Playing Games

A much cooler troll doll than the ones we had!

I grew up in a large Catholic family. There was always someone around who was willing to play checkers, parcheesi, or Monopoly. We played card games: rummy, hearts, or war. My younger sister and I, who shared a room, played with our troll dolls, making them endless simple outfits out of cloth scraps that neighborhood women gave us (our own mother didn’t sew). We made the trolls houses out of cardboard boxes, decorating them with leftover gift wrap for wallpaper and constructing beds, chairs and tables. We made plates and mugs for them out of homemade “play dough” that Mom would cook up on the stove. In summer,we would pack a sandwich and a bottle of water or Kool Aid in a paper sack and wander the woods near our house for hours. With the neighborhood kids we would play hide-and-seek outside, and when it grew dark, the reverse game called “Ghost in the Graveyard” where one person hides as the ghost and everyone else has to search.

And I read books voraciously. Books passed down from my older sister, such as “Carrie Woodlawn”, the Little House on the Prairie series, and later, “Gone with the Wind”. From my older brother, I borrowed “Kon-Tiki”,“The Call of the Wild”, and “White Fang”. My mother would drive us to the local library twice a month, and I would return with stacks of books, as many as I could carry. I was especially taken with book series about animals: the Black Stallion series and the dogs of Sunnybrook Farm, beginning with “Lad, a Dog” and continuing for generations of collies.

Then, of course, I became an adult, and play took a back seat to school, then work and the endless round of grocery shopping, cooking dinner, packing lunches, and planning the next day’s meals, while running one or two loads of wash a day, overseeing baths and homework, and trying, often unsuccessfully, to keep a relatively clean house. I was always stressed, always one second of inattention away from dropping all the plates I was juggling. As my kids matured and became more independent, my career responsibilities increased. I was habitually working 50 - 60 hour weeks, and, as email and Blackberry became commonplace, it felt as if I was on call 24 hours a day. I began planning an early retirement, long before the FIRE movement (financial independence, retire early) was a thing. Through careful planning and some serendipitous actions on the part of the corporation I worked for, I retired in my fifties, young for back then, but old by current FIRE standards, where people are retiring in their twenties and thirties.

Once retired, I rediscovered the joy of play in the luxurious abundance of free time I now had. I started to read again, rereading old favorites and finally reading books I had always intended to read but never had time for: Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby, and War and Peace. (Okay, I admit I’ve still not finished War and Peace, but it is on my nightstand. ) I discovered that my library allows one to download audiobooks and books on Kindle, without even physically visiting the library, which was extremely useful during the pandemic. Since I am reading once again only for my own pleasure, my reading spans the gamut from fiction to biography to personal development to science. I am constantly amazed by how little I know and how much there is left to discover.

Also during the pandemic, I had the time alone to finally construct the LEGO Capitol building that had been in a box under my bed for several years. When my oldest puzzle-loving daughter, Mariko, comes to visit, we often tackle a LEGO model or jigsaw puzzle together. She is currently visiting, and we are working on a challenging three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle of King Arthur’s Camelot.

Camelot in Process

There are games and opportunities to play everywhere. Anything can become a game. All you need is a sense of joy and playfulness. The longer I am retired, the more active that openness to play has become. Day by day, I find myself more relaxed, more willing to try things and explore subjects for their own sake, with the sense of play and curiosity I had as a child. Perhaps the dreaded “second childhood” is not a thing to be feared, but to be embraced.

Do You Want to Live Forever?

My favorite terrible movie is “Conan the Barbarian”, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in the titular role. His love interest and sidekick, Valeria, is played by Sandahl Bergman. I saw this movie in 1982, and it is the first movie I remember where the leading woman, instead of helplessly standing on the sidelines during a fight, turned around and jumped into the fray, screaming and swinging a sword.

I loved Valeria. Twice in the movie, she asks Conan the question, “Do you want to live forever?” The first time is as the duo is hesitating before jumping off a building into a pond. I won’t describe the second time, in case you haven’t seen the movie and want to experience it in all its emotional glory for yourself.

Her point, of course, is that one must take risks to truly experience life to its fullest. But the question, “Do you want to live forever?” is being asked more lately in the light of ongoing longevity research. And the answer, I think, is “Well, it depends. “

Are we talking about living forever in a relatively healthy state, sound in body and sound in mind? Or do we mean prolonging life while sinking further and further into decrepitude? This is popularly known as the difference between healthspan and lifespan. So yes, I do want to live as long as I can, if I can do so in minimal pain with my mind intact. And no, I do not want to live as my parents are now living, with their bodies still functional, but with an increasingly loose grip on reality. I do not want to outlive my mind.

So, what to do? As evidenced by my parents, both well into their nineties, I probably have a “Best by” date of about twenty-plus more good years. Can I prolong that? Maybe, if recent research holds true. Three main themes keep recurring.

1. Move!

No, not to sunny Portugal or Costa Rica, although those are popular retirement locales. I mean move your body, every day. Exercise fads come and go, but the essentials remain the same:

• Any exercise is better than no exercise. Do something physical that you enjoy, be it walking the dog, learning tai chi, or participating in Ironman triathlons. The key is that it’s something that you find fun and rewarding.

• Pick things up and put them down. Progressively heavier things. Sarcopenia (loss of muscle tissue) and osteopenia (loss of bone mass) as we age are real, and both can be slowed and even reversed by lifting weights. I do not wish to end up with a fatal hip fracture from falling, and keeping my muscles and bones strong is the best way to prevent it.

• Work on your balance. You can simply practice standing on one foot and then the other, holding onto a chair or counter for support if needed. My electric toothbrush has a two-minute timer, and I use that short time morning and night to work on my one-legged stance, since I’m standing in front of the sink anyways.

2. Think!

Sorry to say, a daily sudoku is just not going to cut it. Evidently, puzzles and brain-training games do not have as much benefit as hoped for the older brain. You need to stretch your mind with something that is actually difficult. What have you always wanted to learn, but never had time for before? Gourmet cooking? Carpentry? Computer programming? Learning a musical instrument? Writing your novel?

For me, learning Spanish has been an ongoing challenge. It’s slow going, as I have long standing, progressive hearing loss and, according to my audiologist, an auditory processing disorder as well. But I have confidence that time and persistent effort will win out. Eventually, I will be an old bore in two languages!

3. Keep on the Sunny Side!

As the old song says, there's a dark and a troubled side of life and there's a bright and a sunny side too. A recent large study spanning decades found that optimistic women lived 15% longer than pessimistic ones. For men, the difference was 11%.

No life is without its problems, its pains, and its sadness. As we age, we deal with losses of all kinds: friends, loved ones, physical abilities, dignity. How we allow these losses to affect our attitudes makes a huge difference. We can ruminate on the mud below our feet or lift our heads to the stars above. Both the mud and the stars exist, but we choose where we will place our attention. Choose wisely, grasshopper!

At the end of my life, I do not plan to go gently into that good night. I want to go out like Valeria, swinging my sword with both hands.

Counting Steps

I want to lose a few pounds. I’ve been inconsistently chasing those “last ten pounds” for decades. It’s an ongoing battle between my desire for my ideal weight and my intense dislike of weighing, measuring, and tracking every morsel I shove into my pie-hole. (Actually, my concept of my ideal weight has moved - I used to strive to get down to my pre-pregnancy weight, and actually achieved that for ten minutes once, when my baby was twenty-five years old. But now, I would be happy to get down to my pre-menopausal weight.)

According to YouTube, daily walking is a useful and relatively painless tool for weight loss. I decided that increasing my steps per day would be helpful. So I needed to set a goal and count my steps.

First, I tried a free app on my phone. It worked fairly well and seemed accurate. But it only registered steps if the phone was actually jiggling along with me. I had to have the phone with me at all times. I wanted to count all the steps I did while cleaning the house, but I wasn’t willing to hold my phone in one hand and dust, vacuum, and mop with the other.

Next, I looked at fitbits and smart watches online. Being frugal and considering that I only needed to count steps, not heart rate or hours of restful sleep, I opted for a simple wristband step-counter, for about ten bucks. It looked fine, was comfortable to wear, and stopped working after twelve hours. Back to Amazon it went.

Then, I went totally old-school, and got one of those small rectangular pedometers that clip onto your waistband. It worked well for a week, but met an unhappy fate in the toilet of a Boeing 737.

Ultimately, I broke down and purchased an actual Fitbit. It is sleek in design and lovely in color. I charged it up and tried to connect it with my phone. It sent me a message that it required Android version 10 or higher to function. I checked my phone - version 7. It was time to upgrade my cell phone.

I admit, I don’t buy new phones very often. I tend to buy older models, reconditioned ones if available, and use them until they are no longer supported by the manufacturer. This time, however, I decided to splurge. I checked with Wirecutter, my go-to source for advice on most appliances, and promptly realized I needed to be rebaselined.

Wirecutter’s top recommendation was the Google Pixel 6, at $600 a pop. Or, they helpfully suggested, you could upgrade to the Google Pixel 6 Pro if you needed more bells and whistles, for $800. I know, I know, these prices are not out of line for cell phones today, but they are roughly double or triple what I have paid in the past. As a budget model, one could settle for a Pixel 5A with 5G, for a mere $450. The screen and camera, although wonderful, were not quite as wonderful as the Pixel 6’s. As an afterthought, Wirecutter mentioned that the Pixel 5A does, however, have a headphone jack.

It hadn’t occurred to me that phones would ever come without a headphone jack. That would be like a car coming without a CD player, right? I need a headphone jack, so I gladly downgraded to the Pixel 5A. It arrived from Google yesterday, and I have switched the SIM card, transferred my data, added a screen-protector and encased it in a hard, black shell. My Fitbit is now happily connected.

Now I only have to start walking.

Now We’re Cookin’!

Once when I was working on a high school science experiment, the teacher, Mr. Lanier, yelled, “You’re just cookbooking it!” Now, I had never heard cookbook used as a verb, and wasn’t sure what he meant, but I knew from his tone that it wasn’t good. It seemed that I was being reprimanded for following the steps as laid out in the instructions. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?” I thought.

I now believe that “cookbooking” is a good thing. Indeed, it’s the first step in a three step process I use in and out of the kitchen. It has helped me to prepare the roughly fifteen thousand (!) dinners I have cooked over my married life, as well as to manage work projects, plan home improvements, learn a second language, and generally keep my house and my life in control.

Step 1: Cookbooking, AKA Read the Recipe First

You must know what you’re going to do before you begin to cook a meal. This means reading recipes, not only to understand the ingredients, but the order in which you will add them, and the processes used. If the recipe calls for minced garlic or tells you to saute the onion until translucent, the time to google mincing or sauteing is before you start cooking, not halfway through the meal prep.

In creating a dinner, you can be juggling several dishes at once. Planning when you should do each step in each recipe is crucial in order to get all the dishes to the table at the same time and at the desired temperatures.

Reading the recipe means doing your research and planning your process. When I decided to start powerlifting, I researched the basics online and got an idea of what type of coaching I would need before I walked into a gym. Before I signed up for the Spanish language course I am currently taking online, I read a number of books and blogs, and watched a lot of videos about how to learn a second language as an adult.

Step 2: Mise en place

The French term, “mise en place” translates as “put in place”. In the kitchen, gather your ingredients; prepare them, e.g. measure, mince, grate; and put each ingredient handy to where you’re cooking. You can see examples of mise en place in every cooking show - the chef always has the ingredients prepared and measured, arranged in lovely little glass bowls ready to be added to the dish.

The benefits of mise en place are twofold. First, you collect all your ingredients, utensils, pots, and pans before you start to cook, so if you find that you are missing something, you have time to run to the store or think of a substitution before you’ve irreversibly committed. Second, having done all the preparatory chopping, grating, slicing and measuring makes the actual cooking smoother, more efficient, and less stressful.

When cleaning my house, I gather my cleaning supplies together first, in a bucket that I can carry from room to room. When I am ready to study Spanish, my desk is cleared of other projects, I have my notebook, pens, and reference books within reach, and the door to the room is closed, so I won’t be disturbed.

Step 3: Clean as You Go

Before I actually start cooking a meal, I first clear my sink of dirty dishes. I fill one side of the sink with hot, soapy water. As I cook, dirty utensils and bowls get a quick rinse and are tossed into the water. During down times, when I’m waiting for water to boil or something is roasting in the oven, I wash and rinse as many of the dirty dishes as I can. When the meal is done, I might only have the serving dishes and the dinner plates to wash.

Use “clean as you go” inside and outside the house. Bring in the mail and, rather than dropping it someplace to review later, run through it now, tossing the junk mail in the trash and opening and sorting bills and other important items. Leaving a room, take a quick look around and grab anything that isn’t where it belongs and put it away. When exiting your car, take any accumulated trash with you. When you’ve finished your morning hygiene routine, grab a rag or paper towel and do a quick swipe at the mirror, sink, and counters. It’s surprising how much neater your house will look.

So there it is, a simple three-step process to make your life easier. Put that in your cookbook, Mr. Lanier!

Powerlifting Past 65

When I told my sister that I had started powerlifting, there was silence on the line for at least five seconds, which is an eternity in sister-talk. Finally, she could contain herself no longer and burst out, “Why would you ever want to do that?”

Now, I know my sister and expected this reaction. She has a very different idea than I do about what are appropriate activities for women of our age, which definitely does not include picking up progressively heavier weights and putting them down again, especially if grunting may be involved.

Why am I powerlifting? I had never picked up a barbell before I tried CrossFit about five years ago. I found I liked lifting weights and getting strong, but my “box”, as CrossFit gyms are called, has closed permanently, a victim of the pandemic. I tried working out on my own, but the free weight areas of most large chain gyms can be very intimidating to newbies, especially to women. Sometimes, the testosterone in the air is almost palpable. I often felt out of place and I worried I would inadvertently hurt myself by lifting with improper technique.

I wanted to find a coach who would teach me to lift properly. Amazingly, I found a gym just two miles from my house run by a woman who is a powerlifting national champion. She is sympathetic and patient, but no-nonsense. She corrects my form and pushes me to lift more than I thought possible.

Powerlifting is only three lifts: bench press, back squat, and deadlift. But there is so much to learn! Starting with the basic movements using just a bar, I progressed to adding plates. I learn more of the subtle aspects of positioning, posture, timing, breath control, and motivation every work out session.

Online, there are a myriad of rabbit holes to explore. There are hundreds of videos on YouTube filled with not only proper lifting technique, but also discussions of what equipment is best, what to eat to maximize muscle and strength gains, and what supplements, if any, are helpful. There are videos of actual meets. There are subreddits on Reddit dedicated to powerlifting as well as ones like xxfitness which discuss women’s fitness issues exclusively.

I see evidence that I have changed in my day-to-day life: catching my six-year-old granddaughter when she takes a running leap at me, carrying multiple bags of groceries from the car, easily lifting sacks of rice or sand. My posture is better, I feel stronger, and have more energy. I know from research that lifting weights both builds stronger bones and strengthens the muscles around joints, so I should weather accidental falls without risking the dreaded broken hip that spells the beginning of the end for so many elderly people.

Recently, my coach mentioned a powerlifting meet scheduled in six months for new lifters only. I signed up with no hesitation. Sounds like the ideal environment for my first meet. And no, I did not tell my sister I was actually planning to compete.

To Sleep, Perchance to Steam

For the first twenty years of our marriage, my husband and I slept like spoons, curled up around each other and turning over in slow synchronization. There was no better ending to a stress-filled day than the comfort of lying skin-to-skin and sensing the rhythm of his sleeping breath.

Then menopause hit, and I was suddenly unable to curl up next to him for more than a few minutes without melting into a pool of sweat. Reluctantly, I rolled over to sleep at the edge of our bed, as far away as possible from his warm body.

Now, at an age well past menopause, my sleep habits have continued to evolve, and not in a good way. I am still hugging the edge of the bed instead of my husband. But temperature intolerance is not the only change in my sleeping habits as I have grown older.

When I was younger, I sometimes had difficulty falling asleep, but once asleep, I slept deeply and found it hard to wake up, often luxuriously sleeping through two or three repetitions of the snooze alarm. Now, the pattern is reversed: I fall asleep easily but find myself awakening almost every night around two or three in the morning. Even though I’m still tired, I find it very difficult to go back to sleep.

Most books and articles about insomnia and sleep focus on the initial phase of falling asleep at bedtime. They suggest limiting caffeine to the morning, avoiding alcohol before bedtime, getting exercise during the day, watching what and how much you eat after dinner. Other suggestions are taking a hot shower before bed, doing some gentle yoga or simple stretches, and going to bed at the same time every night. All of these may help someone who struggles to fall asleep initially, but none of them seem to have any effect on waking up in the middle of the night.

Some friends recommended using benadryl, the over-the-counter antihistamine, to induce sleep. They use it all the time, they say. However, a little research on the internet led to some studies suggesting that long-time use of diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in benadryl, can lead to dementia in older adults. No thank you, I’ll get there on my own in due time no doubt - no reason to hurry it along!

Another suggestion is melatonin, which is readily available at any drugstore. It sounds logical in theory - your body naturally makes small amounts of melatonin, and it’s instrumental in keeping your circadian rhythm consistent by making you sleepy in the evening. I tried it for some months with no difference in my sleep that I could ascertain.

Then I remembered that when I was an adolescent, and had difficulty falling asleep at a reasonable bedtime, I would often read myself to sleep, using a particularly boring book. I had a paperback copy of William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” whose 1,245 pages helped me to sleep for at least a year. I could not read more than a page or two without immediately dropping off. Nowadays I use a Kindle, so as not to wake my husband by turning on a bedside lamp. Lately, I’ve been working through “War and Peace”, whose Russian names and nineteenth century social scheming can sometimes lull me to sleep. But it’s not a surefire solution, as sometimes the plot speeds up and I find myself reading for hours.

I understand that wakefulness in the wee hours of the night is a common problem among older people. If you have some methods that work for you, please share them in the comments below.

The Joy of Smelling

Some years ago, I lost my sense of smell. It was profoundly unsettling. I had always been sensitive to odors, pleasant and unpleasant. Now, I was unable to smell a gas leak, or spoiled milk, or whether my clothes were clean enough not to offend.

It wasn’t a sudden change, as is the case with COVID-19 loss of smell, but a gradual diminishing of my ability to smell, and consequently, to taste. Without smell, taste devolves into the basic sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and even these become muted and dull. Umami goes out the window.

Although I am not a gourmet chef by any means, I love to cook, for myself and for those I love, and I got a great deal of enjoyment from trying new dishes both at home and abroad. My cooking was hampered by my inability to taste and season food appropriately -- I had to restrict my cooking to tried-and-true recipes or rely on others to tell me if I had put in enough or too much seasoning. I found myself eating more than I usually did, in a mad attempt to wrest some flavor and enjoyment from the food that I used to find flavorful but now was bland. “Mouth feel”, a component of taste that I had not thought of much before now became paramount.

At some point, with the help of Dr. Google, I realized that I might have nasal polyps. I consulted an ENT who confirmed the diagnosis and arranged for these by now huge obstructions to be surgically removed. (The surgeon later told me that the removal was “like sucking raw egg yolk from all your sinus cavities”. Surgeons in general seem to have very graphic ways of describing things. ) My recovery was not without issue, as the anesthesia used caused intense feelings of dysphoria, but eventually my sense of smell returned, although not as intense as it once was.

All was fine until a few months ago, in the midst of the pandemic, when I once again realized that I could not smell and taste. At first it was sporadic, with some days “tasty” and some days not, but I eventually lost it all again. Not having been sick with the coronavirus as far as I knew, and knowing that nasal polyps have an unfortunate tendency to grow back, I once again consulted a specialist, who examined my nasal cavities and said he could see some “polypy thingies” deep in the back. He prescribed a course of antibiotics to get rid of any infection and steroids to reduce the size of the swellings. Within a few days, I was waking up and smelling the coffee once again.

This time around, I am reveling in my ability to smell and taste, conscious that it may be transitory. All manner of spices have re-entered my diet: garlic, curry, fresh and dried peppers, cumin, paprika, cilantro -- I revel in them all. Coffee is heaven, both for the nose and the mouth. I’ve taken to savoring a mid-morning latte as well as my morning joe. Kim chi, homemade pickled onions, dills and sweet gherkins all are added as side dishes to meals. Butter pecan ice cream, toast with peanut butter, fried eggs over easy are everyday foods to be enjoyed and committed to memory in case I lose them again.

And then there are the non-food smells that I didn’t realize were missing until they were back: freshly washed towels and sheets, old books at the used bookstore, that odd amalgam of hot concrete and earthworm that sidewalks exude after a summer rain, my newborn grandson’s scalp and his suddenly filled diaper. Even a poopy diaper can be a cause to rejoice, simply because I can smell it!

Yes, unpleasant smells have also reappeared. Of course, I was always aware of the fact that for most people, life is quite smelly, even when it wasn’t for me. People fart, people burp, people sweat. It all adds up and it’s all around us. I learned once again that twenty-five people in a hot yoga class, sweat streaming from every pore, quickly becomes a swamp.

When I was a child, the smell of old people was particularly distressing. My grandparents always seemed to smell of mothballs. Old people had bad breath, probably, I now realize, from ill-fitting dentures and receding gums along with a lack of good dental hygiene. Old people’s homes smelled musty and shut-in, as if no windows were ever opened to breezes. Old people also had that “old-person smell” that seems to linger, even if they washed their clothes and their bodies.

Now that I am actually older than my grandparents were when they offended my childish nose, I am also sensitive to the possibility that I might be odorous to others. I brush and floss my teeth daily. I have regular dental cleanings and checkups. I shower every day, especially after yoga class. I remember women in the older generation wearing clothes that were frankly dirty, simply because they hadn’t noticed that they smelled bad, and so I scrupulously change my clothes, erring on the side of overwashing “just in case”.

The sense that I might radiate that instantly recognizable “old-person” smell, despite my best efforts, bothered me. Researching it online, I found it is indeed a real phenomenon, one due to the changes in body chemistry as we age. Just as a teenage boy smells different than he did as a toddler, so too does a person smell different at sixty than he or she did at thirty. There is a compound, only detected in people over 40, called 2-nonenal. It’s a byproduct of the breakdown of certain fatty acids. Levels of 2-nonenal appear to increase with age. The more 2-nonenal, the more “old-person” smell, described as “mildly sweet and musty but not unpleasant” in one online article. Well, that’s a matter of opinion. I find it unpleasant, and don't want to smell it on myself.

Researching further, I found that in Japan, where matters of aging are treated more seriously than here, given the current demographic skewing toward an increasingly aging population, they have found a solution to this nonenal odor. It is persimmon soap! I ordered some straight from Japan, via Amazon, and I now shower with it daily. Does it help? I’m not sure. I don’t smell “old”, but maybe I’m just losing my sense of smell again!

Honey, I Shrunk the Junk! Decluttering in Retirement

Sweeping Out the Empty Nest

You’re retired! You’re no longer on the hectic daily schedule you were used to when working.   The kids have left home (hopefully never to return for more than a visit). You have more free time. Should you spend some of that time decluttering your home?

Why Bother?

There are huge benefits to decluttering, either as an exercise by itself, or as a prelude to downsizing.   (Do not try to downsize without decluttering first  -- this ends in disaster!)

Decluttering is a great way to re-evaluate your life, your goals, and your self-image.   You’ll be finding things you have tucked away, and probably haven’t looked at in years: books, sports equipment, photo albums, even clothes.  What is going to be of value in the next phase of your life? What is no longer needed? What are you clinging to because of what it represents?

Reviewing and removing the detritus of the past frees up space, both literally and figuratively, for new experiences and new ways of thinking.   Acknowledging that you no longer have the desire to go backpacking, practice figure skating or use that treadmill in the basement opens you up to exploring what activities you do want to pursue now.  (Or, maybe it’s time to take down those ice skates that have been hanging aspirationally in the back of your closet for years and sign up for lessons. )

Another, very practical benefit is that the less stuff you own, the easier it will be to maintain a clean and organized living space.  The more tchotchkes on display, the more dust accumulates.  The more clothes in your drawers and closets, the harder it is to decide what to wear every day, or to see what the choices are.  Even stuff neatly stored in cardboard file boxes becomes a problem when water leaks or mice infest.  

After decades of maintaining a multi-member family house, it’s a relief to be able to spend as little time as possible housecleaning, yet still have a clean, neat, and restful home.   Less stuff equals less stress, on multiple levels.

One benefit often overlooked is that of control.   If you review and declutter, you are in control of what goes and what stays.   If you don’t, there may come a time when others will do it instead, and probably not as you would have wished. For years my mom collected things that were treasures to her, lovingly anticipating the joy her children and grandchildren would feel upon inheriting them after her eventual death.   But then she had to move to assisted living, and her home had to be sold to cover the costs.  A few of my siblings efficiently and, to my mother’s mind, callously, made most of the decisions of what could move with Mom and what would be donated or thrown away.   They rented a dumpster and spent less than a weekend culling what it had taken her a lifetime to accumulate. 

What Stands in Your Way?

Some may feel it’s too much effort to declutter.  But, as I’ve pointed out above, the end result is a home that will take less effort to maintain.   And, since you’re now retired and presumably have more free time and fewer scheduled activities, you don’t need to do it all in a day or a weekend.   You can take your time, and enjoy revisiting the past in those things that you’ve packed away and haven’t looked at in years.   (By the way, the length of time since you’ve looked at something may be a good indication of its value to your present and future life. )

The complaint that it’s too much effort or takes too much time may be a rationalization hiding something deeper. Often, physical objects give us a sense of security, even if they are objectively worthless.  We saw this a lot in our parents and grandparents from the generations that lived through the Great Depression, but if we are honest, we can see it in ourselves as well.   

Or they are physical mementos.   When I decluttered the large house where we had raised our four children, in preparation for moving to a condo, the hardest things for me to toss were my engineering textbooks.   Sure, they were decades out-of-date and I would never need to refer to them again, but to me they were a reminder of the hard work I had put in to get my degree as an older student returning to college.  They were palpable representations of determination, grit, and perseverance.

How to Start the Process

Decluttering and its sister, minimalism, are having a moment in popular culture right now.  There are gobs of books, podcasts, and YouTube videos that can give you tips on how to declutter, organize, and minimize your stuff.  Google “decluttering”. Check out Joshua Fields Milburn and Ryan Nicodemus, collectively known as “The Minimalists” on YouTube, Netflix, or the library .  Don’t forget to consult Marie Kondo’s cult classic “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” to spark ideas, if not joy. 

Decide on your plan of attack:  whole house, one-room-at-a-time, or by categories (books, clothes, sports equipment, etc. ) If this seems too daunting, break it down to a closet, shelf, or drawer at a time. Set a timer if you want (Love that Pomodoro!)

The important thing is to start and continue until you’re feeling happy with the result.  It may take you a weekend, a month, six months, depending on your schedule and energy level.  But when you can walk into any room in your house, and you know what’s in there, where everything is, and you realize that there are no items there that don’t add value to your life, it’s wonderfully satisfying.  It will give you the freedom and space to start living your retirement dreams.   

We all fear change to some degree.  Push past that and welcome the next phase of your life.