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Sometimes I receive letters from readers of my Senior Living column, asking for advice. Today, in lieu of a regular column that involves research, I am sharing some of this correspondence.
Dear Liane:
I play in a tennis doubles group once a week and I’m not a good doubles player at all. Also, I am writing a book, although I don’t call it a book, I call it a project because retired people writing books is an embarrassing cliché. But it is, actually, a book, and even the people in my writing group are not enjoying reading it. My question to you is this: Should I give up these pursuits? After all, I am 65 and really, what’s the point?
–Anguished in Antigonish
Dear Anguished:
Thank you for writing to me with your concerns. Most of the letters I receive involve irksome questions such as: “Why aren’t my friends calling me as much as I think they should?” or “Why are the other grandparents better at it than me?” Finally, a question worthy of the wisdom I have to impart as a person in her 60s. Let’s start with doubles.
If you are a bad doubles player, you should definitely quit. Unless you need the exercise, or enjoy it for some other wobbly reason such as personal growth, meeting new people, or having a few laughs. As for your book project. Ha ha ha! It will never get published, unless it does, and you become the oldest person ever to publish a book.
Dear Liane:
I am a retired senior, still somewhat mired in menopause, which now feels less like a quirky stage and more like an interminable sentence, complete with moles, and sometimes I can’t sleep for the hot flashes. What should I do?
–Crabby in Calgary
Dear Crabby:
Thank you for contacting me about your medical issues. So many of my readers write with less serious topics such as: “What is with the pandemic that’s supposed to be over but still with the apocalyptic decay in the urban core and, also, teenagers coming to school in pyjamas and slippers because that’s how people dressed during the pandemic, which is apparently over?”
I am tired of these questions and eager to respond to a query that is worthy of the wisdom I have to impart as a person in her 60s. Let us begin.
Regarding your insomnia: get over yourself and who cares? Not getting enough sleep as a senior is like not having enough sex as a parent of small children. It’s just a fact and it will pass when you are dead. There are other more important issues that merit your attention such as how to get the government to make megamillionaire and Loblaws chairman Galen Weston Jr. subsidize the rising cost of groceries himself, personally, because have you tried to buy a cauliflower lately? You might consider penning a letter to the editor on the topic.
But that’s just one suggestion for productive activity well-suited to sleepless seniors. Here are ideas for other tasks to tackle at two in the morning:
Eat chocolate leftover from Christmas.
Read The New Yorker (I have a stack of dated copies by my bedside and nobody wants them so I could send you some). Many of the articles are written by journalists who live so deeply in their own heads that you can feel their nose hairs swaying gently in the breeze. These stories are good for inducing sleep. Don’t read the ones by David Sedaris about his partner Hugh, because they are hilarious and will keep you awake laughing.
Make a list. Put “purchase ear buds for listening to podcasts you can never remember the title of” at the top of the list.
Find your toe separators and insert them around your toes. Have you seen what happens to people who don’t? Some of them sit beside me at the pedicure place. Their toes are arranged in a haphazard fashion, as if they are waving at passersby. My husband doesn’t heed my warnings and his toes are squished together like trains in a railway disaster.
Practice using words other than “no” when dealing with grandchildren because “no” is too negative.
I hope this has been helpful, not just to the readers above, but to all Canadians. Please write with any other concerns. I have time.
— Liane Faulder writes the Life in the 60s column. [email protected]