They may be for you. That’s your thing – but they aren’t for me and that’s my thing.

I’m starting today and it feels good. Will I continue tomorrow? We’ll see. No promises!!

04/01/2025
My Latest Aging Mantra

Ode To Aging

What I am writing here – it’s not a new thought for me. In fact, it’s more than 20 years old, but in those 20 years I did not think of this daily. Now I do!!

So here goes – my ode to aging or my latest mantra.

Everything takes longer

I had moved many times as an adult and my move to the west coast made me realize that packing and stacking boxes was taking a lot longer than it used to – AND – that was nearly 19 years before my most recent move!!

I knew over 20 years ago that things were taking longer, but wow since my current move, which is now a year ago, I have really come to recognize that everything I do takes longer.

Over the years I had noticed that I was not as fast doing things like biking, hiking, walking, kayaking, etc – but since I was still doing them pretty regularly, I didn’t really notice.

It wasn’t until I did them more sporadically prior to my move [and because of the move] that I realized the doings took longer – especially when I started the packing thing.

It’s been hard for me to accept this, but I don’t have a choice, so I just keep telling myself this is going to take longer than I planned.

Everything takes longer than it used to.

Everything is more tiring

It seems most all I do not only takes longer, but I get tired more quickly. I love gardening and was happy to again have a garden in the ground – not just in containers. But the raking, weed pulling, soil digging, etc. took much longer than the last itme i had a garden. Maybe, I thought, it was due to my not having done this in almost 2 decades – but as I keep at it, I realized it really was more tiring because I was 20 years older.

I used to go to several stores in one shopping trip but over time I found I can not do that. One store per trip is now my max – unless someone else is driving – then I can do a few. But even then I often opt to sit in the car and wait.

It’s not walking per se – for fun trips, like going in to D.C. – I can still walk several miles a day – with a few breaks – but it’s the shopping walking that has begun to more quickly tire me.

Many things are more tiring than they used to be.

Everything needs a longer recovery time

Things take longer and are more tiring – ok – but I also found that my reccovery period was longer as well. Not just for gardening, or yoga, or walking – but everything! In years past, my body and I had an agreement that I played hurt, and as I aged, we agreed it had 2 days to get over the hurt.

Then I took a slip and fall [I’m really ok] but I brusied my ribs and O.U.C.H.

I remembered when I used to rock climb and the rope caught my ribs when I fell. My friends and I kept climbing [after we made sure nothing was broken.] When I played softball and was pitching or catching I got dinged many times – same thing – “nothing broken – let’s play.”

But here I was many years later [actually many decades later,] and the ribs were very very sore. It was hard to drive because the seatbelt crossed the sore ribs. Sleeping was difficult because if I moved the sore ribs were more ouch.

It’s now four weeks later and they’re finally feeling better but that’s longer than I usually “allow” my body to catch up with what our agreement was – so I think my body is telling me we need to reach a different agreement.

I need a longer time to recover.

I’m sure as I continue aging, I’ll be adding to this mantra… but for now these 3 are the ones I need to remember as I go about my life – gardening, shopping, working out, etc….

10/31/2023