Well Past 50: The Weblog of Boomerful.com

Facing Fears

When I was 23 the world was one giant adventure. I didn’t mount my horse hoping I wouldn’t fall off and break my wrist, I mounted my horse ready to gallop full-throttle across a pasture that could very well be hiding the gopher holes that kept me riding at a controlled trot. I don’t remember being afraid of anything at 23. Nothing could hurt me, and if it did I would heal.

I haven’t become a fearful old lady – yet. But I find myself considering things that once seemed unnecessary, like getting flu shots, and throwing away jars in the fridge that are two or three years past their expiration date.

Not only do we tend to heed the warnings we ignored in our youth, we begin to realize how little we know about this new generation of fashion, dialogue and TECHNOLOGY! Most of all, technology. If I didn’t have a fifteen year old daughter my IPod would still be resting safely in its box next to my nightstand after three years of ownership. Like my Personal Digital Assistant, which has not assisted me in any way since my husband bought it for me when Palm Pilots first hit the marketplace, I’m still waiting for it to get out of its box, sense my needs and start assisting.

I don’t know why we become more fearful with age. Maybe because by now we have known kids who put their eyes out when they ran with sticks. We’ve seen friends suffer from dog bites, car accidents, food poisoning, pneumonia, and all the things we thought our parents were making up to keep us from having fun. And the new fashions, dialogue and technology came after we had spent years feeling totally in control of a lifestyle that appeared to be permanent. What a cruel surprise change is.

Well, the surprise is over. WE know it’s happening to us and we can do something about it. We can face our fears. While I don’t advocate galloping full-throttle across a pasture or eating the mayonnaise with the green tinge to it, we can do things that will keep us from pulling deeper and deeper inside ourselves, fearing more and more of the new and unknown.

My friend, Lynne learned to fly at 54. Eileen went back to school to get her doctorate in Instructional Design. I’m not ready to commit to something as ambitious as they did, but, something as insignificant as learning to program your DVR can open doors that may lead to exciting adventures-  such as buying something on ebay or customizing your ring tone.

We want to hear about your fears.Tell us and we’ll find someone to help you overcome them. We’ll teach you how to download tunes to your IPod or send your kids a text message. It will convince them you’re suffering from yet another mid-life crisis.

Read Lynne’s story below and find something that will start you on the road to facing your fears!

Where Is Your Thrill?

How often do any of us find an activity that gets our adrenaline going and pulse racing along with a strong dose of fear? From time to time you hear of some eighty year old jumping from a plane (with parachute) and gliding through the clouds or bungee jumping from a building. Why at 70 or 80 are these people doing this? Why are they risking a broken hip or broken anything at that age? They’ve lived their lives, experienced a multitude of experiences, come on, give it up! Go sit down, be content with your past and veg for the next decade or so.

Hurray for these courageous people! I believe they do it for a couple of very sound reasons. First, because they feel time is running out and it is best do that activity now or forget it. Secondly, I’m wondering if they want that rush again to feel alive, to be excited or even scared.

Up until several months ago, I just went along with my little life, working, cooking, occasional nights out with friends, just a normal existence. I would do things for myself that I enjoy, play golf, dance, travel and every couple of weeks pampered myself with a manicure, pedicure, and once in a while, completely indulged myself with a massage. That existence changed drastically when my brother asked me if I would be interested in taking co-pilots lessons so he could fly longer distances and have someone to take over piloting when he was tired, or heaven forbid, something happened to him while in flight. Gladly I went along with this with no expectations other than being able to spend time with him and enjoy each others company. I have always loved to fly, commercially, and honestly had no fear about going forth with this plan. My biggest concern was that with hardly any estrogen left in this body, I couldn’t retain or learn anything new.

To my surprise, this experience has been exhilarating, exciting and downright frightening. It is reminiscent of looking down the side of mountain when I learned how to ski and thinking to myself this is way too steep I can’t possibly get down there. Or the fear I felt on the roller coaster that turns you upside down through a loop. I forgot how great it feels to get that adrenaline rush.

Each time my lesson is done I feel so incredibly alive!! My heart is racing; I’m giddy with excitement and can’t wait until the next time. I find it absolutely thrilling to control this small twin-engine miracle. Oddly it also seems to be somewhat freeing. Of what I’m not quite sure, but I do know that it has been a joy to revisit this overwhelming emotion.

I feel now I understand the thrill seekers, applaud their courage and hope that some of you try a new experience, something kind of scary for you, to get that blood flowing again, feel alive and exhilarated.

We need to keep finding new and exciting adventures no matter what our age. Let’s face it, at some point our health will be an issue and taking full advantage of our good health while we still have time, seems to be a pretty good idea.

Practicing Acts of Happiness

Dan B. is a very dear friend of mine with very bad feet. He has been hobbling around his office for several weeks wearing a variety of orthotics that don’t appear to be easing his pain. His limping has become uncomfortable for coworkers to watch.

A few days ago Dan’s daughter was rushed to the hospital and admitted to Intensive Care with a serious breathing disorder. Dan returned to work the next day, obviously distraught and very distracted. I called and asked his secretary how he was doing. “He’s not limping,” she said.

It took me a few seconds to grasp what she was getting at. Then it sunk in. Dan was so consumed with worry over his daughter that he no longer felt the pain in his feet. My heart went out to Dan. It takes a lot to take your mind off excruciating pain in your body. He was dealing with some very strong emotions. Dan’s mind had turned off his pain by refocusing on something far more important.

The mind can create pain where none exists, and it can erase pain when our energy is required somewhere else. Pain forces us to focus all of our attention to what’s happening in our body. The more we focus on the pain, the more we become aware of its intensity. Even minor discomfort can turn into disabling pain when we allow ourselves to concentrate on our distress. But when we force ourselves to concentrate on something other than our bodies, pain diminishes, and sometimes miraculously disappears, like it did in Dan’s case. 

I experienced the pain phenomenon when I had a particularly difficult root canal. I took my IPod, loaded with Josh Groban and Mario Lanza tunes (when Mario hits those high notes in Be My Love, you could be ripping my molars out with pliers and I wouldn’t notice). Not only did I make it through the root canal with no discomfort at all, I didn’t want it to end. I rarely take the time to let myself become totally immersed in the sentimental music I love. Josh and Mario serenading me at eardrum-shattering volume magically transported me from the dentist’s chair to a moon-drenched rooftop, where I glided and swirled in a long white gown, held close in the arms of Mario himself.

Everyone may not need the same level of drama and romance that I require to escape the anxiety and pain of dental work – although if you haven’t glided and swirled in the arms of Mario Lanza, you should try it for your next extraction. But, even the American Association of Endodontists encourages members to use relaxation techniques to lower patients pulse and blood pressure during procedures. One prominent endodontist reported “physiological changes” in patients when these techniques are used. He believes, “There is a direct correlation between anxiety and pain threshold.” He creates an anxiety-reducing atmosphere with soft lighting, classical music and scented candles – the tools used to help achieve a deep state of meditation.

Meditation has helped millions of people deal with and even overcome pain. And, even though it may sound intimidating for those who haven’t tried it, meditation is very simple to practice in 15-20 minutes a day. Hayhouse.com and wildmind.org have meditation CDs for everything from managing stress, to manifesting, to overcoming fear and eliminating pain. It’s worth the investment. Tai Chi not only reduces pain by putting you into a focused state of relaxation, but tones muscles and improves balance in the process.

Several types of yoga are proven effective in reducing pain.  And, no, you don’t have to bend yourself into a pretzel to receive the benefits.  Even practicing acts of happiness – watching comedies, laughing for no reason, singing loudly – can reduce the risk of infection, boost our immune systems, improve brain function, and sometimes completely eliminate pain. Dr. Kathleen Hall, author of A Life in Balance, suggests the following exercises to live a happy life. A large part of our happiness comes from what we practice every day, so practice, practice, practice.

1. Attitude of Gratitude.  It is physiologically impossible to be grateful and experience stress at the same time.  Research shows grateful individuals report having more energy and less physical complaints than their non-grateful counterparts. Studies tell us daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and happiness.
2. Choice.  Every moment of our lives is a choice and every choice we make has a huge ripple effect.  If we choose to commit to practicing happiness and optimism, we can transform our lives.
3. Proactive.  We shouldn’t be the victim of our lives by constantly responding to other people’s lives.  If we create a plan with our passion and live in a proactive manner, we will become the hero of our lives, not the victim.
4. Smile:  Begin the practice of intentionally smiling.  A scientist studying facial expressions tells us that when a person has a smile on their face, they release more serotonin and endorphins, happiness hormones, than nonsmilers.  Thich Nhat Hanh and his Holiness the Dalai Lama are adamant that a smile is the first step to a life of mental, physical and spiritual health.  Begin a practice of smiling to shift any situation into an optimistic opportunity.
5. Laugh as often as possible to release the healing hormones endorphins, the body’s natural pain killers.  Instead of  buying pills for our stress, we can go rent a funny movie, or go online to a humorous site daily and share it with our co-workers.  Laughter lowers blood pressure, reduces stress hormones and boosts our immune function.
6. Play.  Re-establish “childlike” qualities.  Science tells us when we play it increases our immune cells that combat disease.  Playfulness also increases creativity and optimism at home and at work.
7. Health. It is essential that we focus on the health of our bodies. When we care for our physical bodies we create greater possibilities for happiness. Our bodies are our greatest asset, so please care for them tenderly.
8. Spirituality.  The vast number of happy people have developed spiritual practices that nourish their heart and soul.  Discover what brings your soul passion, love and fulfillment.  Our spirituality is what roots us in our lives.
9. Altruism and Philanthropy. A generous soul lives a rich, abundant life.  Altruism neutralizes negative emotions that affect immune, endocrine and cardiovascular function.  Altruism creates a physiological responses or “helpers high” that makes people feel stronger and more energetic and counters harmful effects of stress.
10. Forgiveness. Happy people know forgiveness sets the soul free. A famous person said, “Living with resentment is like taking poison and expecting the other person to get sick.”  Open your heart to the gift of happiness by letting go of pain, judgment, anger and resentment.

The Age of Flirting

Bill and I were lovers when we were young. We were also friends –  a rare combination when you’re young. We enjoyed sitting by the fire and talking all night as much as we enjoyed our physical relationship. That was thirty years ago. The friendship remained intact, despite its dramatically reduced intensity, and the demise of the physical aspects of the relationship.

I received an email from Bill a couple of weeks ago asking me for information about an old friend. He closed his email with a teasingly suggestive remark, typical of his flirtatious humor. I knew he wasn’t serious. And then again…maybe he was. Was he or wasn’t he? The question played over and over in my mind, making me feel downright giddy.  Maybe it really was possible for a charming ex-lover to harbor a tiny spark of desire for me, even at MY age. The feeling was fleeting, but it was great while it lasted. 

When we were young, flirting was for tramps only – those girls who promised something the rest of us were not about to deliver. When we got a little older it became the prelude to a relationship – throw out the line and reel them in. That’s when we realized how much fun those “tramps” had been having.

Then somewhere just past “maturity” flirting began to feel stupid. How can you be coquettish when your dimples have disappeared into a thick layer of jowls? How can you look up seductively through your long, mascara-coated lashes when mascara now causes your eyes to tear. And coquettishness is nearly impossible to achieve when you’re looking coquettishly over your readers, which are necessary if you want to see the recipient of your flirtation up close. So we simply allow jowls, teary eyes and readers to make us feel unattractive and unworthy of any self-respecting hunk’s flirtation. 

Yet new research shows that we may be underestimating our own flirtation potential. Synovate, a global research company, recently conducted a poll to determine whether “older” women are as attractive to men as their younger counterparts. Forty percent of men in 12 key markets said they consider us just as hot as those skinny young things who don’t even know how to spell jowl.

German men in particular think older women are “simply gorgeous."  Greek and Italian men find the weight gain that seems to occur like magic after age 40 to be the least attractive aspect of aging in women (have they looked in a mirror?).  Virtually none of the respondents found wrinkles or gray hair to be a hindrance to beauty. So much for the thousands of dollars I’ve spent on wrinkle creams, a contour thread lift, and drums of hair dye.

The most appalling finding, in my opinion, was that a quarter of women over 55 stop buying cosmetics. Now?  When we need it most?  Thank heaven, 20% of us are trying our best to fight the belief that after 50 we should accept the old adage, “beauty comes from within.” We’re buying more cosmetics than we did when we were young.  But regardless of how many cosmetics we are or aren’t using they think we’re hot, sexy and beautiful at any age.

Men have told us this before. They insist they don’t notice that we have more crow’s feet than we had last year, or that our hair doesn’t gleam in the moonlight anymore. We just refuse to believe them. But, this is research! They weren’t trying to avoid a confrontation when they filled out the surveys. Maybe it’s time we started to realize that our obsession with aging is based on our own feminine attitudes about beauty – not what we perceive the male attitude to be.

And if we can believe that they still think we’re attractive, maybe we can get back to what we did so well in our twenties and thirties – flirting!  Nothing will reinforce our belief that we’re still attractive faster than a man responding positively to a sideways look and a smile, or a touch on the arm when you talk to him.  A little bit of tasteful flirting (no rubbing ankles under the table) keeps us, and them, feeling good about our sexuality. It adds some zing to our lives. It makes us a little more interested in our husbands if someone else shows an interest in us.

I’ve seen my mother (83, going on 30) brighten up when the single neighbor jokes that he’s waiting for her to go out on a date with him. She gets that familiar sparkle in her eye and the unmistakable lilt in her voice of someone who appreciates someone making her feel attractive. And I’ll bet money she goes home and cozies up to Dad a bit more invitingly than before.

Flirting is a technique invented by nature for all animals to test the waters and see who would be an appropriate mate. Dog’s do it, ferrets do it – it’s natural, healthy and fun. It’s also a wonderful way to stay in touch with our sexuality and make ourselves remember that those German men are right – we may be older but we’re still “simply gorgeous."

Share Your Wisdom

What gets you through the day? It is a simple pleasure like a Hershey's bar? Or a guilty one like a nice thick slice of triple chocolate cheesecake? Perhaps you take ten minutes everyday at three o'clock for meditating or get up at 5:30 a.m. to get a few miles in. If you were to tell your twenty-year-old self something, what would it be?

Share your tips with us, and we'll share a tip each week starting in October. And don't forget to sign up for our enewsletter at wellpast50.com.

To Those Who Survived...

I've often thought I grew up in one of the best time periods in history. Now I know it's true after my husband forwarded this little synopsis about what things were like when we were kids:

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we
rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because………

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day, and we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down
the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms.......

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,

Made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang
the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If YOU are one of them . . CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives “for our own good."

And while you are at it, forward it to YOUR kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.

When I Die I Want a Party!

There have been years in my life when no one died. At least no one close to me. And then there was this year:  My two best friends died, an employee who had been with the firm for 7 years, a dear friend’s brother, a work associate’s son – there have been very few weeks this year without a funeral. 

Some were less awful than others. The death of a child breaks the heart of every parent or aunt or uncle who has loved a child. Unexpected deaths cause shockwaves from the sudden realization of life’s uncertainty. Only the termination of a long and painful illness makes death seem almost okay.  But even the least awful funerals are still awful. Ironic when you consider that so many of us are taught that there is an after-life much better than this one.

When my friend Woody came into my office to tell me about the fantastic, uplifting funeral he had just attended it sounded like someone had finally “gotten it."  They sang happy songs at this funeral, he told me - not Amazing Grace that can reduce you to sobs if you never knew a single person who died – but songs with lively tempos and lyrics about joy and laughter. They all talked about the funny things this lady had done in her life. Then they released helium-filled balloons and laughed and hugged each other as the balloons floated their way to heaven.

Now that is a celebration of a person’s life. I’ve said it to Woody, my husband and my children – but I want witnesses, so I’ll say it again: When I die I want a party! I want people to gather together to remind each other how much I enjoyed life. I want people telling stories that made them laugh when I was alive, like the time I accidentally tucked my skirt into the back of my pantyhose and walked out into a room full of clients. I want dancing and really good wine for everyone. I want pictures of me wearing my face bra. And after the funeral, I want people to smile whenever they have a memory of me, not cry.

Maybe I need to make sure that I live my life in a way that will make friends want to celebrate me when I’m gone. I need to make a fool of myself more often, and laugh with more people. I need to give more positive feedback, and hug people whether they need it or not. I need to make life so darned much fun that no one will want the fun to end when I’m gone. Then maybe when I die everyone will put on their party hats, grab their best bottle of wine, buy a balloon bouquet, and head to my funeral.

Benefits of Getting Old

I'm always running across other blogs that write about the benefits of getting old. Either this is a new religion, or it's just plain fact that WE ARE ALL GETTING OLDER.

Read the Dilbert blog >>

A New Mantra for Aging

I just read Nora Ephron’s new book, I Feel Bad About My Neck, and I was amazed that this famous author and screenwriter is actually my alter ego. If you’ve been reading this blog you know that my concern over my neck is second only to my concern over the loss of my eyebrows. The book touches on the losses all 50+ women are facing…the loss of perky breasts, eyebrows and, worst of all, dear friends.

Nora Ephron addresses the very personal concerns that women have about aging – concerns we may have thought were exclusively our own, until Ephron points out the fear and dread we all share over the losses yet to come.

Ephron says honestly that aging sucks. Yet she says it with such a humorous tone that we know she is not spending her remaining years locked in an apartment with 23 cats and her old Jim Croce albums. She is living life happily and productively, bringing happiness to the thousands of readers of her essays.

We have been indoctrinated to think that it’s anti-boomerlike to bash aging. We’re supposed to say things like, “I love being my age because I’m so much wiser and confident now than I was at twenty.” I’m with Ephron – I’d rather be twenty. 

But if she can admit to hating the aging process, while continuing to live life to the fullest, we all should join in with a new mantra, “I hate aging, but doggone-it, I’ll find SOMETHING to like about it.”

Good Manners Never Go Out of Style

I rarely attend those big, fancy fund-raising events where people get all dressed up and act like honest-to-goodness adults. Of course, I rarely get invited, so it’s not entirely because of my aversion to pretentiousness that keeps me away. When I was invited to a particularly interesting event recently I made what I thought might be a life-changing decision. I would get over my fear of large crowds of people who are all more interesting and better dressed than me, and join the world of the grown-ups.

As always, when I attend functions like this one, I started out at home saying to myself, “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go," and ended up at the event saying, “La de da, I’m so glamorous to be here!”

When I was introduced to a group who had been previously described to me as ‘the top rung of the social ladder’ I was determined to see them as ordinary people who would probably love to be my friend. Okay, so that didn’t turn out to be entirely true. They politely shook my hand and went back to dropping names like boulders of ego-mass on each others’ heads. I didn’t have a single name to drop, except Kris Kristofferson, whom I spent an evening chatting with some 25 years ago and still talk about every time the topic of ‘how many celebrities do you know?’ comes up in conversation.  But that didn’t seem appropriate here.

Anyway, I assumed dinner would provide the opportunity for conversation at least with the people sitting on either side of me. Did you know that snooty rich people have voices loud enough to carry all the way across a ten person round table, allowing them to totally ignore those sitting next to them. But it wasn’t only me that they ignored. They ignored the speaker, an illustrious politician with a lot of interesting things to say – I think. I couldn’t hear most of them over the snooty rich peoples’ loud voices.

And their lack of manners didn’t end there. I noticed one of the snooty rich ladies flinging her fork around in the air, smattering tiny dabs of salad dressing all over her Yves St. Laurent gown, reinforcing my belief in a fair and just God.

All of this is leading to a point, which is…money doesn’t give you class, but manners do. I worked with the Empress of Etiquette, Marjabelle Stewart, for many years. I produced videos on manners for children with her, wrote a children’s book on manners with her, and accompanied her to dozens of speaking engagements. There has never been a woman more committed to graciousness than Marjabelle. And when reporters would ask her the number one rule of manners she would always answer, “Being kind."

“Manners are the happy way of doing things,” she would repeat over and over again. And watching her glide through a crowd, greeting everyone from the Secretary of State to the bus boys has made everyone happy to be in her presence.

I never heard Marjabelle say a bad word about anyone. I never saw her ignore anyone.  And, of course, I never saw her fling her fork around. No matter how beautifully you may be dressed or how many names you can drop in a single sentence, a lack of manners just screams, “I MAY BE RICH, BUT I’M AS COMMON AS DIRT!”

It doesn’t take a great deal to learn manners. It’s mostly about making people around you feel comfortable, including everyone, and simply being thoughtful of others. No one will notice if you pick up the wrong fork for the fish dish, but they will notice if you talk over the speaker, or turn up your nose at someone who didn’t know the event was formal and wore their Hawaiian shirt to dinner.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to know which fork to use, either. Get a book. Marjabelle wrote 17 of them. Emily Post and Amy Vanderbilt are still great resources. It will help you in business, improve your social life, and make people like you. What’s happier than that?

Fighting the Frump

Here's a group a ladies after my own attitude - dedicated to fighting the 50+ frump and celebrating the best years of our lives... www.bluethongsociety.com