All Episodes

July 26, 2024 19 mins

Age. Aging. Ageism. Just these words make some of us wince, right? Getting older is something we all do, but it is NOT something we tend to want talk about much - especially from a positive point of view. But what happens if we flip that script for a moment and see getting older as a gift of time - and one not necessarily afforded to everyone. Join CH this week as she reflects on getting older, cherishing the moments we have, and the lessons we can - and should - learn from older generations. This episode offers a thoughtful perspective on making the most of the years we are given, and seeing time as a gift - not a curse.

 

Show Notes

  • CH mentions a few actors during this episode and their thoughts on aging:
    • Helen Mirren
      • The full quote CH references is the following: "At 70-years-old, if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be to use the phrase 'f**k off' much more frequently."
      • 'Prime Suspect', 'The Queen', 'Losing Chase', and 'Calendar Girls' are the four bodies of work CH mentions that are among her favorites from Helen's long list of television and film accolades.
    • Jodie Foster
      • Talked with People.com on how turning 60 was one of the best days of her life.
    • Jane Fonda
      • Discussed with Vanity Fair how she did not think she'd live past the age of 30, and the actual challenges of being younger (vs. older).
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Music.

(00:55):
Another episode of Life Notes from Chair17. I'm your host, CH,
and I thank you once again, as always, for finding me in this corner of the podcast universe.
And as always, I'd like to start off by thanking our returning C-17ers for your
continued support and tuning in each week.

(01:16):
And that does include all of our returning international C-17ers that are tuning
in from different spots around the globe. Thank you so much for your support.
But if you are just tuning in for the first time, maybe you've just found us
on one of the major podcast platforms or via our website out on Life Notes from

(01:36):
Chair17podcast.com, a warm welcome in to you.
Thank you for wanting to check us out and hope you like what you hear and you
will want to continue to tune in.
So this episode, I have been meaning to do this for a while.
It was an episode that was on my very first draft of topics and content that I wanted to cover.

(02:02):
And it might seem to be, I'm not going to call it a sequel to our Live Life
Each Day list episode. Say that fast three times.
Live life each day list episode.
But let's call this one maybe a spinoff episode given I have been thinking a
lot about two things of late.

(02:25):
One is getting older and two, the gift of time.
And you might not think those two things are related, but hopefully by the the
end of this episode, you will maybe see how they can be related.
Because right now, in trying to embrace my current state of unemployment,

(02:46):
and as I am really trying to look for my next opportunity,
I am also trying to make sure that I do not overlook the gift of this time period.
Because I do not ever remember being able
to take some time for myself before
looking for a new role and that

(03:08):
is due to a variety of reasons some more personal some more financial but I
have been able to do that this time and while I still have a lot of uncertainty
of what is next for me because at the time that I am recording this episode
I literally do not know what that looks like.

(03:29):
I am trying to make these moments for myself at random points that I otherwise might not be able to do.
And recently, as in last week, I was randomly asked to join a jazz-intensive
music course at the night school that I attend that was running in the afternoons.

(03:53):
And there is literally no way I could have done that on the fly if I was working
a regular full-time job.
Because can you imagine getting a text going, hey, we need a drummer.
Can you come from 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock in the afternoon each day this week?
And then me just up and walking out of, you know, whatever meeting I surely

(04:14):
would have been in and telling the group, sorry, y'all, I got to go to jazz night school.
No, there's no way that I could have done that.
But the other thing that I have been thinking about a lot is how we think and
talk about getting older.
And I do feel at times that this is often talked about in the shadows.

(04:37):
And in those conversations, we don't necessarily acknowledge how hard it is
when we are at the center of those conversations, that we aren't what we once were,
as I've said multiple times in different episodes on this podcast, but that that is okay.
And that we shouldn't at these times that we're talking about how we are potentially

(05:00):
moving up in our life chapters that we're not less than something and we're
not less than we were before. We're just different.
And if I'm being completely honest, I don't know that we do the best job here
in this country of the United States in how we treat our older generations.

(05:22):
Like, long before this was part of our national discussion currently at the
time that I'm recording this podcast, we have long been guilty,
I feel, of tossing old folks aside somehow.
Or as the saying goes, you know, putting people out to pasture.
We we lose patience we

(05:42):
get annoyed because people don't move as quickly or drive
as fast or forget things even within families right
if there is an aging member of that family the dreaded conversation to have
of saying you know mom or dad i don't know that you can live on your own anymore
right there's just sort of this not great association with aging and discussions around aging.

(06:08):
But that isn't necessarily true in other cultures.
So we talked about it with our friend Quinn back in our Share the Chair episode
that we did with her, specifically as it pertains to her parents,
where there are cultures like in the Asian culture and others that elders are
treated with reverence and a tremendous amount of respect or are sought after

(06:32):
for those life experiences and wisdoms,
and they hold very valuable lessons for younger generations.
But also more than this, we have a tendency as younger people to go,
oh, well, that will never be me.
And you know what? Newsflash, it will.

(06:54):
And it may not hit us all at once. It could be more like the slow burn,
or it could be way out there if you are really in your first few chapters of
life, but it will happen.
And it does to everyone who is able to live into those final chapters,
which not everyone is able to do.

(07:17):
And what also got me thinking about this was we, of course, remember our good
friend Nathan, Ethan, who,
sidebar, is really almost like a co-host in absentia at this point because he
has inspired multiple episodes on this podcast,
or he has at least been part of a conversation with me that has contributed to an episode.

(07:40):
And we went for a bike ride recently where we were talking about the moment
you do realize you are getting older.
And this had to do with, We were on e-bikes, so if you have not tried an e-bike,
sidebar, they are a fabulous thing.
If you are a cycling purist, that's fine.
No disrespect meant, but e-bikes have helped a lot of people get moving and

(08:05):
get active again as a result of maybe of having been injured or out of shape.
And so I am not going to say that e-bikes are not cycling because to me I have
thoroughly enjoyed my switch to it and I feel I can go further and longer and
have way more fun. But I digress.
But we were talking about it because it did make some parts of the ride a lot

(08:30):
easier, particularly here in Seattle, because we do have ridiculous amounts
of hills, very much like San Francisco.
And so in the context of some of our conversation and at the end of the ride,
he was talking about the house that he also purchased not too many years ago
and that now living in this area that he does live in in Seattle,

(08:51):
it's an area he never thought he'd actually find himself in.
And I asked him why. Okay.
And he said, because it was, and he said this, I'm paraphrasing,
it was something to the effect of that it would remind him of him having gotten
older, like a distinct moment.
And that, I feel, is the mind shift that we need to make, that this is not a bad thing.

(09:17):
Thing and sidebar credit to nathan he got
over feeling this way moved to this awesome house and
now is loving his choice and where he lives which i think
is a lovely thing to share sort of we
really need to shift the mind here because we
do often look upon aging from this lens of disdain or how could anything good

(09:42):
come of it or like it is some sort of horrible disease that we should somehow
avoid or something that we need to feel bad about.
And I, from my opinion, in this small corner of the podcast universe,
would love to flip that script for a moment and say it's not.
And that there are some gifts of time we need to remember when we move along in our life chapters.

(10:07):
Because not everyone, gets to do that, which is live a very long, full, and healthy life.
Many in this world are taken very suddenly due to illness or an accident,
an unexpected event, all of the above.
Some people don't live past 16 or 8 or 5 or 25 or 30.

(10:30):
They may not even make it to the midpoint of life.
And I sometimes feel this is forgotten in the quest that we sometimes get hung
up on in trying to remain forever young because that may be what we are sold
or told in more of a pop culture lens.
I'm not saying that that is a horrible thing.

(10:53):
I'm just saying I don't think that we should think of aging as a horrible thing
either because we can't remain young forever if we are really blessed to live
a long, full, and healthy life,
I don't think we should see this as sort of the cursed perspective it sometimes ends up being.
Maybe the mind isn't as fast as it once was, and we sure as heck have stiffer

(11:17):
joints than we used to, but that doesn't make us obsolete unless we choose to be.
And some people do, and that's okay, but a lot of people People don't.
And we have a lot of people that are showing us a way in which to age into our
later years that absolutely does not make anyone obsolete. lead.
I personally have loved Helen Mirren for years.

(11:40):
And for those who are not familiar with her, she is an acclaimed British actor
who for me is always going to be known as DCI Jane Tennyson in the television series Prime Suspect,
Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen,
Chase Phillips in Losing Chase, and Chris Harper in Calendar Girls.
If you have not seen any of those series or films, I highly recommend it.

(12:05):
I can put links in our show notes in case you want to learn more about what they were about.
She has always taken the approach and had some pretty pointed thoughts when
it comes to people asking her about her age because she has been tremendously
successful into her later years.
And she has eschewed cosmetic surgery, number one, and succumbing to the fact

(12:28):
that age is a bad thing or somehow a bad thing and that everyone is supposed
to remain, you know, 25 or 30 years old forever.
And one of her best quotes I recently just saw come across my feed in Instagram.
I have no idea actually when she said this, but it's attributed to her.
And I'm going to make this the PG version of what she said.

(12:48):
But she said, at 70 years old, if I could tell my younger self one piece of
advice, it would be to use the words frick off more frequently.
Heavenly and honestly she's right you
can obviously figure out which word i swapped to be
more pg and i feel like

(13:10):
this is what is the best gift of time
and age especially for women that there is
a confidence and a wisdom that emerges even more so even if you grew up with
it already it becomes more acute as time wears on it's not in the i know everything
kind of way there are people out there that act like that and do do that.

(13:33):
This is not what I'm talking about.
Instead, I mean it in more of the way of truly standing firm in the shoes that
we're in, in who we are, in what we want, and how we want to get it.
I even think actor Jodie Foster has recently said that she is having way more
fun in her 60s than at any other period of time in her life,

(13:57):
And that is still considered young compared to someone like,
let's say, Jane Fonda, who never thought she'd lived past 30,
but is still working well into her late 80s and living very vibrantly into those later chapters.
And I wish that we have not or did not put such arbitrary numbers on age and time.

(14:21):
Because we do have so many people out there showing us just how arbitrary it is.
How many of us have parents and grandparents that are absolutely living their best life?
Maybe they are discovering something new or rediscovering something that they once loved.
They are still living and reflecting on the things that truly matter or that

(14:46):
truly make the hearts full and the souls replenished, in the words of Jen Phillips.
There was this billboard on my way over to do this bike ride with Nathan that
was from one of the active senior living communities here in greater Seattle area.
I'm sure all of you listening have them in your areas.

(15:07):
There's probably some that are the same. But the reason it caught my eye,
because it's kind of this unique billboard as you cross over the bridge,
it really sort of stands off by itself.
So you can't really miss it. It's kind of a great location.
And your eye kind of naturally looks up because then you kind of naturally look
towards the skyline of Seattle.
And the reason it caught my eye is because it did not show someone the age of

(15:36):
someone that might have been living in that community.
It was not showing a senior person in the ad.
Instead, it showed a younger person.
I don't know how young, maybe in their 30s, who looked like they were,
I think, either done skiing or maybe done with a hike, and they were laughing and smiling,

(15:57):
and in big, bold letters across the billboard, it said, future old person.
And I was like, yes, this, more of this, please.
Because if we are blessed to live a longer life, we are all future old people.

(16:18):
Even if we think right now we are not going to be, we are.
We cannot stay young forever, and it is not this curse to age,
especially if we get to age without,
let's say, a difficult illness or something that is really an external force
that is affecting us, right?

(16:40):
So there is a little bit of a caveat to this discussion, but if we are blessed
to have it being full and healthy as we get into those later chapters,
it isn't this horrible thing.
And we can lament the fact, again, we
can't remember where we put our keys five minutes ago or we
mix up the names of people we once knew and we knew them like the back of our

(17:02):
hands and we still mix them up or we have some muscles somewhere that we didn't
even know we had but now hurts because we somehow sleep on it wrong now whatever
it is these are minor things,
honestly they really are and in my opinion we need to do a better job normalizing

(17:24):
the discussion of age, removing the stereotype associated with having these discussions,
and re-evaluate how we treat those in these later chapters.
And we can start small. Think about those in our families right now.
Recognize that it could and likely will be us.

(17:44):
So treat them now as we hope we will be treated.
And if we have to have sometimes those harder conversations about mental and
physical limitations, it's possible that someone is going to have to have that
same conversation with us one day.
So how do we want to approach that? How would we love to have someone approach us?

(18:07):
These are all small things that we can think about that help us reposition how
we see aging and talk about it.
And above all, I would say to recognize it is kind of a gift of time,
and it is not afforded to everybody.
We are not the number. We are the person behind the number.

(18:28):
And it is up to us to make the best and the most of it.
So there you have it. It is something that I do think about.
And it is something that I really take to heart, having lost people very young,
but also had the gift of seeing people age very,

(18:48):
late and long and have lived a very full life.
And it's important, I feel like, to remember that and not get that lost in some
of the tactical things that we ultimately talk about when people get older.
So with that, as always, I ask you to be kind to yourself.

(19:08):
Take it one hour at a time, one day at a time, and I will see you next time.
Music.
Music.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

1. Stuff You Should Know
2. Stuff You Missed in History Class

2. Stuff You Missed in History Class

Join Holly and Tracy as they bring you the greatest and strangest Stuff You Missed In History Class in this podcast by iHeartRadio.

3. Dateline NBC

3. Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2024 iHeartMedia, Inc.