Any Shiny Thing - Life after 50

Midlife Fiction

Boomers Might Have to Work Forever

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Remember back before the Great Recession when Boomers were expected to retire in waves, leaving the country with a gigantic labor shortage? In California, for example, we expected to have to hire approximately 300,000 new teachers to fill the classrooms vacated by retiring Boomers.

Of course, that didn’t happen. These days, Boomers are hanging onto their jobs by their bloody fingernails, hoping like hell they won’t get fired because the younger, cheaper models are lined up thirty-deep outside of HR.

For those Boomers who have retired, many have seen the value of their savings plummet, and are now looking for part-time work to supplement their Social Security checks. Here are some of the jobs I’ve seen my contemporaries invent:

  • “Limo” service: driving neighbors to and picking them up from airports.
  • “Vacation” service: watching pets and maintaining homes for vacationing neighbors.
  • Home-based sales like jewelry, skin care/makeup, home decor.
  • Fix-it person.
  • Make and sell a craft or product. (My brother builds cabinets as a hobby. He wants to do that out of his garage when he retires.)
  • “Swap meet entrepreneur” wherein you buy at yard sales and resell for a profit at the local swap meet.
  • Tutoring students if you’re a retired teacher.
  • Computer “helper”: teaching elder users the basics, and unsnagging them when they get tangled up.
  • and, of course, consulting in your career field, if you’ve got the chops to reel in business that way.

Any other ideas? Let me know and I’ll list them in a future post. This way, we can encourage and motivate each other.

Re: young people, I suggest they start thinking about and preparing early in their careers for a part-time or self-employed business idea later on. The way things are going, if they get canned or injured, they’ll need a way to keep food on the table, because the days of job security and pensions are sunsetting. Any time you get an opportunity, I tell them, learn a new skill. Let your employer send you to training. Build your contacts. Network like crazy. Eyes on the horizon, Grasshopper. Don’t take anything for granted. The days are over when “I’m on a fixed income” used to be a bad thing.

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The Truth About Why We Fear Aging

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Why is our response to aging and the old so intensely negative?

According to Lynn Casteel Harper, a chaplain to a retirement community, here is the answer:

“Older people expose what is true for people of all ages. We are vulnerable and finite…Elders point to our shared fate as living creatures — to slow up, to wind down, to die. It comes as little surprise that a society so phobic about the subject of death (people “pass,” no one seems to “die”) so readily dismiss those people we see as closest to death — old people. However, we know that not just older people die. We are all vulnerable, at any moment…Coming to terms with finitude is the ongoing struggle of the human spirit; it is soul work. To attempt to live meaningfully with the awareness of our mortality is work marked by courage…” (You can read her entire essay here.)

Dr. Kathryn Zerbe, eating disorders specialist, says much the same thing. “In our mothers’ generation, there was acceptance that your body wasn’t going to look the same at 50 as it did at 25. Today there’s not.” She goes on to say that extreme efforts to maintain youth “…is a way of trying to skirt the issue of aging and mortality.”

According to Rev. Harper and Dr. Zerbe, then, much of what we do to “look young” is based on fear of dying. So here’s my question: what if we weren’t afraid of dying? How much more richly would we live?

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On a Lighter Note, Can Old People Learn?

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writing, writer, author, self-publish, indie writerI’m laughing about how a friend recently had a run-in with a younger person. This younger person expressed doubt that older people could learn new things.  [Read more…]

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I Am So Grateful

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To all my sistahs who have recently sent me your wonderful, kind words of support, I want you to know that I’ll still be in touch. I don’t know what the future holds but even during recuperation, I’ll have access to my laptop. You know me. You can’t keep me offline.

Here’s what I think will happen: soon after October 1, I’ll have surgery, and then we’ll know if my problems are benign or – not. But no matter what, I’m going to keep blogging. Some will be about my situation because I know you’re worried, but most will just be about the usual navel-gazing I’m known for – the unexamined life and all that.

While waiting for the surgery, I am riding an emotional roller coaster. In trying to maintain my sanity I’ve been meditating, and I’ve cut out caffeine and alcohol. Boy, that’s tough; most days I really could use a drink! But this is a healthy decision. Did you know alcohol actually increases long-term anxiety? More on that in a future post, no doubt.

To stay upbeat, I also watch comedies, read happy things, and think about the impending birth of my granddaughter, Ella Marie Morgan, who is due on Oct. 5. Her parents Amy and Daniel are in the picture. Both are elementary school teachers. I promised I would watch Ella full time when Amy goes back to work in February. It’s a scary and thrilling proposition. When I agreed to it, my son did that manly, surreptitious sniffly thing. You know, because men don’t cry.

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Surgery Can Change Your Perspective

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Amy Cuddy, power pose, stress, women, work

Every day, I work hard. I write, study, and work on my book business. I help other people. I spend time with family and friends. [Read more…]

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Never Too High or Too Low

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Our President has been called “No Drama Obama.” And he frequently says, “I never get too high or too low.” I’ve noticed that phrase slipping into the common vernacular; you especially see it when an athlete is interviewed about his or her performance.

After a couple decades of watching diva behavior (from both genders) elevated to an art form (see: Housewives, Jersey Shore, et al) I’m glad that we as a country seem to be settling down. Maybe it’s because that pig-in-the-python, the Boomer demographic, is causing the rest of the country to mature a little.

This is one of the coolest things about getting older. By the time you’re middle-aged, you’ve lived through a lot. You’ve suffered pain; been stunned by cruelty and shocked by abuse; and you’ve watched gape-mouthed in wonder at the narcissism and selfishness in the world, sometimes on a global scale (see: Zimbabwe; Mugabe). You’ve endured the sleepless nights, the run to the ER, the drama of family ultimata (yes, in my case it’s plural, unfortunately.)

And now, when that stuff comes up? Yawn. How different from when we were younger. The drama about killed us sometimes, didn’t it? But now I’d rather take a nap.

Kindle readers, send me your comments at Lmspreen@yahoo.com.

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