Category Archives: community

Life’s Third Act

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Jane Fonda, who is exactly my age, has given any number of talks about life’s “third act”, which, as in theatre, is the last act of a production.  Billionaires like Fonda have the financial resources to live in a comfortable environment, meet their health requirements, and hire whomever they want to take care of whatever other physical needs they have.  But most of today’s elders are trying to figure out how to play out their last acts in more than just survival mode.

Even Fonda is confronting the problem of feeling isolated and extraneous as the major activities that gave her previous two acts meaning, purpose, and community slowly disappear.  Still in relatively good health, Fonda has taken to being an activist for various issues that are important to her as a way of continuing to feel useful and connected.  Good for her.

But what about the rest of those middle class retired seniors who struggle with feeling isolated and purposeless because of health issues, lack of financial resources, and inadequate living conditions.

Under these circumstances, what are their choices for how they perform in this last act of their lives?  How we elders live depends and awful lot on where we live, and our choices are limited.

I am fortunate that I live in my own rooms in my daughter’s house.  We are three generations in this house:  my daughter and son-in-law, my grandson, and me.  I contribute financially each month to offset the my share of the costs of utilities, phone, cable and streaming television, and food etc. I’m responsible for my breakfast and lunch food, and my daughter cooks dinners for all of us.  Luckily for me, my daughter is a born caregiver and my son-in-law is an easy-going guy.  He even does the dishes.  I am one of the fortunate ones.

A recent post on theseniorlog.com links to an article on the growing trend of intergenerational living. At its best, intergenerational living

brings together people of all ages in an environment that encourages interaction, socialization and activities that are beneficial for all.

But many families, for various reasons, can’t pull this off.  As reported in the Jesuit Review

Many of us in the current generation of senior citizens also must cope with our family members’ living far away. According to a study from 2019, about one-quarter of Americans live more than 30 miles from their nearest parent or adult child, but that share is higher for college-educated individuals, who often move away from their hometowns to pursue their careers. Migration has always existed to some extent, but until recently, when families migrated, they often included adult children, grandparents, cousins, nieces or nephews. The current ease of transportation and communications has actually resulted in limited, non-physical connections for a significant portion of society.

It has also destroyed much of family life. Family elders may end up removed from close contact or routine communication with younger members of their clan.

So, what are the other housing options for playing out your last act? You can either “age in place” or pay enormous fees to live in an assisted living facility — both of which come with their own major problems.

Assisted living monthly fees run from $3000 a month to over $10,000 a month, depending on the level of services you will get.  One place I found online — an innovative and progressive living situation for elders that offers individual cottages and apartments in a community-based setting — does not even bother providing information about cost on their website.

Aging in place is also not as good an answer as you might think, either.  According to a an article on Housewire ,

Aging in place is seen as a leading “social barrier“ to healthy aging in America in 2024, according to a new survey conducted by Alignment Health. The survey was first reported by McKnights Senior Living.

“As more seniors choose to live independently and longer in their own homes, aging in place brings its own set of challenges: nearly seven out of 10 consider aging in place a top social barrier to their health and well-being,” the organization said of its survey findings.

I don’t know if the new administration is prepared to tackle the issues that are preventing most elders from having a successful Last Act.  Maybe we all need to band together somehow (like the supporters of reproductive rights) and organize some sort of protest. How about our rights to live before we die? I wonder if Jane Fonda might be interested in taking the lead.

Wiser Than Me

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Julia Louis Dreyfus is doing a podcast called “Wiser Than Me”, interviewing elder women about their lives and their attitudes toward aging.

After unclenching my teeth over the grammatical error in the title (the correct wording is “wiser than I”), I tuned in to the first two sessions with Jane Fonda and Isabel Allende.  The secret to having a successful “old age”, according to those octogenarians, has to do with good health and enough money.  Duh. Aren’t those things at the basis of every comfortable life, no matter what your age?

What has enabled these two women to truly enjoy this final chapter of their lives is their passion for what they love to do.  For Fonda, it’s activism and acting;  for Allende it’s writing and her recent remarriage.

Fonda has opted to live alone, deciding that she would rather not have to be nude in front of anyone at this point in her life.  She has let her hair go gray and wishes that she had not opted to go the plastic surgery route. Her friendship with women is most important to her at this stage of her life, as is her activism on behalf of saving the planet from fossil fuels and other pollutants.

Allende, on the other hand, is still comfortable with her sexuality (she remarried three years ago) and spends most of her time writing, which is her passion and purpose.  She says that she writes because she has to and loves the process.

Both consider themselves feminists and live their creative lives with that as an underlying philosophy.

Listening to these two women talk about their lives, past and current, I envy their passion and purpose.  Somewhere during the pandemic, I lost touch with mine, and I’m still floundering around, trying to recreate myself.  Maybe I can get inspired by continuing to listen to these podcasting women, who are so much wiser than I am.

 

Like Lazarus

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Like Lazarus, this personal blog periodically comes back to life. This time in the midst of major world crises — war and death, planetary destruction, political insanity.

I am feeling lost in the middle of all of this — tired, unconnected, useless.  The tiredness is overwhelming.  Nothing inspires me.  So I sit down to write to try to tap into that place deep within me where there must still be signs of life.  It takes an effort just to do that much.

I  continue to struggle with the inability to fall asleep.  A combination of Abilify and Melatonin seems to have begun working.  Time will tell.  The Abilify was prescribed (added to my depressive meds) because last year I was diagnosed with Bipolar 2, which means, while I don’t get manic, I do have periods of significant mood swings that affect my life.

But I am still tired during the day, and nothing seems to pique my interest — no crafts, no projects…  I only occasionally leave the house.  It doesn’t help that the magnificent maple tree outside my window is intently shedding dry brown leaves instead of turning its usual Autumn color palette. The brittle leaves are piling up in inches-thick mounds.

Notice that none of my neighbors have leaves in their yards.  It must annoy them to have the breezes send some of ours onto their well-manicured lawns.  My son-in-law usually mows the fallen leaves into mulch as the season progresses, but this pile-up is overwhelming.  When he has time, he will figure out what to do with them.

I have plenty of time, but I can’t seem to figure out what I want to do.  I check the calendar my senior center and circle programs to consider.  But all I do is consider.

The one thing that keeps me going is my relationship with the man to whom Match.com accidentally sent me, even though I canceled my subscription years ago.  The same age as I am, and a fellow Pisces, he amazes me with his perseverance and positive attitude. We both struggle with health issues (I had my right knee replaced last June), and we live an hour’s drive apart. So getting together can be a challenge, but we manage.  And having lunch every other Friday with him and his sister is also an incentive.

I saw something on the senior center page that I am considering.  They are looking for town residents to help “build an age-friendly community….help shape the future of an Age and Dementia Friendly East Longmeadow”.  Well, I sure know about age and dementia, and I sure would like to become part of some community.

Meanwhile, the poor Palistinian people are being annihilated.  Where is there justice in all of this? Gaza is about the size of Philadelphia; Israel in a little smaller than Massachusetts, but has a strong military.  Although Israel is fighting Hamas, it is killing  ordinary Palistinians who  have nothing to do with Hamas. Looks like David and Goliath, and Goliath is going to win. Why isn’t neighboring Egypt offering to take Palistinian refugees, who are caught in a cage with no way out?  Gaza and the innocent people in it are fodder. And America is backing Goliath.  At least, why aren’t we working with Egypt to rescue the women and children of Gaza?