Quarentined in your 60's

We're not in lock down yet in our town but it's coming. Mayors are talking about it on TV and, of course, rumors are flying.  But that's okay. I'm 63 now and it's probably time to go into hiding.

Biggest issue? I'm a small business owner and this shut down might put me out of business permanently.  Yes, I've cried. For my business that I love, for the customers who were regulars and I consider friends and for the uncertainty of our future. Like many other small business people, we have almost everything invested in our business.

So after the tears I said to myself, "You're an entrepenure, damn it, Act like it!"
We're using these last few days before we're sure to get locked down selling take home kits. We have so much bleach and hand sanitizer on our hands they have a permanent odor. Is bleach the new perfume of the 20's? Could be.

So, I have plans for the lockdown.

• Clean out those closets I've been meaning to get to
• Plant a garden
• Write another book 
• Write more blogs
• Walk the dog
• Spend time with the husband (ok, that's not really a choice)
• Movie marathon time
• Paint a room
• Rearrange the furniture (maybe more than once)
• Brainstorm how to save my business

If you're locked down, how are you spending your time? Any creative ideas? 

Hiding the Introvert

Yes, I think I'm an introvert. I'd rather be at home on the couch with my dog or in my studio with my dog making art. Or writing.

However, there's this thing in life called money that seems to be a necessity unless you want to live in a shack in the woods. But then you'd still have to eat and have medical care and buy stuff to wash with and clothes to wear so we do need that thing called money.

Which means we have to be out in the world doing stuff and taking care of those basics. Even the introvert needs to get out and take care of life. If there are people counting on you then it's pull up those big girl pants and just get it done.

Some days it's easier. Some days it's not. But it's always exhausting.

For an Introvert to be "on" all the time takes a lot of energy. When it's over and they get to go home it's all they can do to hold their head up and not just collapse. Mentally and physically spend. The well is dry. It's time to recharge.

How does an introvert recharge? They go to their safe place, their happy place. Could be turning on the TV and zoning out on a favorite show or pulling out that favorite hobby and putting all their attention into it. Maybe they take a hot bath or just a nap. Each has their own way of coming down to normal again and, if you live with that introvert long enough, you'll see it.

How do you handle that introvert hiding in their safe place? How do you draw them out? Easy answer. You don't. Leave them be and let them recharge, clear their head and come back when they're ready.

                                          Sign me,
                                                    Introvert on the inside

New Life, New Business, New Adventures

I know life is nothing without goals but I think as we grow older we stop setting those goals. Where once we had a goal to get a new job, hit the gym regularly, go back to school (my dream) or publish a book (3 to date & a novella -find them on Amazon) or maybe even leave everything you know behind and start a new life.

That's what we did at age 60.

Crazy?

Very. But determined. Our new business seems to be slowly moving along and dare I say - picking up a bit. We need to rethink our marketing. Which I think is something you constantly have to keep re-doing. Marketing is something that constantly changes. It's fun and exhausting.

Still I couldn't imagine being retired and sitting around doing nothing all day. I think that would make me even more crazy than the starting-a-new-business thing. I don't golf and can't imagine just hanging out all day.  Maybe 60 really is the new 40? Like maybe 10 or 15 years from now I'd be more open to just retiring, but now? I'm having fun building something that is ours.

I think sometimes the way to approach a new goal is just one step ahead of the other. Keep moving and don't waste time with worry. That's not productive. Instead I look to the fun part of the job. The art, the people and the day to day activities.

Set that goal, have some fun, and know that as long as you're moving forward you're going in the right direction.

When Death Creeps Close

When someone near to you dies you do go through grief and shock but as you move up in years you think about other things. You grasp for a reason why someone your own age just passed away. 

Mortality smacks you in the face. 

This year I lost both a good friend and relative. The friend smoked for years and it was those nasty cigarettes that finally did her in. She was 65. Bright, vibrant and taken too soon. The relative had health problems she didn't share. (Younger by a few years) That was more of a shock due to the fact we thought everything was alright. 

It wasn't. But her passing was still a shock even to those who knew she had health problems.

When you're 20 or 30 and someone your age passes away it's always a shock but not something that makes you question your own health and lifestyle. 

Then you hit 60 and your perspective is skewed in the "could that have been me?" zone. You start to question that twinge in your chest, the cramp in your calf, and that forgetfulness.  

I think we have to double check everything. Make sure your meds (yes there are two to date) are good and go back to exercising regularly. Throughout the years exercise has come and gone and come back again. In my 20's I was hard core, then came kids and it got sporadic, then through the years it came and went. One thing stays constant? It does make you feel better. Jars are easier to open, boxes lift with less strain, your back thanks you, and squatting down doesn't mean you're stuck down there until someone gives you a lift. 

So to those who have passed I send my prayers, to those who are suffering I send hope that their health takes a turn for the better. 

For me? I need to clean out the spare room and get some weights. A few weeks ago I got a dog so the cardio is on the uptick. Dogs need walks and living where winter never drops below 60 degrees makes walking easy and enjoyable. 

Tomorrow I attack the pile of boxes in the spare room to make space for exercise. Yeah! 

Aging & Changes over 60

Some days I forget how old I am.
Other days it's the little things that hit back to remind me. Some small like that bright white hair in my normally brown eyebrows. Other's are bigger like the creeping arthritis I know is hitting the joints in my hands.

When I first started seeing the little white hairs replacing brown ones in my eye brows I just plucked them out. Bye, bye, all gone!  However I reached the point where it's either live with those pesky little white hairs or have a big bald line where my eye brows used to be. (Insert sigh of resignation here)

I've seen the older people with the enlarged knuckles. Their joints are stiffer, swollen. I'm not there yet but that little pinky on my right hand seems to have stiffened up a bit. Maybe the joint is a bit larger? Ugh!

So, I take my vitamins, walk the dog and think I need to put some weight lifting on my itinerary. They say lifting weights keeps the bones strong and makes you safer from injury.

I tore my rotator cuff years ago and met this little old doctor who treated my after care. He said to make sure to take calcium. He had fallen on an icy step and went down hard. He said the only reason he didn't break anything, as old an as frail as he was- he should have, was because he took calcium every day.

I take B12, too. B12 rules the nervous system and that affects everything in the body. Add D to that because blood work says I'm deficient and I'm rounding out my vitamins with something called Hair, Skin & Nails.

Getting old doesn't mean we no longer pursue health as vapidly as we did in our 20's. I think sometimes we forget to keep all these healthy habits in the front of our aging toolbox. 

Sixty the New Forty?

Could sixty be the new forty? Are people more in-sync with a healthier lifestyle that they eat better, stay active, and get medical care? Could be.

Turn on any morning talk show and half the time you find some doctor talking about the best way to do things. Eat your veggies, walk, drink water. All of this wasn't on our parent's radar when they hit sixty. The information highway has brought this info to us in a constant stream. TV, radio, and of course the computers. (Which are now inside our phones.)

So, yes. Sixty could be the new forty.

Sure I feel a little stiffer in my joints. I've got arthritis in my neck and shoulder from a car accident, and that extra weight doesn't seem as easy to lose as it used to be. But I can still walk a mile, lift weights and work. I think back to my mom at this age and she was already disabled and collecting disability. She had hip and artery problems which I think now were misdiagnosed.  Something we'll never know for sure. She hadn't been working for a few years by this age.

I see friends my own age that are in pretty good shape, too. Some have bigger health challenges but the information that's out there is helping them. They have more places to turn to than just their doctor. They were exposed to a time when new discoveries in medicine surprised us all. Vitamins, vaccines, food values, healthier sweeteners, the list goes on.

So someone tell me, how do we make Seventy be the new forty?

Surviving the Empty Nest

I'll be 62 in a few weeks. Truthfully, I don't feel any different than I did at 40 only, in a way, I have less responsibility.  Oh yeah, I'm still working, building my own business that I started at age 60, but the kids, my life's work up until they went off on their own are now building their own lives.
Empty nesting was hard on me. I had a sense of being lost, wanting to go back but of course there's no going back. Kids grow up and move out. It's pretty much a fact of life. I found myself falling back into the memories of things we did together, places we went, mountains I watched them climb, success and growth. I was drowning in memories.
They are off on their own, successful in their own right. Building their own lives, forging a path. I'm so proud of who they have become.

Now what?
Well, the hubby and I sold the house, moved 900 miles to be closer to the kids and started our own business.
Yikes!
We did that?
It's scary and fun and hard work. But so far it's work I'm loving. So I still have responsibility but it's different. No little lives depend on me, I don't have to wake anyone up in the morning but me. Make dinner or don't. It's just the hubby and I so we take turns or we go out.
I think after going through the empty nest portion of life I've emerged on the other side. My brother once told me empty next is like being 21 again but this time you have money. He's kind of right. Except I took all my money and put it in a business. :)

Truthfully, I think retirement at this point would bore me. The brain has to stay active to continue to grow. Chasing a golf ball around the green just isn't for me. Neither is sitting on the couch. If I had retired like that I'd probably be pacing the room look for the escape hatch.
Bottom line? To survive the empty next set goals. Don't just curl up and think about retirement.
THINK!

Is there something you always wanted to try? Something you always wanted to be? Set a goal. Make it big or small or make many and knock them out one at a time. Either way, don't forget that life is about moving forward.
So move toward a goal no matter how big or small.
It's out there. Go for it. Go for 60! It's gonna be a beautiful decade!