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Over 80? Don't embrace ageism!

4/20/2022

1 Comment

 
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I’m back telling my old woman secrets after another one of my many hiatuses. Since I wrote in October after my Florence trip, I have been back to my favorite city two times—in December and this past March. You can check out my adventures on the “On my mind” link on this blog.
     But, you ask, what are the secrets? After each of my trips, when travel opened up after Covid, it crossed my mind that perhaps I am making my last solitary trip. There is good sense in that, but I’m also aware that agism, in not a good way, can creep in to my thinking. There is NOTHING I know that should stop my body from traveling! Just a month ago I was able to manage every part of my journey from Boston to CDG Airport to Florence and back, even a 24 hour delay at CDG. 
      Don’t let ageism get the best of you! The secret, I think, is to keep some of your plans for the future to yourself. If you talk about them too much or too openly, you can open yourself up those near and dear to you offering opinions you didn’t ask for and worries you certainly don’t need. Those who do not yet categorize themselves as old, often don’t know what to do with ‘old people’ other than give advice and worry.

1 Comment
Muir Palmer
2/8/2023 05:03:56 pm

I stumbled upon your site as I was in search for quotes about stillness, silence and evening meditation. Your page with the Thomas Keating poem, Stillness, came up in my Google search. Just what I was looking for.

I am a 57-year old woman. I travel solo too and take myself on wonderful adventures. I have secrets and my life, while slower than it was 20 years ago, is richer in experience than it was when I was younger and each day I am still learning more about myself and the world I live in. I am bookmarking your site and coming back!

Thank you,
Muir

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    Author

       I am a 78 year old white, educated, privileged woman, in excellent health, with a wonderful family. I go to church and travel by myself to Italy and Scotland. That’s my public vita, my public persona. But that’s not all who I am. I have secrets, secrets of an old woman. So let me say some more.
         I’m old. Not in the usual physical ways of a person age 78, but I’m old in years, and that very fact guides the sense of meaning that I feel and experience in my life. Put succinctly, more and more my age is becoming the filter through which I lead my life.
         I’ve had a rich life, with caring parents, a loving husband of 54 years, two wonderful children, and four amazing grandchildren. My teaching career was rewarding; I published six books for teachers describing my experiences as a kindergarten and first grade teacher. When I retired I earned a divinity degree and became the spiritual care counselor for a local hospice.
        I ask myself if now I am really retired. Well, yes and no. Yes, in that I have more free and unscheduled time to satisfy my longing for silence, solitude and simplicity, which I blog about in this blog-- www.acottagebythesea.net, and more time to attend to my spiritual life, which I blog about in www.aprayerdiary.net. I have more time to spend with family and friends, help at church, read for pleasure, write, and travel,. My old woman secret is that I am still searching for meaning and the search is intense and life supporting.

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