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...
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Finding Freedom
GUEST POST BY MARY LOU MACKIN Twenty-two years ago, I stood before a judge in a courtroom full of strangers trembling and bewildered, to petition for a restraining order from my abusive husband. I was the mother of a one-year old son, and I was terrified for his future more than my own. I felt the sudden presence of someone by my side, [...]
Pat Taub
Gardening Up To The End
GUEST POST by LISA SAVAGE Around where I live people grow food starting in earnest this time of the year. No matter what our religion or political persuasion, once the soil is warm and dry enough, we all of us poke in some seeds. Some years it rains so often that the seeds fail to germinate and instead rot in the ground. It’s not great [...]
Pat Taub
Death Journaling
GUEST POST by FRANCESCA LYNN ARNOLDY* My Death Journal is a gift for my beloveds that I have been lovingly creating for many years. It’s meant for my end of life—whenever that occurs. My family members know of its purpose and where it lives. My Death Journal contains mementos, messages, song lyrics, poetry, quotes, wishes for care if and [...]
Pat Taub
Wise Women Speak
As a young woman, I never would have predicted that landing in my eighth decade would usher in the most content state of my life. I expected the challenges of being in an aging body would sour my mood. Instead, I finally grew up. I learned to reap the lessons from all my years of soul-searching, growing from romantic heartbreaks, career [...]
Pat Taub
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
We all have core stories we tell ourselves that keep us trapped in a negative narrative: “I can’t seem to speak up when my feelings are hurt; I have a hard time believing I’m good enough; I’m too old to be in a relationship.” Esther Perel, the popular relationship therapist, believes that the stories we tell ourselves are adaptive [...]
Pat Taub
How I Became A Climate Activist
GUEST POST by MOLLY SCHEN I’m coming to climate activism pretty late in life, in my early sixties. I’m no Greta Thunberg. But I can’t stay on the sidelines any longer. I am dismayed by the frequency of severe weather events—floods, fires, droughts, and storms. And I cannot ignore my own lived experience of hotter summers, milder winters, [...]
Pat Taub
Not One More!
In a recent dream I was attending a civic meeting. I grew frustrated with the speakers who addressed safe topics, like improving city parks. I wanted them to take on the latest school shooting, which took place in Nashville, killing three 9-year-old children and three adults. Unable to hold back my frustration, I bolted from my chair, [...]
Pat Taub
“Still Life at Eighty” by Abigail Thomas
Still Life at Eighty is a reassuring memoir chock full of humor, irreverence, and wisdom. Abigail Thomas greets her old age with vulnerability and spunk, refusing to buy into the familiar worries that often accompany aging. She is refreshingly positive about aging. Thomas has learned to love her solitude, shed guilty feelings, and be unapologetic [...]
Pat Taub
Creating Love
“There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love.” — The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm On this Valentine’s Day, let’s pause and reflect on love beyond exchanging Valentine’s cards, chocolates, and flowers. With intention and [...]
Pat Taub
Adding Joy to Your Life
Human tensions are running high these days. We’re facing global warming, an escalating war in Ukraine, racial tensions, and economic hardships. While we can’t control how life challenges us, we can control how we respond. If we pause and put the world’s problems on the back burner, we can make room for joy. But how, you must be wondering? [...]
Pat Taub