Over-50

Pet Grief: Why don't we get used to loss ... at our age

Grief breaks us back open to the world.  We start asking questions rather than feeling smug about how much we have learned through so many years of experience.

One week ago today I helped Havana Brown Carlotta pass over.  The presenting cause was a large internal mass that was making her fur stand up a little.  The vet also told me she had a serious heart condition.  After all, she was 16.5 years old.  Of course I was in denial.  I told the vet that there were cats which lived until 21.  She gently told me the average age is 17.

We don't get to over-50 without staggering loss.  Among them are probably our parents, some siblings, financial security, a career or two, and trust in the majority of the human race.  So, we are convinced that the next loss which comes along we should be handling well.  How naive.  Today I was driving to pitch to a prospect.  Along the way Carlotta's face flashed through my mind.  I thought, at least for 20 seconds, that I couldn't go on.

I have been considering making myself a black armband to indicate to the world that I am in mourning.  A woman I attended college with freshman year Rebecca Mitchell actually wore one when her sister had died.  She told me she received tremendous support from strangers like store clerks and folks walking their dogs.

My resentment about the grieving process?  It drains my energy.  Maybe because I am working so hard not letting go of Carlotta.  Yeah, my unconscious is still bargaining with some imaginary power-that-be that reality is not at all what it seems.

VANITY FAIR Oscar Party: We weren't there and it doesn't matter, does it

As usual, the VANITY FAIR Oscar Party, hosted by publisher Graydon Carter, went on without us.  Several years ago when we were still in our tormented middle years, we might have felt less-than, losers, folks who had nothing to use as a benchmark of success.

Now, the blessing of aging is that we simply don't care about what wasn't and what likely will never be.  THE ECONOMIST had a major section on how inner peace - and therefore happiness - come with aging.  By now we know who we are, our strengths, our dark side, and how much we are willing to sacrifice to get what we want. 

If we simply keep on plodding, as we have been for decades, we will not only continue making progress in own lines of work but maybe even become a late bloomer. 

In short, there never was and never will be a pay-off in wishing ourselves elsewhere.  Opportunity and success happen in the now.

Baby Boomers: What we believed and when we believed it

If we realized we Baby Boomers were going to live this long, we might not have embraced so fervently and publicly so many beliefs.   Now, we are puzzled what in the world had come over us.

Until I was 24, I was a devout Catholic.  In high school my older sister told me that her friend's brother "had lost his religion" when he went from a Catholic prep school to the state university in New Jersey.   That wasn't going to happen to me.  I had my ticket punched at Seton Hill, Greensburg, Pennsylvania.  Even during my senior year I took it upon myself to reprimand classmates who were sleeping in Sunday mornings and not attending mass.

But I only traded one set of absolutes for another and then another.  At age 24, I embraced radical politics.   At age 34, I got my first job in corporate America, fell in love with the whole scene, and that was that, until they cut me loose at age 40.  In those days, 40 was like 60.  That should have been the end of believing.  I wish it had been.  There were to come other systems of thought, ranging from the fundamentals of 12-step systems to Buddhism, which some claim is closely related to the 12-steps.

By my birthday in May I hope I can come to not need so much to believe.  Why can't I simply observe what seems to be, write about it, and maybe receive some money and recognition? 

Starting a New Family at 66

"A cat or dog will find you."

That's what the world has been telling me, by way of emotional comfort since I had to let go of my Havana Brown animal companion of 16.5 years - Carlotta.  They mean well.  But they don't know what they're talking about.  

To begin with, still with me is my 16.5 year old coal black cat Jason.  Since last Monday I have  been pulling out all stops attempting to keep him going without his soulmate Carlotta.  They used to groom each other and sit butt to butt on the couch, bed, and desk by the window looking out over New Haven, Connecticut.  By trial and error I finally hit on chicken.  It must be the ultimate comfort food because Jason has a spring back to his step.  No way could I bring another animal into the house.  Jason couldn't handle it.

Secondly, at age 66, which will be 67 in May, why would I want to start a new family?  That entails years of commitment.  Since I bought my first condo in Stamford, Connecticut at the end of the 1980s, I have been involved in animal rescue.  Although that has been my greatest satisfaction in life it has also brought so much emotional turmoil.  We outlive our animals companions.  That means so much anguish at the vet's when we help them pass over.  I don't think I can endure that any more.  Pet grief has torn me apart more than the loss of my parents and older sister.

And, third, I have plans.  Maybe big ones.  After telecommunications gets to the state globally in which I can conduct business from wherever I would like to try out life in Ecuador or Spain.  Right now I'm researching it. 

When I get to my new, then I can consider adopting another animal companion. I will name her Resilience.

"The Artist" - What does it take for us to let help in?

"The Artist" is a story about a man and his career.  When the career tanks, the man takes a detour away from life.  Not that he was ever that much into life before his professional crash.  He was a perfect fit for being a star in the era of silent film.  He didn't have to speak.  His wife left him because he never talked.  His one relationship is with a dog.  Briefly he touched the life a young actress.  He leveraged his star power so that she could remain in the picture.

Several times both the dog and that actress turned star reach out to him to help.  He turns away.  There's no telling why he finally broke open to help but he did.  His career returned.  And he even began to talk, a little.

What does it take for us Baby Boomers to let the world enter our little worlds?

Now that it doesn't matter any more, we can become "the extraordinary elderly"

Sweet.  That's the place in the aging process when we don't care about aging any more and just let go and open ourselves to the possibility of being one of those "extraordinary elderly."  That term pops up in "Aging as a Spiritual Practice" by Lewis Richmond.  Examples of those "extraordinary elderly" include Clint Eastwood, Betty White, Hillary Clinton, T. Boone Pickens, and Lewis Richmond himself.

One day we wake up and we are on the other side of the shame of not being young.  America, a youth culture, is programmed to push the elderly into emotional ghettos.   There we are supposed to implode because we, well, don't look young.

The shame gone, we take inventory of our new strengths, which come with having made it this far and through so much.   One big thing we got going for us is that we don't need so much any more.  Not so much money, praise, resources, or even so many folks on our network. 

The next step is taking new kinds of risks.  The odds are that we will fail a lot.  But remember when we used to look for jobs and our mentor told us that we only needed one job so it didn't matter a damn how many jobs we didn't get.  The game is about being about to gain access to fresh opportunity.  

And, the maintenance step is to continue to not care.  It's what we do every day which counts.  As the Buddhists put it, be in the now.  Caring is an emotion which drains our energy to do.

Suicide: Not so easy

The human condition is tragedy.  So observed the ancient Greeks.  One solution, especially as we age and hope gets harder to come by, is suicide. However, that turns out to be tricky business.

Former "Seinfeld" star Daniel von Barger, 61, tried it and failed.  Distressed that he would have to have his toes amputated because of diabetes, he shot himself in the head.  Only that didn't do the job.   So, he called 911.  He is in critical condition.

Those considering suicide probably can reframe that mindset if they just talk about what's leading to despair.  No, the talking doesn't have to happen with a professional in mental health.  A good friend or even a compassionate neighbor usually provides that buffer between life and the end of life.

If the decision is to move forward with suicide, then approach that with the realization that the job could be botched.  For that reason, those who can justify their decision make the pilgrimage to locations like Switzerland in which assisted suicide is legal and professionally carried out.

In a spiritual organization I was sampling, a member of the group is known - now, that's a tragedy - for becoming disabled when he jumped off a cliff.  Before his life went off the rails he had earned a graduate degree in business and had worked in communications in Manhattan.  His focus is back in the past, to those days of success.  Those of us who bear witness to this the consequences of suicide gone wrong wish he had found someone to talk to before he resorted to desperate measures. 

A few months after I moved into the senior citizen complex Bella Vista, New Haven, Connecticut, a man with extreme health problems jumped out the window.  He succeeded in his goal.   We didn't know whether to rejoice or not.

The Fuller Brush Man Won't Be Ringing Twice

First we Baby Boomers lost Kodak, at least for the time being.  Now we find out from BLOOMBERG that Fuller Brush's parent has also filed for Chapter 11.  The company had been started in 1906.

Back light years ago, the Fuller Brush Man was so much like Willy Loman.  He had the charm and gift of gap.  The housewives on Bay Street in downtown Jersey City, New Jersey loved him.  Every tenement apartment had junk from Fuller Brush.  

We kids also looked forward to the coming of the Fuller Brush man because mothers would be preoccupied and we could go our merry way.  In those days, not at all child-centered, we were not closely supervised.

Jason Grieves

"If Jason only picks at his food and all that, we can consider an antidepressant for a while."

That's what the vet Dr. Linda Colburn told me at VCA Animal Hospital, East Haven, Connecticut when we decided to release 16-year-old Havana Brown feline Carlotta from her pain.  Jason, coal black and 16, and Carlotta had been soulmates since I had adopted them years ago.  They groomed each other and shared body heat on the couch, bed, and even desk in my home office.

Yes, Jason is grieving.  As Dr. Colburn anticipated, he's only picking at his Fancy Feast seafood mix.  Usually the king of the house, he's reserved.  And he searches around for any sign that his companion might still be on the premises.  Just like us, animals harbor magical thinking when confronted with loss. 

Time will tell if Jason - and I - can get on the other side of this.  If we do, I wonder who we will be.  Loss changes us.  In her book recounting the death of her daughter "Blue Nights," Joan Didion shows us just how much the ending of the life of a loved one can reconfigure us.

Baby Boomers: AP confirms we're going to work until we drop (and maybe that isn't a bad thing)

We Baby Boomers grew up with the assumption that we were too smart to make the mistakes our parent's generation had.  Our jobs were going to those we enjoyed.   Our relationships would be loving ones and when they ran into trouble we were open enough to consult with a therapist.  We would sock away enough money, without getting weird as our Great Depression parents had, for retiring in an interesting way.

Of course, being smart didn't count for much when life intervened.  I changed careers several times and only now am very satisfied with my choice.  I never married and my intimate relationships have been rocky, despite therapy.  And all that money I put away, without crimping my lifestyle, has vanished.

In his AP article, John Rogers confirms that we are going to be working until we drop.  At first that was a shock.  Then as we got the hang of getting and keeping work, no matter what including ageism, we considered being able to work a blessing.  Not everyone can pull it off. 

Here in the senior citizen complex Bella Vista, New Haven, Connecticut, those of us who continue to work have a spring to our step and a direction for our lives.  Since money keeps coming in we don't whine about the end of the month when a Social Security or annuity check runs out.  We have plans.  Mine include relocating to Ecuador or Spain when telecommunications improve enough for me to run my communications boutique there.  The lower cost of living will permit me to not have to work quite as hard as I am now.  Also, it's a new start.  I can move on to making new mistakes.