I cannot keep my secret quiet any longer. I have suffered in silence for years. Only my closest friends know the situation and they tend to sympathise. It’s not really my fault, BUT I really hate shopping. I always have.

The problem

Let’s try to ‘unpack’ this little problem. Perhaps I had a bad experience in the past. Perhaps if I were to be given the right sort of aversion therapy (or is it the opposite?), I might learn to love shopping.

I doubt it. There is very little I could learn to like.

First and foremost, I am not very acquisitive. I don’t much like ‘things’. A new dress rarely cheers me up. Nor does finding just the right vase or tablecloth.

I might make an exception for a new book I look forward to reading, but there aren’t many such exceptions.

Secondly, I am really uncomfortable in crowds. I try to find times to shop when the crowds will be small, but it is difficult. Many shops are quiet first thing in the morning, but if it requires public transport to get there, you are stuck in any case.

As you can imagine, I would never shop in a sale – people struggling to get into the front in order to acquire that one thing specially on sale is my idea of sheer hell.

Thirdly, I can’t bear the whole process of trudging from shop to shop to find the right thing. I find it incredibly dispiriting. Leaving aside food shopping, I have never found one store – yes, even a large department store – which sold exactly what I wanted in every department.

Too much choice

And finally, I hate being given too much choice. I can stand for what feels like hours in front of a shelf full of breakfast cereals, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights.

Yes, I will often fall down this line of thought… Maybe I should try that one with the little bits of fruit, but no, would I be better off with something with bran? Does it have too much hidden sugar? Or salt? Is this one over-priced because it has a child’s gift inside?

Point a gun and tell me what to choose and I would be much happier.

I am certainly no better with house furnishings. However much I try to prepare for such decisions, I am constantly worrying that something is the wrong size or the wrong colour for everything else in that room. I have no ability to visualise it.  It makes me feel incompetent. Not recommended.

And it is much worse with clothes. I am an awkward size (too short, hips too big), but then everyone I know says they think they are an awkward size. No problem if you enjoy the process anyway, but in my case it is a nightmare.

I dislike the whole rigamarole of trying things on – not because of the slim young things in the dressing room – but simply because I have never been very good at getting dressed and undressed.

And then you are back to the problem of choice. Well, it doesn’t fit perfectly, but then nothing ever does, so do I choose the slightly tight waist or the awkward fit over the shoulders?

Do I really need this garment anyway?

Mail Order

So, you might argue – if you hate shopping, why not go the mail order route? It is so easy in this day and age.

Yes, I do a lot of shopping via mail order. I have learned, over time, which companies sell trousers that actually fit and which catalogues’ pictures are reasonably accurate. Some companies have very helpful staff who will discuss details like the ‘feel’ of a garment. Much welcomed by me.

It is a bit of a nuisance when you need to send things back, but they are making the packaging much more suitable for this purpose. And at least the line in the post office is not much longer than the line in the store you would have experienced if you had bought the item in a store in the first place.

The test I can’t pass

Shopping feels like a kind of test that I am always failing. Either I come back with nothing – and everyone says “What? You couldn’t find anything you liked?” Or I come home with something and they say “What? You chose that?”

I hate shopping. I’m afraid the feeling will stay with me until the en

This was initially published by Sixtyandme.com. 

It is a common practice to divide the world into two types of people. Extroverts and introverts. Meat eaters and vegetarians. In England, Marmite lovers and haters. My distinction for today is between those who love to laze around and do nothing and those who are happiest when they are doing something useful. Popular culture would have us believe that the former is the norm, that we are all waiting for the summer holidays so that we can lie on a beach. Anything connected to ‘work’ is to be avoided as much as possible.

I am not so sure. I know a lot of the latter type of people. And I am certainly one of them.

Being Useful

I have always been driven by the desire to be doing something – and, preferably, something of value to someone.  Doing nothing can certainly be pleasurable for a while. But its main use is to ensure that your brain or body is well rested, so that you will be firing on all cylinders when you return to purposeful activity. It is not an end in itself.

There are, of course, a myriad of ways to be ‘useful’. You may be a carer (caretaker) for someone and need to engage in a whole range of activities to meet their needs. You may like building things from scratch or taking them apart in order to understand them. You may simply want to get things done around the house – clean out that cupboard or make those new curtains.

Alternatively, like me, you may like to engage in creative activity, whether writing books or painting pictures or inventing new recipes in the kitchen. And much, much more.

You may or may not do these things well. You may or may not be satisfied with the result. But the key point is that the activity is important to you and helps you to feel that your time was well spent. You would rather do them than laze around.

Nature or Nurture

What makes us so clearly one way or the other? I was brought up by a mother with a ferocious work ethic. She was in any case unusual in having worked in a professional job while bringing up three children in the 1940s and ‘50s (no surprise now, but then it was distinctly unusual).

She was not keen on ‘relaxation’, although she would read at times and, in the summer, liked to weed her garden for this purpose. Perhaps I get it from her.

If we are in any way moulded by our schooling, then that, too, pushed in the same direction. I went to a very academic girls’ private school in New York City, whose motto was ‘in truth and toil’ and whose mascot was a beaver. Do you detect a strong work ethic here? Perhaps hard work was imprinted onto my brain by a daily dose of ‘toil’.

But I do wonder. If I had been born with a penchant for taking it easy, I might have rebelled heavily against such influences. As I watched my two very different children grow into adults, I increasingly questioned the impact of nurture in comparison to nature.

I think we come out of the womb with a lot of characteristics that we spend a lifetime discovering. But they were there, just as much as the tilt of our nose or the colour of our hair.

Getting Tired

But returning to the matter at hand, one sad discovery about growing older is that we tend to get tired more easily. We lose the resilience we had when younger and our batteries run down faster and faster.

This starts at different ages for different people but seems to creep up on us when we are not looking. As far as I can see, it increases slowly each year and greatly diminishes our energy for getting things done.

For those of us with an eagerness to be engaged in positive activity, this lack of energy is incredibly annoying. It means we cannot work for long periods without becoming tired. And the definition of that ‘long period’ slowly shortens from a day to half a day to even an hour.

Your body becomes a battleground – your head wants to get something done, but your body rebels. That old saying, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” comes into play.

At the end of a day, you find yourself disappointed with the paltry amount accomplished. You had such great plans, but you got little or nothing done.

It is not so different from the lockdowns we have suffered in the UK and others have done elsewhere. They are a kind of imprisonment where we cannot do what we want, what one grandson called ‘a kind of house arrest’.

A lack of energy is exactly the same

Do you feel that you spend too much time on life’s trivia? You know the sort of thing – dealing with gas or electricity bills, coping with computer or broadband problems or just keeping the household running okay.

A certain amount of time is acceptable, but sometimes there is a problem that refuses to be fixed easily. You try one thing, then another and nothing works – and you end up having a very bad day.

This happened to me recently when I needed to buy – of all prosaic things – a mop.

Broken mop

 It was about two weeks ago. My mop handle broke – in just the same way its predecessor had done before. I decided I not only needed a new mop, but perhaps a new kind of mop.

I asked my very savvy neighbour what type of mop she would recommend. I won’t bore you with the details, but she suggested a particular type and brand (it was a mop and bucket set) and I thought the problem was solved. All I needed to do was to buy it.

Online shops

I am a great believer that you can buy anything online and very quickly.

I went to the online supermarket that I use regularly and could see no sign of this mop. Yes, they had the bucket, they even had refill mops for this brand, but the mop itself was nowhere to be seen.

So off I went to Amazon, the supplier that everyone loves and hates at the same time (but that’s another story). Yes, they had the mop, but not the bucket. I was informed that they would have the perfect ‘mop and bucket set’ in three weeks, even at a good price. But I wanted the mop now.

This was getting annoying.

Actual shops

I then remembered that there is a not too distant hardware store, which sometimes has such things as mops, although it tends to be overpriced. I wanted to phone to check, but didn’t have their name. And then I had a senior moment and couldn’t think of the right word for a hardware shop. Nor could my husband.

But somehow, it came to me and I phoned the shop. They had the mop, they said, but the price given was so low that I doubted if it was the right one. And the bucket would be just under £50 ($65). I even phoned back to see if I got that right.

Was it a silver-plated bucket? I have no idea, but I do not need a bucket for that price!

This was getting seriously annoying. I was definitely losing my cool.

Wider impact

Indeed, I was in such a state that I realised I needed to stop. I went off to make lunch.

This may have been a mistake. I was so riled up that I began to do stupid things with the stove and nearly burned the lunch.

I certainly managed to annoy my long-suffering and very relaxed husband. He told me he thought I was about to burn myself or even damage the house, never mind the lunch. I didn’t.

But it was not a relaxed time. I kept trying to explain what a problem I had had, but he said he wasn’t really interested in a mop. Conversation came to a stop.

And, indeed, who could blame him? How interesting can a mop be?

Buying a mop

After this break, I worked it out. I bought the mop from Amazon (it arrived the next day) and ordered the bucket from my online shop, with some other groceries, all of which were duly delivered a few days later.

That was that – a shiny new mop and bucket set.

After thoughts

Why do we get so annoyed at such trivia?  Is it just me on a bad day? No, I think little things can set anyone off from time to time. And the fact that it is a small thing just makes it worse. You know you should ‘do better’ when the issue isn’t all that serious.

I wondered whether it is the internet. Not really, I think, but it does raise our expectations that everything is available quickly. And things often are. But not always. We need to learn that and build it into our planning.

Think of our mothers – or, even more, our grandmothers – who would never had the luxury of dealing with such trivia so quickly. They would have needed to trudge down to actual shops, often some distance away, to find what they wanted. If they found it at all.

They would be amazed to see how easy it is for us today.

(A version of this article was first published on SixtyandMe (see https://sixtyandme.com/trivial-daily-nuisances-how-difficult-can-it-be-to-buy-a-new-mop/)

People who go everywhere by car may have many complaints – traffic, the price of petrol (gas), or finding a parking space. But at least they can expect to travel in comfort.

Many of us, however, are dependent on buses, trains, and subways (known as the ‘underground’ or ‘tube’ in London and the ‘metro’ in some other places) to get around. We do not always travel in comfort, despite such trips being part of our daily routine.

Getting a Seat

I well remember the first time it happened. I was in my early 60s and standing in the underground train, thinking about nothing in particular.

A young man in a seat was waving, trying to get someone’s attention, I assumed behind me. But I looked behind and no one was there. My brain re-jigged the situation, and I realised he was trying to get my attention. Why?

Of course, he was trying to offer me a seat. Me! Of all odd things to do. I was young and able and waved him away to indicate I was fine.

This was the very first time I was ever aware of being labelled as ‘old’ and it came as a shock.

Seats Galore

And then it started to happen more often. Someone would prod me and point to a person getting up, indicating that the vacated seat was available.

Or they would stand up very visibly and offer the seat there and then. On tube trains, on buses. More and more frequently.

There was one period when I had a bad back and sitting down was very painful. I turned down the frequent offers. But once someone decides you need their seat, it is very hard to dissuade them.

Once or twice, I even took a seat, which I didn’t want, because it was too complicated to explain to the eager helper.

Who Offers Seats?

In my experience, women are more likely to offer a seat than men and older people more than younger ones. They seem, more often than not, to be foreigners, brought up in an etiquette that no longer applies here.

But I think it is happening more often. Perhaps there are more foreigners using public transport in London. Or perhaps Londoners generally are becoming more aware of the issue. Even young men, lost in their own worlds, do occasionally offer.

Who Gets Seats?

Most often, it seems to be older women who are offered seats. And anyone with a cane or otherwise visibly disabled. I know that when I have a cold or am generally under the weather, I get offered one more readily. I assume it is because I am looking older.

Older men sometimes get one. My husband actually needs one more than I do, because of a bad knee. If we are together, I will try to ensure he gets one, although it is difficult to persuade him.

And sometimes women with children or pregnant women get offered a seat, but the latter are complicated as they might just be overweight.

I know that nearly 40 years ago, I wasn’t offered a seat when I was nine months pregnant and there was no mistaking it.

Last week, I watched a woman with a guide dog get on a bus and two people vacated a double seat to allow her to sit with the dog next to her. I wondered how the dog knew what was going on. But even more, I wondered how the dog knew which bus to get on.

In any case, the older I get, the more I welcome an offered seat. It is no longer a surprise, but a wonderful relief to get off my feet.

This was first published by SixtyandMe (see https://sixtyandme.com/how-often-do-you-get-to-sit-comfortably-on-public-transportation/)

We’re all a bit scared right now. Indeed, if we aren’t, we should be. The tentacles of Covid-19 are everywhere and getting worse. And we are warned that health systems are under serious strain.

In England, where the new, more contagious strain has begun to predominate, the problems are doubtless magnified. We are told that in some areas, ambulances are piled up outside hospitals, because there is no room inside.

You wear a mask, you wash your hands frequently, and you do your best to avoid other people in shops or even walking down the street. Whatever happens, you know you don’t want any emergency to happen right now requiring hospital care.

But what if it does?

Seriously High Blood Pressure

My blood pressure, like that of so many older people, has been rising little by little over the years. Every time I attend my local health practice, they tend to check it and remark it is on the high side, but no need for action yet.

About a week ago, it had risen again, and I was advised to take a reading every day at home to see how it was doing. I bought a monitor and was duly taking readings twice a day and noting them down.

Then one late afternoon, the reading was higher than normal – just after a series of relatively trivial irritations.

My broadband connection was down, I had phoned my provider and struggled with its automatic answering system. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t find these irritating, but the bottom line came when the voice told me my mother’s maiden name was wrong. I swore at the phone and hung up.

And Rising Still

Taking my blood pressure shortly after, I noted the reading was considerably higher than normal, but went to have dinner. Afterwards, I thought I would just check that it had gone down, to assure myself. It hadn’t – it had gone up! According to the chart, it was at a dangerous level.

What to do? My husband exclaimed that I should in no circumstance go to the local hospital, because of fear of my catching Covid. I rang my most knowledgeable family member, and she said I absolutely needed to be in a hospital – the reading was that serious. I could have a heart attack or a stroke.

Even More Tribulations

I phoned 999 (the emergency number), where I was asked some questions and then told no ambulance was available for four hours! I should get myself to the hospital by taxi, but first I should ring 111, the number for medical advice.

That number said there was no one available to take my call and I should go online. But I couldn’t. My internet connection was down.

I felt completely helpless.

Situations like what I experienced make you realise how stranded people are when there is no way to get to help.

I decided I had to be brave. We phoned a taxi and, with great trepidation, got me to the hospital.

The Hospital

This is a good London hospital. I have been there numerous times and even had my second child there. But it looked bleak at 9 pm. A lady at the entrance to Accident and Emergency asked what the issue was – and they wheeled me in.

From that point on, they were marvellous. Of course, they immediately checked my blood pressure, and it was even higher, dangerously so. They then did an ECG. The nurse said they were more worried about a stroke Than a heart attack. Not good news, in my view.

I was looked after by two or three nurses, coming in and out as needed, plus a doctor. There was no sign of any people with Covid, as Covid patients turned out to be in a completely different area. The nurses wore masks and gloves of course, but no PPE. Indeed, it was very calm, like any emergency room after hours.

They immediately gave me medication to lower the blood pressure, tested my blood and urine, and monitored me for roughly two hours. The readings were duly going down. There were no other signs to worry them, and I was allowed to go home at 11 pm.

Just before I left, I asked the doctor what had happened. He said that he thought it was most likely an example of a vicious circle: my blood pressure went up, so it worried me, so it went up further and so forth. He did not think it was serious, but advised me not to take my blood pressure when I got home!

After Thoughts

I was glad I had gone, and my doctor confirmed the next day that I had done the right thing. But I can’t say I wasn’t scared.

And I am hugely grateful to that family member who insisted I go.

Four days later, my blood pressure is already coming down. But I am not keen to phone my broadband provider again.

This post was initially published by SixtyandMe.com (see https://sixtyandme.com/hospital-visit/)

With Covid-19, we are drowning in statistics. Every day, I see the number of new cases, the number of hospitalisations, the number of deaths. For my country and the rest of the world.

They are overwhelming, and it is hard to take them all in.

At the same time, there are plenty of human stories. The deaths of husbands and wives within days of each other. The deaths of one without being able to see the other. The very tired and over-worked health care workers and others.

All of these are powerful and moving stories.

But there is one kind of story that I simply have not seen told at all. Perhaps it is there, and I have missed it. It is also very painful ­– perhaps too painful to write about.

This concerns the people who are left behind feeling enormously guilty because they may have contributed to the death of their loved one.

The Human Psyche

I am not a psychologist of any kind, but I look around me, and I know that human beings are very prone to a sense of guilt.

Your husband is unhappy – is it your fault? Your child is confused and distressed – did you contribute to this situation in any way? Your mother feels neglected – is this down to you?

Especially women. We do guilt very easily. I don’t know why.

Now, we know we tend to feel mildly guilty if we accidentally gave a friend a cold, because we talked to them longer than was necessary when we met by chance.

And we feel very guilty if our actions contributed to another person’s problems ­– allowing them to drink and drive, for instance, when we should have urged them not to have that third or fourth glass of wine.

But surely, we must feel very guilty indeed if we accidentally passed on Covid-19, because we thought we were disease free when we weren’t. That is the Big one.

Covid-19 Is Guilt Waiting to Happen

There are so many ways that anyone with an ounce of sensitivity could begin to feel guilty these days. Covid-19 is passed from one person to another so easily, we must often be part of a possible chain.

Sometimes there are things we did – imagining somehow that it was safe – that look downright thoughtless in retrospect.

Did we need to make that Thanksgiving journey? Should we have gone to that large engagement party?

Of course, in each case, we meant well – to see an aging father, living on his own, to congratulate the bride and groom. But that meant getting into crowds, and we know that that’s where the virus lurks.

But the worst of it is that the people we affect are very frequently the people we love the most. We hugged a grandchild and that led to illness in the family. We visited a sister-in-law, which passed it on to all of her family.

Why oh why, we think afterward, did we not stop and think?

My Personal Concerns

I personally have not, to date, contracted the virus nor has anyone in my family. But my concern about the potential guilt of those left behind has certainly coloured my decisions.

It is the small children I worry most about. What if either grandson were to visit us when unknowingly carrying the virus, i.e., with no symptoms, and accidentally infected me or my husband?

And what would they feel if we died? Of course, they would be devastated by that fact in any case, but to live the rest of their lives feeling that they had killed Granny or Granddad cannot bear thinking about.

This has certainly affected my views about a potential visit. I just can’t do that to them.

There was a campaign in the UK called ‘Don’t Kill Your Gran,” which some people thought was funny, but it is very serious indeed. Not only for Gran but for the person who did so.

It cannot be much better for people of any age. Yet it must have happened many times over.

Of course, I am concerned for the health care workers feeling over-strained. Of course, I feel for all the people who died over the past nine months or so. But stop a second and think of all those left behind, wishing they had taken a different course on one particular day.

This post was originally published on Sixtyandme.com (see https://sixtyandme.com/potential-guilt/)

Almost everybody has friends. It is part of life to have them. Some of us have loads and some have very few, but we all feel that they are important in our lives.

And we all know who our friends are. They are people who are not our family, not our neighbours, and much more important than acquaintances.

(Of course, some people count some family members as friends and married people often say that their spouse is their ‘best friend’. This is a wrinkle that needn’t worry us here.)

We get together with friends when we can, we talk to them in person or on the phone, and generally view them as a significant addition to our well-being.

But although there is a single word – friends – for all the people in this category, in actual fact they do not all mean the same to us at all. They play very different roles in our lives.

Friends Who Provide Us Company

You probably have some friends who you enjoy doing things with – they provide company, diversion, and a chance to explore new things. They are often people you see in a group.

There are loads of activities which you might undertake with such friends on a regular basis. You could meet to play tennis, to go for walks, to explore the meaning of books, or to sing together in a choir.

There are also all sorts of other meeting places, where you might get together on a regular basis for a drink or a meal ­– depending on the country, a local wine bar or cafe or pub.

These people tend to share your tastes, whether in movies or sports. They are fun to be with.

We see these friends a lot, but we often don’t really know them very well. We chat about day-to-day events, but don’t go any deeper. They might even be in the middle of a divorce and not tell us about it.

Many of the activities we undertake with such friends are not possible – or are severely hampered – during these difficult times of Covid. You might keep in touch with some of them by phone or email, but that would be it.

Friends Who Provide Us Intimacy

In contrast, you probably have other friends who you tell your problems to and listen to theirs. They understand your character and the deeper recesses of your mind – and vice versa.

You tend to see them on a one-to-one basis, at least some of the time, so you can have more intimate discussions.

These friends, whether you do or don’t do things with them, have an importance well beyond the amount of time you spend with them. You may not even see them for years, but the telephone, email and, nowadays, Zoom enable you to keep up to date.

And when you do meet up with them, even after a long break, the connection is so deep that you talk with them as if you had done so yesterday. Uncannily, you pick up where you last left off.

Indeed, you may not bother with the usual niceties (the weather, a minor cold, small irritations), but go straight to the important stuff about what is going on emotionally for you.

It is to these friends that we go when we are worried about something or need to make an important decision. They know us, care about us deeply and always have our best interests in mind.

These friends are often people we knew in school or college and have kept in touch with over the years. They were there for all the ups and downs of early relationships, they knew when you were trying to have a baby, and followed your career choices and dilemmas over time.

But they might equally be people you met through any number of circumstances – perhaps at a dinner or through work or any activity which enabled you to talk comfortably. Somehow, you made a very deep connection and felt there was no need for lots of explanations.

You probably have fewer such friends. Perhaps just one. There is no question of losing touch with them because of the pandemic.

Helping People to Make Friends

These distinctions became very clear to me over 30 years ago. At that time I doing research on friendships among people with learning difficulties. Many were being released from the hospitals where they had lived most of their lives and much attention was given to fostering their well-being.

There was great enthusiasm for moving them into what was always called ‘the community’. The term is falsely reassuring and makes the new environment sound warm and full of friends.

It was thought that they would then be free to do what they liked, when they liked, just like other people.

But social workers began to notice that, in the course of a day, these people only spoke with shopkeepers and the like. And so, they wanted to help them to find friends of their own.

A popular solution was to arrange discos where they could meet. Their intentions were good, but the effect was limited. How many friends – of either kind – would you make in the loud surroundings of a disco?

A colleague and I wrote a report on the issue, but I am not sure what happened as a result. I would hope that more imaginative ways were found to help this group of people to develop and sustain relationships. It is certainly what I would have wanted if I had a son or daughter in that situation.

The Importance of Friendships

Friendships are important, of whatever kind. Human beings are social animals, a fact that has become particularly visible as social activities have come under strain during the pandemic.

Our individual needs differ, with some people wanting loads of casual friends to make themselves feel comfortable. Others have less need for activities with other people but feel a real need for one or two close friends.

I hope that you have managed to sustain your friendships during this difficult – and sometimes lonely – period.

A well-known saying floated into my head recently: “The past is another country.” Interesting, I thought, and wondered who said it first.

It turned out to be J. P. Hartley, the novelist, and it is the first line, slightly wrongly remembered, of his novel (later a movie), The Go Between:

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

I began to think about whether this is right or not, in terms of my own past, but then my thoughts took a different turn. The question that was buzzing in my head was whether the same was true of the future, when viewed from the perspective of younger people.

Is Being Old a Foreign Country?

When I was young – pick any age up to 55 or so – I definitely thought that the future was a foreign country. It would be strange to me, and it would be difficult to cope with.

And they would definitely “do things differently” there. I looked around at the old people I knew, and they clearly had different interests and temperaments and felt altogether different to me. It was not something I looked forward to.

Yes, I knew that at some point I would become an old lady, but that in itself seemed an odd concept. Me – old? Surely not. It was, literally, unimaginable.

At the same time, I thought that if it ever happened, I would be a different person when I got there. I would have the same name and the same history, of course, but there the resemblance would end.

Somehow, I thought that when I was magically transformed into this strange state of old womanhood, I would be unrecognisable. I would not be the me I had always known.

It was going to be hard – I would not know how to navigate all the twists and turns foisted on me by the passage of time.

It would be a double learning problem – a new me in a new landscape.

The Future Is Here

How very, very wrong could I be! Now that I am an old lady, by whatever measure, having recently reached the age of 79, I realise that old age is not another country at all.

Yes, there are aspects of my life that are different, but I don’t feel that I am wandering in a strange land. And there is a great deal that is very much the same.

Old age creeps up on us rather stealthily, even if we don’t make a fuss of our birthdays. Only a few things happen fast, like retirement from your lifetime’s work, although in my case, I worked freelance and work just slowly stopped coming in.

But generally, it just means a few things changing each year – the hair getting whiter, the wrinkles getting deeper, and so forth. You walk a little slower, your hearing becomes slightly more difficult, sometimes you even become shorter. I could list much more.

You get used to one thing, absorb that, and start getting used to another. There are very few shocks involved, in the absence of a significant death or illness, which is another matter altogether.

At the same time, other things happen, too. Some are definitely negative – friends die or become much more ill. Your energy slowly diminishes, so you tend to be more homebound.

But on the positive side, you may acquire grandchildren, and they may become a very active and joyful part of your life. Your relationships with your adult children change and deepen. You may develop new interests and activities.

And You’re Here, Too

And, most important, as you get used to these changes, you realise it is the same old you dealing with them. For good or ill, there is no amazing transformation. Whatever your character and personality at age 30, you will be the same at 60 – or 70 – and beyond.

If you were an optimist when you were young, you will find yourself still an optimist later. Have you had a tendency to fuss over unexpected events? You are almost certainly still fussing later. If you laughed at life’s vicissitudes, you will be laughing still.

I was reminded that when my mother was about 50, she declared to my father that she had decided to become an “eccentric” old lady. That sounded a good ambition, but my father laughed. “You’ve never been eccentric in your life,” he replied accurately. “So you won’t be eccentric then. You will be you.”

And he was proved right. She never became the least bit eccentric.

Knowing Yourself

I think this is good news, although perhaps not everyone will agree. It means that by the time you reach old age – however defined – you have lived with yourself a long time and know how to cope with your own individual ways.

Some things in your life will have changed and others remain very much the same. If you liked swimming or playing bridge then, you probably do so now. Yes, there are some new challenges, but they are softened by new joys.

Growing older changes both our internal and external environment in subtle ways. But it can still be a lot of fun!

This post was initially published by Sixtyandme.com (see https://sixtyandme.com/old-age-not-another-country/)

They say that the older you get, the more difficulties you have sleeping. This may be true, but I have always had trouble sleeping, so for me it is nothing new.

I have read all the advice about how to avoid – or, at least, minimise – sleeping problems. No coffee after 2pm (in my case, no coffee at all), no daytime naps, no screens an hour before bedtime, and so forth.

None of them seem to help much. Or if they do help slightly, I still do not sleep well.

And then I discovered sleep apps, and they have made a huge difference.

The Device

Some people sleep with their smartphones, but I don’t like to do so. I am always afraid that it will go off. It is somehow not relaxing.

But long ago, I discovered – and fell in love with – the Apple iPod. This is a very simple and small device on which you can listen to music or podcasts, updated regularly via the computer.

This is otherwise known as an MP3 player.

It is wonderful for sleeping, and I never go to bed without it. You can put an earplug into one ear, with no problems of size or weight and hence not disturb a sleeping partner.

In the daytime, the iPod is useful for listening to the radio or podcasts while cooking or gardening.

Meditation Apps

I have been using meditation programmes for years and managed to find one or two that I work well. They encourage you to relax your muscles, to breathe in a deep and soothing way, and to focus on various matters that take your mind away from your day-to-day concerns.

Some work better than others. I find those that direct your mind to focus very specifically on some image or action work best. Very general suggestions don’t work so well for me, because my mind goes back to whatever is worrying it.

A number of meditation programmes emphasise that it is important not to try to achieve some particular end, but how do you try not to try? This is a conundrum. Sometimes contemplating what this means in practice puts me to sleep. Problem solved.

Sleep Stories

The most recent addition to this genre is the sleep story. This is a brilliant idea. Reading you a story that lulls you off to sleep, just like a small child.

There are a growing number of stories available on sleep apps. Some are old stories you may have read before, whether fiction or non-fiction. Some have been written expressly for the purpose.

A common theme is a travel story, taking you on a journey from one well known place to another or along a particular coastline or through especially lovely scenery.

Many are labelled by headings to suggest that they are not arousing or that it won’t matter that you never hear the end. All this is sensible.

What to Look for in a Sleep App

But the problem with sleep apps is that finding ones that suit is not as easy as one might think.

First, you need the person doing the talking to have a pleasant voice. Not raspy or too nasal. No strong and distracting accent. They need to be very mellow and gentle. Surprisingly, many are not.

Then you don’t want self-advertising. I found one meditation programme that I liked a lot, but every episode started with a long invitation to donate if you found it helpful. Plus where to do so.

Another informed the listener, with some excitement, that they had just produced a book and added where it could be bought.

If you know your system well, all these intrusions can be eliminated by a quick forward wind, but that is still annoying when you are trying to sleep.

Whether fiction or non-fiction, the stories need to succeed in the delicate balance of being neither too interesting nor too boring.

You might think the latter would be perfect, but it’s not – if you are too bored, you cease to listen and then start thinking of your own worries. But if it is too interesting, of course, you try to stay awake to hear how it all turns out.

I have found this a major dilemma and difficult to get right.

Another difficulty for me is, I also get annoyed if I think the story is badly written. I am an inveterate editor when I read books, newspapers, or any other writing, which sometimes distracts me from the content.

The same is true for sleep stories. Too many adjectives? You need an editor! I am awake.

And there are still other difficulties. One reader did a wonderful job of lulling me to sleep, only to add at the end of the reading that he hoped this had put me to sleep. His voice was so loud that it woke me up.

Another was probably recorded in a not completely sound-proof room. I could easily hear the sound of a distant doorbell. Perhaps he thought no one would notice. But I was immediately awake – was it mine or on the recording? At this hour, who could it be? It certainly made me jump, and it took a while to settle down.

Keep Trying

There are new sleep stories being developed each day. I will keep trying to find the app that works well and has none of the above annoyances.

If you suffer sleep problems, do give it a try.

This post was originally published by SixtyandMe.com (see https://sixtyandme.com/sleep-apps/)

Death. It is all around us these days. Indeed, you can’t get away from it.

Turn on the television and you learn how many people have died from Covid-19 in your country. In the US, it is now nearly 250,000; in the UK, it is over 50,000 – and so forth. And we are told that we should expect many more deaths as winter continues.

Taking in the Numbers

Do these numbers have any meaning for us? I find it very hard to take them in. Does 250,000 mean so much more than 240,000? They are both large, and they are both overwhelming. And they are appalling.

It is so much easier to understand when it is simply one person. Then it comes home in a whoosh.

The Loss of One Psychoanalyst

My cousin went to a wonderful psychoanalyst for a period of years. Because of our mutual schedules, I often met my cousin there at the end of her session.

I never used this psychoanalyst myself, but she helped my cousin enormously. I could see from just talking to her that she was very warm and full of life. And she seemed very wise. If I ever needed help, I would go to her.

From small conversations, we began to know and like each other.

Recently, I was trying to contact her on behalf of a friend. I tried her mobile number and left a message, but there was no response. Odd, I thought. I then emailed her, as I knew she would reply when she was free. But again, no response. Even odder. It wasn’t like her at all.

And then I had the idea to look on the net. Perhaps I had a premonition of what I would find. There it was – her name and the word ‘death’. And some very warm commentaries from her colleagues in the psychoanalytic world.

She had died in May after a short period with Covid-19. She was 63.

What a terrible, terrible shock. And it meant so much more than the numbers.

One Person’s Life

It is just impossible to imagine the lives and loves of hundreds of thousands of people. But you quickly can respond to the life of one person. In her case, I didn’t know her family situation, but I did know what a good psychoanalyst she was.

What a terrible loss for all her current patients, who relied on her for their well-being. Not to mention those who would have sought her help in the future, like my friend.

I learned from an obituary that she was a wonderful teacher, full of insight and inspiration. A loss, too, for those who would have learned from her.

And she, too, undoubtedly also had family and friends who would be devastated.

The circles of people affected by one person’s death are clear to see – the parents, the siblings, the spouse and, of course, the children. Not to mention both casual and close friends. All feel the real pain of loss.

When you add up all of these, the impact of this pandemic is great indeed.

Sudden Death

I was very affected by this death. I wanted this woman to be still in this world, still dispensing her wisdom to others.

And I began to realise there were two other aspects that affected me – and perhaps others in the same situation.

First, a sudden and completely unexpected death seems very unfair. No time for friends and family to prepare themselves. No time for the woman herself to put her things in order. Just wiped out at a stroke.

And second, because I was in no way in her immediate orbit, it was a greater shock learning of her death some time after it happened. My immediate thought was, “How can she be dead when I just sent her an email?”

Yes, I know that is illogical, but thoughts about death often are.

A Different Pandemic

The same thing – in terms of the overwhelming statistics – happened in the AIDS pandemic 30 years ago. Rather by accident, I became close to one AIDS activist and together we wrote a book, based on interviews with a number of young people living with AIDS, called Wise Before their Time.

I felt exactly the same then. The numbers were too big to take in. In the Preface, I noted that each day, some eight to ten thousand men, women, and children worldwide became infected with HIV (the condition that led to AIDS). A cumulative total of 40 million were expected within the decade.

Yet by presenting the experiences of 20 people interviewed for the book, the loss became human again.

People lived longer with AIDS, and they talked of the many difficulties of telling their friends and parents, seeing their friends die and trying to cope with the enormous stigma of their situation. It is “powerful stuff” as one reviewer noted.

End Note

By the time we are in our 60s, we have probably seen a number of deaths. Very likely, among those fall our parents, although not necessarily as lifespans grow.

But there will be car accidents, cancer, and many other situations which are likely to have taken our friends and family members.

Each one is significant. Our response confirms our humanity. But death in large numbers remains difficult to take in.

This was first published by www.sixtyandme.com. (See https://sixtyandme.com/impact-of-unexpected-death/)