Seniors

As LGBT elders, maintaining a positive attitude toward aging and finding ways to continue enjoying a satisfying quality of life is said to have great potential for extending our lifespans … some studies say as much as 7-1/2 years! Like breathing in and out, Life is constantly seeking to engage us through enjoyment and expression, regardless of our age.  Our interests and our passions are “what floats our cork” as the saying goes.   Each of us is drawn to activities that connect us to ourselves and to our surroundings.  However the way we express and enjoy ourselves may change over […]

  Empowerment may be an overused word, but it is what got us older LGBT adults through some tough times as we courageously faced a largely homophobic and transphobic culture and creatively carved out a niche for ourselves.   LGBT aging is now our new frontier and empowerment comes from being prepared for any “potholes” we may encounter as we continue our life journey, and of course from fearlessly facing our mortality and preparing for our death. As Atul Gawande amply illustrates in his best seller Being Mortal, the downside of not being proactive in preparing for health crises and our […]

  We don’t like to think about future needs.  However, the aging journey can sometimes present us with unexpected crises.  Knowing where to turn for help before we need it can lessen our stress and optimize our success in meeting challenges as they arise. Navigating the Maze:  Our “safety net” of benefits and services is actually more like a “crazy-quilt” of loosely stitched patches   As community needs were identified, a separate non-profit or government agency was formed to meet that specific need.  This agency provides transportation, another agency provides home-delivered meals, and yet another can help with in-home care.  Some […]

  Preparing Ourselves for Unexpected Change: Let’s say you live alone, perhaps with a cherished pet for company, and wake up in the middle of the night with an alarming tightness in your chest. Concerned that it could by a symptom of a heart attack, you call 911 and are taken by ambulance to the nearest emergency room. After some tests, it is determined that you need heart surgery and will be hospitalized for some days followed by a period of bed rest at home. Who will look after your pet while you are in the hospital? Who will look […]

Life Review In his book, A Time To Live, Robert Raines wrote about aging as a time to “consciously reweave the gorgeous tear-stained threads of your colorful life into a fresh tapestry of meaning.”  In one of my college decorative arts classes we studied how tapestries are made.  If you turn a tapestry with a detailed design over, it is an unrecognizable jumble of gaps and loose threads…much like my chaotic life when I look back on it! What holds the tapestry together are the strong warp threads that run from one end to the other.  The warp threads of […]

Cultural Influences:  At the end of my initial blog I mentioned that we would continue exploring optimal aging strategies that would capitalize on our qualities and strengths as LGBT elders.  One of those strategies is to examine how our cultural values and experiences have impacted us and continue to affect us. Internalized ageism:  Our culture is addicted to staying young.  Age is experienced as a disease, as a failure, as a betrayal of our bodies.  Television and magazines are filled with products guaranteed to restore and maintain the beauty, strength, stamina and sexuality of our younger years.  Instead of being […]

This is the first of what I hope will be a forum for older LGBT adults. I hope you will share your thoughts and experiences about aging with me. As some of you may know, I am passionate about the “conscious aging” movement and eager to share it with my LGBT community. This movement is all about changing “the aging paradigm” in a youth-obsessed culture and exploring how we can better prepare for the challenges and as well as utilize the opportunities afforded by our extended life span. As part of a project sponsored by Adult and Aging Services and […]