While I’m an elder, I hadn’t given a lot of thought to dying, that is until my brother, who’s 20 months younger, announced in...
Self-Care
Don’t Wait…The Clock is Ticking
GUEST POST by PAT BESSEY Don’t wait! I have heard this before. However, after the loss of my husband LeRoy Lowell in January, it takes on a whole new meaning. This was my third marriage, and we were together for thirty-two years. My first marriage was when I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school and expecting a baby. That marriage ended [...]
Pat Taub
Breaking the Taboo on Loneliness
“I hate coming home to an empty house. The silence can be deafening.” “I can go days without speaking to anyone except the clerk in the grocery store or my mail carrier.” “I rarely reach out to my friends when I’m feeling lonely because I’m too embarrassed to admit I’m lonely.” “My daughter tells me to stop feeling [...]
Pat Taub
Embracing Your Aging Body Can Be A Radical Act
Can you imagine a scenario where you, a vital older woman, actually liked your body instead of making it a battleground where you fret over your weight, wrinkles, and saggy boobs? What if food wasn’t the enemy and sleepless nights had their own advantages? What if you had practices for honoring your body? Body acceptance for the older [...]
Pat Taub
The Older Woman’s New Power
Older women are feeling powerful as they discover a voice they didn’t possess in their previous decades. They’re speaking up with a boldness and confidence unknown to their younger selves. Writer and blogger, 80 year-old Elaine Soloway has shed her passive aggressive self to take on verbal bullies. The popular Australian writer, [...]
Pat Taub
A Self-Care Skeptic
I had a lousy week. I fractured my foot. I was freaked out by the more-depressing-than-usual headlines of amped-up hate speech, of an American journalist being brutally murdered by the Saudis, of rampant voter suppression and on and on. There seemed to be no end to bad news. To lift my spirits I tried the familiar self-care suggestions. [...]
Pat Taub
How Learning to Play the Ukulele Helped Cure My ‘Nameless Depression”
Guest Post by Martha Rice You wake up one morning, and it’s back. You don’t know why. Things have been going along pretty smoothly. But on this morning, you wake up and for no apparent reason, you don’t have the spirit to get out of bed. You are suffering from a condition that I call “nameless depression,” a debilitating feeling [...]
Pat Taub
Breaking Free from Expectations
Guest Post by Emily Capelle I always heard that as you get older you lose your filter and start saying whatever comes to mind. Or behave in ways you wouldn’t have in the past. Well now that I’m 58, I have noticed it more and more. Growing up in an “in-between” time like the sixties and seventies, I suspect many young girls, like [...]
Pat Taub
Growing Old Without a Partner
I’m all for love and romance but when our love options run out as we age, when dating is more frustrating than satisfying, wouldn’t we be happier if we accepted that love is no longer in the cards, seeking companionship among friends and family? I mentioned this to a friend who looked aghast as if I were delivering a death sentence! [...]
Pat Taub
The 30-Day WOW Self-Care Plan
Hearing about the “Whole 30 Diet,” the latest health craze which consists of a 30 day adherence to a strict diet whose followers claim is life-changing, got me thinking, “What about a 30-day Self-Care Plan?” If you’re like me you tend to think of self-care when the chips are down. That’s when you schedule a massage or take a bubble [...]
Pat Taub