Tag: seniors

Advice for Seniors

December 20, 2023

Most people look forward to retirement as a time when they think that they can do whatever they wish to do, whenever they want to do it. I am retired and reflected on whether it is true. What I found is that I settled into a routine that expands the time available in a day for doing just sustaining activities, having less time for many things I’d like to do. Why? 

Perhaps I take longer to do things than I used to. For example: I may be less efficient when going grocery shopping. Or, perhaps, I enjoy shopping more now than before and spend more time in the stores. The adage about activities expand to fill the time available is true. Let me describe a typical day. 

Since I have no daily obligations or commitments, the first thing that crosses my mind when waking up is, why get up today? I need a purpose or task to motivate me to roll out of bed. Once I identify what I am going to do, I feel ready to get up. But first, I need to loosen up my joints, the calf muscles are tight, so I begin to rotate my foot around my ankle and then pull up my knees to my chest to loosen up the hamstrings. Still sleepy, I roll out of bed and stumble into the kitchen to make coffee, decaf, a slow start is fine in the morning.

I remember friends who used to reach for a cigarette waking up; I reach for my cellphone. While I do not get newsprint papers anymore, I subscribe to many online news sources.

With coffee in hand, I must catch up on the news, right? I want to know what is going on at home and around the world. Often, the headlines of myonline sourcesprovide sufficient info for me while other times I immerse myself in a detailed account of a news item such as the article on how Hamas accumulated an $11 billion war chest.

In other repetitive news, I learn that: the Ukraine war is still on, the Hamas/Israeli war is still on, COP28 produced an agreement, Congress is still stumbling around with the new Speaker and the Canadian Prime Minister, who prefers to globetrot than stay home, is out of the country again on some worldwide trip.

I prefer reading news that upsets me, such as about the woman, pregnant with her third child and facing death without an abortion, having to leave the State of Texas to get an abortion in another state where abortion is allowed. I get upset at the Attorney General of Texas who brought in the legislation making abortion illegal for any reason.

Or I read about the Premier of Quebec bashing the Anglos again via French language policies, trying to bolster his low political standing in the province, an always sure-winning strategy in Quebec. Disgusting. The Premier raised university fees for out-of-province students at Montreal’s English language universities creating serious financial hardship for their survival. And by centralizing healthcare, services in English may be reduced in the future. French language policies in Quebec have always upset me: when will Quebecors realize that outside Quebec, most Canadians do not give a fig about French?

Now that upsetting news woke me up and got my adrenalin flowing, it is time for breakfast. An important activity: fix eggs, sunny side up, to perfection, with toast and jam on the side and more coffee, this time full-strength. 

Following breakfast, my routine is to make the bed and do bathroom duties that have increased in complexity with the arrival of a Waterpik. I thought the Pik would replace the toothbrush, but I discovered that it is a flossing device only and brushing teeth is still a go, followed up with the Waterpik.

It could be 10 am by now and it is time to start exercising. Do not miss exercises; as you age, it is important to keep fit and I have a variety of options: get on the floor and do my yoga poses I learned from attending classes and from TV yoga gurus; or I can turn on the TV and follow walking exercises, Pilates, or warmups. The ten-minute warmup I like is with music by the BeeGees, which gets me sweaty.

Some days, when I feel energetic (or when Kathy “encourages” me), I follow up my in-house exercise routine by going to the gym as well where I mostly use the machines.  On occasion, I have even signed up for a private lesson where they have encouraged me to use more free weights. But, honestly, I am quite happy with the treadmill, stair climber, bicycle, and various machines challenging my leg muscles. even though I know that the free weights would be useful for my upper body.

You see by now where I am going with this?

After the gym, it is time for lunch, which I never miss.  And, of course, after all the exercise, I take a siesta after lunch, followed by coffee to wake me up.  That makes the afternoon short with little time for chores if I am to leave time for my blogging before dinner.

I could go on describing how I spend my timeeating, having coffee, exercising, and napping. I  think I am quite wasteful with my time just to sustain my existence. Although my days are enjoyable, and relaxing, I am convinced that retired people, including myself, need a goal, a project, a mission, or a purpose such as authoring a book, traveling to far-flung places, working at a soup kitchen, or taking courses on subjects of interest. Otherwise, life is meaningless.

Seniors’ Agonizing Dilemma

July 10, 2023

The children are gone, and we knock around in the large family home. The question arises: should we downsize? And, if so, should we buy or rent? This is an agonizing decision for seniors living in single-family homes.

If you are an empty nester, what thoughts percolate through your mind pondering these questions? Assuming that you do not have to move for financial reasons, health reasons, or because the neighborhood has changed for the worse, why should you abandon the family home, why should you downsize?

Well, one reason is that you use only half the available space. By downsizing, you would pay half the heating and air-conditioning costs and would have half the space to clean and dust. Property taxes would be less. A condo would have no grass to cut and landscape to maintain; the management company would do all of those, including snow removal. These are the advantages of downsizing to a condo. And since the management company would do all interior maintenance in a rental unit, you would also be spared that activity.

So, downsizing is a solution if house maintenance becomes too onerous, or if you do not want to do it anymore. But wait! How about hiring people to clean and work in the garden? So why downsize? Let’s do some more pondering.

What do we lose when we move into a condo or apartment? Without question, we lose privacy and space and are obliged to follow the rules and regulations of the condo and apartment unit.

We are going to lose the use of the front and back yards, the long double driveway, and the wide street in front of the house. And we have less living space. Much less space, and our friends, who downsized, confided in us that they ended up buying new furniture to fit into their new living space.

Other disadvantages could be noisy neighbors above and below, the smell from their cooking penetrating your unit, especially when windows are open, and access to the unit would be via parking in the garage and then an elevator and finally a hallway instead of just entering the current family house directly from the garage, a huge advantage when carrying groceries and stuff. Should I go any further?

I can see seniors agonizing over whether or not to downsize and then whether or not to buy a condo or rent an apartment.

All these ideas were racing through my mind when I heard good friends just sold their house and rented an apartment. But something was bothering me. My reflections concerned space, privacy, and freedom of action. But what about my lifestyle in the family home that I occupied for decades? Am I going to miss the BBQs on the deck I built in the backyard? Or, sitting on the front porch with a cup of coffee in my hand watching the traffic on the street? Or my big office in the basement where I wrote a couple of books? And the other large recreation room where I practiced yoga watching the big screen TV? All these activities have acquired a familiar aura that I would throw away if moving to another place. Would I pay too high a price for moving out of our family home?

If you have lived in your home for a few decades, you have almost certainly changed your home to your taste, to your liking. The paintings, furniture, and objects in your home are expressive of your personality. The physical house becomes part of your identity, regardless of how much of it is embedded in your memory.

We are still in our family house. If we moved, I would certainly retain the knowledge of how I lived but it will not be the same as experiencing the real thing, for example, enjoying an outdoor BBQ with friends on a deck I built. I would lose part of my identity.