Flourishing in the Eighth Decade!

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Blog Mavens

Women everywhere, welcome to our blogspot, a space for sharing experiences, thoughts, and ideas about how to overcome obstacles and thrive as we approach and endure in the eighth decade of life. We hope this exchange will be a source of inspiration for the next generation of seventy year olds. Those baby boomers are hot on our heels, and want to know more about what lies ahead. Nobody gave us a guidebook or shared what this path might be like. As we burn those seventy candles, we can help shed some light on the trail for them.

What has this transition been like for you? Serious, funny, commonplace, unusual, short, long stories, all are welcome. How does it feel to be among the oldest in the crowd? What does it take to thrive in this decade? How do you think others see you? What contributes to well-being and yes, flourishing at three score and ten?

We welcome the comments and reflections of women everywhere. All cultures, ethnicities, socioeconomic status and backgrounds; as diverse a sample as we can reach.

Please contribute brief anecdotes, observations, thoughts, ideas, and life stories by posting them in the comment section below.

Alternatively, you could email longer stories to us at 70candles@gmail.com. Please include information about your age, ethnicity/cultural background, geographic location, education, and work status. We will organize, collate, and share your emailed stories anonymously on this blogspot. Ultimately this may become a book about how our generation flourishes. Spread the word!!

Posted in 70candles | 42 Comments

A Behavior to Correct – or Not?

Posted on August 22, 2026 by Blog Mavens

Barbara Beckwith, Age 88

I’m sharing an essay I wrote in 1982 that brings me back to a behavior that once bothered me about myself but which I now accept, since it’s on-going. I called it an addiction but it’s the opposite.

Not all addicts are hooked on drink or drugs: some have odder afflictions. I’ve met long-distance phone addicts. One-a-day murder mystery readers (who forget the plot as soon as they’ve figured who the murderer is). Obsessive parking ticket collectors. Insurance policy overdosers. My own addiction is the opposite. I am an inveterate non-consumer.

I am middle class, American and female, so my unconventional non-consumption can be disturbing to others. But by this point in my life, it is so ingrained that there’s little I can do about it.

Maybe I am the only one of my kind. I write this article hoping that I might find others who have the same condition. Someone else with an aversion to shopping. Someone who is happy to have one skirt, no dress, no pocketbook. Who spends no more than $6 on a haircut. Who won’t try what is newest and latest. Who can afford a dishwasher-dryer and clothes washer-dryer, but has bought neither. Someone who owns a home but has not (it’s been 10 years now) wanted to“fix it up” — build in shelves, cabinetize the kitchen, tile and color-coordinate the bathroom. Who confesses to never yearning for a waterbed, a Ferrari, a Christian Dior. Who has no interest in purchasing a Cuisinart, Mixmaster, stockpot, toaster-oven, garbage disposal. Who fantasizes being alone in a dry desert to swimming off the side of a yacht in the Caribbean. Who, in effect, refuses to do her part as a consumer.

Years ago, when I had little income, it was okay to live frugally but now I’m an oddball if I persist in doing so, by failing to resupply myself at regular intervals with the latest appliances, clothes, art and furniture. It was all very well, “back then,” to collect metal shelves left when my neigborhood convenience store went out of business. But surely, by now, I should have replaced those shelves, moving in steady steps to second-hand stores, then to Sears, Jordan Marsh, and eventually to those high-quality shops whose names I don’t even know.

That habit extends to travel. If I visit another state or country, I return with a pile of postcards but nothing of higher value. Some day a customs official is likely to send me back to “do your duty (spend money) as a representative of our country abroad.”

As a consequence, I’m even forgetting how to shop. Choices that face me wherever I go leave me befuddled. Last year, after 20 years of washing my car, I tried a carwash for the first time and was suddenly forced to decide: did I want foam polish? Sealer wax,or hot wax? Super pre-soak or spot-free rinse, or undercarriage spray? I was equally flummoxed when buying an insultating strip to block the air that’s been coming through my porch for 12 years, forced me to choose reinforced or non-reinforced stripping, and if the former, between felt, vinyl, foam, aluminum, plastic, tubular gasket or EPDM rubber.

When my doctor ordered me to buy a vaporizer for a breathing condition, I thought I’d be smart and get advice from Consumer Report, but still had to blindly select the brand with a “nozzle drip,” or one with “screwpoints project through tank cover.”

Department stores are even worse. Lethargy overwhelms me, even before I enter. Mornings intended for holiday shopping become 10-minute sleepwalks, as shoppers around me efficiently buy at the rate of one item every five minutes.
With friends, I can get away with non-consumption. They admire my poster-books-seashell-rocks décor. They expect mismatched plates when they come for dinner. They like me in my t-shirt and sweatpants “uniform.” But with family and at work, what I consider comfortable can get me in trouble. Older relatives clearly consider my comfy furniture bedraggled. The teenagers I teach express shock if I wear the same outfit two days in a row. During my advertising unit, students are eager to analyze both their favorite and most hated ads, while I don’t know what they’re talking about, since I automatically blot out brand names I see on an ad.

One traumatic incident forced me to face the possible downsides of my non-consuming ways: the day, after a day of hiking, two students rested on the hood of my beloved rattletrap 1972 Valliant, causing the frame to crumple to the ground. This wouldn’t have been so bad except that we were at the base of Mt. Cardigan, 10 miles from the nearest town, and 150 miles from home.

After that fiasco, I had to admit that there could be serious consequences to my resistance to consumption. I resolved to search my past for possible causes, since my habit may have been fixed in my adolescence (I still stick with products I first bought in the 1950s: Canada Dry Gingerale, Hershey Bars, Ritz Crackers, Ivory Soap, Prell Shampoo).
Did my mother perhaps neglect to do her duty? Did she fail to imprint on me that shopping is fundamental to being an adult and female? My students see shopping as entertainment, but I was never brought up that way. Could it be embarrassment I felt at the tender age of 15, when I found that our family had bought an Edsel, a much-hyped, short-lived Ford mocked as ugly, ridiculous lemons? Or was it the trauma a felt of my first major purchase: an awful turquoise prom gown that a pushy salesperson insisted I buy? Could it have been my first newly-wed purchase – a set of pots and pans that a door-to-door salesman sold me for what was in 1960, the outrageous price of $80, that handicapped me as a consumer ever since?

An environmental explanation must also be considered. Department store flourescent lights plus recycled stale air. But why do I seem to be the only customer affected?

My problem could be generational. A 1950s girl, I was of the pre teens-as-consumers era. Television was in its infancy, not yet effective in getting viewers to buy what they don’t need. Maybe watching Hershey bars go from five to 35 cents, as they shrank in size, paled in color, and faded in taste, turned me resistant, just as watching styles change from peg pants and slicked-back hairdos to India print long skirts, then to punk hairdos – and then change back again, may have jaundiced me. I now tell my students, when they despair over not having enough money for popular clothing like a gold-threaded sweater, that some day they will laugh at that same style. They do not take my words as wisdom: in their eyes, I’m not chic enough for my opinion to count.

Whatever the causes of my attitude may be, dreamwork could help reveal them. I don’t remember nighttime dreams but I do have recurrent daydreams. One is of a cleansing fire that destroys all my posessions except, miraculously, my journals and photographs. Another is of a socialist country during its early stage of limited productivity. I imagine myself going to a store and asking for The Skirt, The Pair of Pants. The one Tape Recorder.

A related theory is that my behavior is interpersonal rebellion. The man I live with, you see, is a catalogue freak: Hammacher Shlemmer, L.L. Bean. Once you’re on the list, you get them all. I’m constantly pressed to consider that we might need a heated towel stand, a 44-song doorbell, ultrasonic rodent catcher, electric shoe-polisher, self-sharpening scissors, or a “white noise” machine to fall asleep by. When I gave in to a newspaper-rolling machine (“recycle your old newspapers and save on firewood costs”), it coated our chimney so thickly that flue fires became an imminent danger, which sent my non-consuming compulsion even deeper.

There’s a chance that what seems like an addiction, might actually be principled. I remember the moment when I gave up hair-dos and make-up. It was when I realized that I was incessently looking into the reflection of store windows to check if I “looked good” and if I thought I didn’t, fussing with my face and hair. Right then, I decided to cut my hair to quit make-up so that I wouldn’t be able to fix myself up anymore. I would accept myself “as is.”

Could it be that I need to admit I’m simply lazy? Not psychologically traumatized, not acting from the wise perspective of years, not environmentally principled – just slothful? Too indolent to deal with crowds, compute the value of competing brands, coordinate multiple aspect of home and wardrobe?

Or what’s even worse, could it be arrogance? Am I just a skinflint, hoarding what money I have, refusing to recycle it back into the capitalist system? And is my calling non-consumption “a problem” pure arrogance on my part? Do I need to be told: “It’s all very well and good for YOU, but some people can’t afford what they need, much less spend time worrying over what they don’t want.”

But it’s the same at every economic level: that unspoken pressure to wear your income on your back, house, and car. It could drive anyone to addiction.

Hopefully, other consumption resisters will get in touch with me, and we can work on “our problem” together.

Posted in 70 from other perspectives: looking forward and looking back, 70candles, Adaptations and accommodations as we age, Goals ahead, Older women connecting, Share your story, Stories | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

We’ve Come A Long Way

Posted on July 7, 2026 by Blog Mavens

by Barbara Mende

Despite COVID-19, I believe that life keeps getting better. When people talk about the good old days, I ask them whether they’d have wanted to die of polio or measles or pneumonia. And whether they can imagine a pediatrician being forced to retire before she was 50 because of cataracts – as my mother did.

Cataract surgery in the 1950s hadn’t come far from what Jacques Daviel invented in 1748. At that time successful removal depended on the cataract being hardened enough to remove in one piece. Therefore patients were told to let it “ripen” or get hard, which could take years after the first symptoms. When they finally had surgery, they had to lie still in bed for several days with sandbags around their heads. There were numerous attendant risks.

My mother and six of her nine siblings developed cataracts in their 40s. While waiting for the ripening, she hid her condition for months, giving up her beloved needlepoint and novels, and asking me to read patients’ charts and lunch menus and magazine articles to her. But the worst part was what happened after the surgery. Intraocular lens implants were still lab experiments, and contact lenses as we know them were in their infancy. Most cataract survivors wore what people called “coke-bottle glasses” that magnified their eyes grotesquely. My mother managed to score a glass contact lens. But it was incredibly hard to manipulate, she couldn’t drive at night with it – a career-ender in itself when pediatricians made house calls – and she wondered whether she could trust herself to identify a rash or a throat infection. So she gave up her practice. So did her brother, a dentist, who never adjusted to contact lenses.

It was different in 1983 when I found I had the family’s early cataracts. I wasn’t worried, because I knew that Charles Kelman had invented a technique called phacoemulsification in 1967. The surgery was much less risky. You could have it at any time after the cataracts were discovered, and you only had to stay in the hospital overnight. Furthermore, implanting intraocular lenses at the time of surgery meant that you didn’t have to bother with contacts or strange-looking glasses.

At that time, though, I visited five doctors in Boston, and all of them were unwilling to perform the “experimental” procedure that was only 16 years old. (There were in fact a few who did, but I didn’t find them until later, and I looked pretty hard.) The fearful five all said I should wait six months to a year and then have the traditional procedure that my mother had undergone. “What will my eyesight be like by then?” I asked. One typical answer: “Oh, you won’t be able to see much at all. But try wearing a hat with a brim and sitting by a lamp when you’re watching TV.”

Since I had a career I loved and had to support myself, I didn’t think that was me. “Why wait?” I asked. “Frankly, we’re afraid of lawsuits,” I was told, “and we want to make sure the rewards outweigh the risks. But if you’re in such a hurry, go see Charlie Kelman in New York.”

I did, although I was warned against it. (One doctor said, “You realize how many lawyers and how many publicists he must have, to keep the lawsuits out of the papers?”) Although Dr. Kelman’s office occupied most of the 23d floor of the Empire State Building, he did his surgery in a small hospital near the end of Long Island which he’d bought into with help from his royal Middle Eastern patients because Manhattan hospitals didn’t want him to do “experimental” procedures on their turf. He flew patients back and forth in the helicopter he’d bought and learned to fly on a slow day.

My surgery was uneventful, and I was driving the next day, but I had trouble getting follow-up care back in Boston: “You want us to clean up after that charlatan operated on you?”

Fast-forward to 2015, when my son found that he had early cataracts. Phacoemulsification was now the established procedure, and by then it was day surgery. When he scheduled it, I asked him whether he needed a ride and he said no, he’d take a train. My second son, who had surgery last year, went back to work after the procedure.

Sometimes we think about where the cataract gene came from. My grandmother was never affected, so we figured it came from my grandfather. But we’ll never know because he died in 1913. In his forties. Of pneumonia.

We in the 21st century have a lot to be thankful for.

Posted in 70 from other perspectives: looking forward and looking back, 70candles, Adaptations and accommodations as we age, Family matters, Health, Our bodies, our health, Resilience | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Why I Won’t Ever Delete You

Posted on May 24, 2026 by Blog Mavens

Sherrill Pool Elizondo, Age 77

Every morning, when I sit down with my cup of coffee, I check my phone and delete unwanted emails, read and respond to text messages, listen to any voicemails, look at the weather, and read the news. Then I vow to declutter my phone. I find this almost as difficult as purging a closet of clothes, purses, and shoes that should be given to charity or when one moves to downsize a home and cleans out a house and garage of many accumulated items. Going through belongings to be donated to charity, given to family, or thrown out was a daunting task for me three years ago when we moved from our home of 42 years. Many decisions and time consuming work, as well as experiencing bittersweet memories and feelings, go along with trimming down ones’ life and, in some ways or at least for me, a feeling of loss. So, what could be the big deal about deleting text messages, emails (rather than filing some like I do), certain voicemails, and contacts? For people like me, that can be overwhelming as sometimes we can be overly sentimental, a slight hoarder, or maybe even practical.

I’ve collected names and numbers of people who are not family or close friends for many years. Some, though, are organizations I belong to and others are magazine/writing contacts. Some are neighbors, friends I never see, acquaintances, and some…not sure why I keep them! I have a rather long list of doctors with their numbers which I find necessary. However, some of them I no longer see plus now I have names and numbers for medical people in two towns…you never know when one might need them. Why delete them even if I know I can easily find the number on the internet? I might forget their name is why, though I would love to forget many if not all of my doctors! I have contacts on my phone who have done work for us in two homes. Not all of those contacts would be that easy to find on the internet. I’ve looked at some contacts and wondered who in the heck is that person? Easy for me when I remember what I normally do; I always give a description of their profession or where I met them in their contact information. Lately I’ve had trouble concerning text messages. A few I find easy to delete. Most, however, are texts between family and close friends and read like a diary of events. I still have a great memory at my age, but I might forget what was said in text messages from a few months to a year ago! Some pictures remain but others have not…a guessing game until I read the text. Voicemails are a little easier to delete but some truly mark important moments in my life.

My obsession with saving so much on my phone does not end there. I have not been able to delete some names in my contact list even when the person has died or is no longer with me due to the passage of time and interest. I simply can’t bring myself to delete them. There have been a few friends who have passed away and I’ve been able to delete the information eventually, but mainly that has been the case of the death of some friend’s spouse or people who I have addresses and phone numbers under their spouse’s name. At this stage of life, I’ve acquired the phone numbers of a friend’s brother and a cousin’s son and daughter in law…that’s for when you don’t hear back from them and you want to be sure they are still in good health and nothing serious has happened! Deleting seems so permanent and, in the case of my college roommate who died in recent years, I doubt that I will ever delete her contact information. I know with certainty that she won’t be calling or texting me but, as another friend said, who knows?

Posted in 70candles, Adaptations and accommodations as we age, Friendships, Networking, Older women connecting, Read Stories, Technology and contemporary culture | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Hacked

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Blog Mavens

Judi Meirowitz Tischler, Age 76

On the day of the blizzard I was hacked. I remember the minute it happened, a quick click and I tumbled down the techno rabbit hole. A flood of emails, calls and texts from close friends and people I hadn’t spoken to in years confirmed what had happened. I had released a bogus Birthday party Evite to my entire Contacts list.
“Change your Google password immediately”, came at me from every direction. I froze. The snow was pounding, the wind was blowing. My dreaded comeuppance had finally arrived, the piper had come to call. For years, through luck and a timidity that kept my skills rudimentary, I had coasted along the technology highway in the slow lane, managing to learn enough to participate in basic email and zoom communication, pay bills, make reservations, and search the internet. My hunt and peck typing skills had sped up but were still limited to the use of one finger on each hand, middle on the right, index on the left.

The Evite explosion that evening brought me to a full stop. Propelled by the fear of my entire retirement savings being emptied into some faceless demon’s vacation adventure account, I took many deep breaths, ratcheted down my panic and called a trusted human for help. Sanity restored, I accepted the damage.The alerts from friends lasted a few more days and then stopped.

The journey of reconstituting my internet self confidence, and signing up for a workshop at the new Senior Center, is not the subject of this essay. I shared it with you in order to set the scene. This is a redemption story of a different sort.
Why had I opened the initial infectious email, the innocuous Evite to a Birthday Party from someone who had once been my friend? Why didn’t I suspect something nefarious? Why had I not realized it was a hack?

I have rarely had a falling out with a friend that didn’t get resolved or defused. I have had friendships dwindle or drift apart as interests and circumstances change, but not crash and burn. I cannot remember cutting someone out of my life completely because of an incident. Except once, several years ago, when a huge disagreement including public insults leading to nasty gossip, resulted in a ruptured relationship. Although we continued to be in the same community circle, this woman and I were no longer friends. Our twosome was over. When we
both showed up at an event, I avoided her completely. I even became a tale bearer myself, which is against my nature. Just the sight of her or the mention of her name set off something unfamiliar in me. I was really mad and not seeking reconciliation or apology. I was done and she knew it.

Then out of nowhere, on my screen, appeared an Evite to her Birthday Party. Everything about the content was wrong. She has an August birthday, so why throw a party in New England in February, the calendar’s most inhospitable month. I was familiar with her lifestyle and interests. The day, location and planned celebratory activity were completely wrong. Had I hesitated for even a minute and registered these inconsistencies and had taken stock of the uncomfortable feelings that were quickly taking hold of my body, I would have hit Delete and spat out some
nasty curses.

But I opened it, providing access to my Contacts. It replicated, substituting my name for hers as the guest of honor and host. I must admit to anthropomorphizing the virus and getting satisfaction that it must have been stymied while looking to infect, as it came upon roadblocks. Consistent with not shutting the door on relationships, my Contacts still contain the names and email addresses of dearly departed friends and relations. The final Delete belongs to a higher power.

Had it been curiosity or a feeling closer to loss? Is there a possibility that I miss this friend? We had not been close but were on each other’s radar for specific events that recur yearly. We had frequented each other’s homes, shared similar political views and had some interests in common. Our temperaments are quite different, requiring negotiation, but we had managed our time together amicably, usually in the company of others. But the blow up had been bad and public and hurtful.

I am writing this essay, in the waning hours of the spring equinox, a time when I often prepare a seasonal letter to friends and family. My natural inclination to be inclusive is strong, even more so during these divisive times filled with hate and violence. After composing my brief annual note I typed 30 names and email addresses into the recipient name bar and paused.
Adding her name, I hit send.
With that stroke, I unloaded this sack of angry feelings which had become too heavy to lug
around.

Posted in 70candles, Adaptations and accommodations as we age, Friendships, Older women connecting, Stories, Technology and contemporary culture | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

2026 Greetings to you all!

Posted on January 15, 2026 by Blog Mavens

We send best wishes for this new year to all our subscribers and blog participants.
At this, the 10th anniversary of our book, 70Candles! Women Thriving in Their 8th Decade, we’ve been busy working on our 2nd edition.
We share the explanation for this and our thoughts at this remarkable moment, in the book’s opening welcome note that follows.

Welcome to Our Second Edition!

We recently learned that the publisher of our first edition, Taos Institute, will no longer carry print publications after the end of 2025. We know there have been many changes since we began this project 15 years ago, but we believe this book continues to be incredibly relevant. Hence the birth of our second edition, with print and Kindle versions available on Amazon.com. Welcome!

As we prepared to publish this new edition of 70Candles! Women Thriving in Their 8th Decade, we took the opportunity to look back both on our original process and on more recent developments since we began the modest project we launched in 2010.

We began as members of the Silent Generation, the last of whom turned 70 in 2015. We hoped what we found would help the Baby Boomers coming up behind us, those born between 1946 and 1964, those who’d begin to turn 70 in 2016.

First, of course, we reviewed the literature that was available. And then, with the help of a younger techie colleague, we started our blog 70Candles.com — which, to our amazement, continues to be active today. It contains an ever-growing treasure trove of conversations among women across the country and the world, sharing their joys and challenges at this stage of their lives. We’ve even enjoyed some recent recognition, as 70Candles.com was rated by FeedSpot as #56 in the top 100 women’s blogs of 2025. And we continue to receive feedback from bloggers, such as this recent comment: “Thank you for your support. One of the problems with aging is that one becomes a stereotype. 70Candles! is one of the few places where aging women are still granted individuality.”

Anyone can access the blog, but we recommend becoming a subscriber, at no charge. That way, you will receive email notices as soon as a new entry is posted.

Shortly after initiating our blog, we began to host gatherings across the country for women at or near 70. We wanted to see if there were similarities, or perhaps geographic or cultural differences between groups. There was laughter and tears at every gathering. Women delighted in conversations with agemates about anticipating and living in our 8th decade.

Recognizing how meaningful these groups were to participants, we initiated a 70Candles.com Gatherings page. It can be accessed on the blog, where to-date 68 women, from Halifax to Hawaii and beyond, have expressed interest in being part of a similar conversation group. Many offered to lead or organize a gathering in their geographical area. If you’re interested in such a group, check out that list, or add your name and email address to initiate a group near you. Our booklet, 70Candles! Gatherings: A Leader’s Guide, is available on Amazon to help you get started. You can contact us at 70Candles@gmail.com if you find someone near you who may have omitted their contact information. We will try to help.

This book, then, combines insights from our original research and, mostly, what we learned from the earliest blog posts and the gatherings we hosted. In 2015, and now in 2025, as more and more women turn 70, questions and answers continue to emerge about what to expect and how to navigate this stage of life. We know the need for guidance persists, and we’ve seen how our book has been helpful—for many years, now.

In the chapter “What Lies Ahead,” you will find a vignette about Nina. It offers predictions about life in the future for women our age, predictions that have in many respects already become our reality. We do now live in a world with self-driving cars, drone deliveries, and multifunctional wrist devices. Screens of all kinds keep us connected (and disconnected), and much of what we need can be easily ordered online. Because more of us are living to 100, five generations might gather.

And so, women now in their 70s face a present in which they find common themes and anticípate a future full of surprising innovations. Psychological and medical research is rampant with the urgent messsage that loneliness and isolation are dangerous—at any age, but perhaps particularly as we age. More than ever before, we now understand the importance of social connections—of love, and friendship, and companionship. Publishing this second edition of 70Candles! continues our mission to bring 8th-decade women together through the book, the blog, and actual in-person gatherings. This project continues to warm our hearts…and we hope yours as well.

Warmest regards,
Jane and Ellen

Screenshot

Posted in 70 from other perspectives: looking forward and looking back, 70candles, 70Candles! Gatherings, 70Candles! Gatherings - the experience, About turning 70, Adaptations and accommodations as we age, Aging, Attitudes about aging, blog, Inspiration as we age, Looking ahead, Older women connecting, Share your story, Stories, Technology and contemporary culture, Turning 80 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

“70 Things to do…”

Posted on April 25, 2025 by Blog Mavens

Joyce, Age 70
Four of my friends and I will be turning 70 this year. We decided to kick off 2025 with a “Girls Trip” to San Juan Puerto Rico. We traveled from 4 different states. The first of us turned 70 the day after our trip ended, I’ll turn 70 in May. The others In October, November & December. We had a great time, we laughed, cried and shared stories & observations about our lives. It’s like chicken soup your soul. It’s not something I could ever picture my grandmother or even my mother doing….for 4 days we left the spouses/partners, kids, grandkids and in my case great-grandkids behind and in a lot of ways reverted back to the carefree days of our teens. What an awesome way to kick off our next decade! By the way, I bought each of us this book as a birthday gift as we venture into our 70’s.

Posted in 70candles, 70Candles! Gatherings, About turning 70, Aging, Attitudes about aging, HUMOR, Inspiration as we age, Networking, Older women connecting, Traveling | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

70Candles Graduate

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Blog Mavens

Amy Bryant, Age 84

As I reflect on the posts that I contributed to 70Candles, I realize how vain I was in my 70s. I was often mistaken for fifteen years younger than my actual age, and as my mother had done, I made younger friends, many of whom were having trouble keeping up with me.
A tennis accident required having a metal bar inserted in my wrist to keep my hand from falling off my arm, but that was no big deal. I was back on the courts in record time. And oh yes, a bout with cancer slowed me down for several months, but it was a form that does not return, so after an unwelcomed season, I was back on the streets of Safety Harbor, as well as entertainment venues, dancing in Flash Mobs. Coupled with two to three days a week on the tennis courts, three days of Zumba, three days at the gym, and five days in stretch class, I was invincible. Mindful not to overdo, I took Sundays off, hanging at the tiki bar and sunning myself poolside.
My firm belief in holistic health assured me that if you eat right and exercise diligently you will maintain your youthful physicality and bypass the “ageing process.”
Wrong!
Soon after lightning 80 candles, I faced a semi-stroke-like brain episode that rearranged my sleep patterns, robbed me of the energy to pursue high-level aerobics, and my muscle tone went kaput. My body waged war on me and I lost the magical 15 years advantage. Holistic lifestyle betrayed me. Just like generations before me, I was turning old.
Indulging in self-pity I thought it was just me. As I looked at my sorority sisters on our Zoom meetings, they looked great from the crown of the head to the gentle curve of the shoulders. But as people began discussing their health more openly, I discovered that the Zoom portrait hid signs of ageing in my sisters as well. Talking with other friends who were lighting 80 candles, I learned that they, too, were experiencing unexpected, and certainly unwelcome signs of ageing. As we pondered together, we raised the question: how do we reconcile our generation’s newly defined expectations of ageing when the unwelcome realities intrude in our lives?
Herein lies the dilemma . . .

Posted in 70 from other perspectives: looking forward and looking back, 70candles, Adaptations and accommodations as we age, Aging, Attitudes about aging, EOL- This end of life, Goals ahead, Health, Looking ahead, Our bodies, our health, Resilience, Turning 80 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We Were in it Together– Until We Weren’t

Posted on February 21, 2025 by Blog Mavens

Barbara Beckwith, age 87

We’ve always done things together, my husband and I. We fell in love in college, married and raised two sons, biked and hiked, cooked and danced, shared our disparate views and careers, he as a scientist, I as a writer. We learned together how to argue successfully, how to be okay with each other’s backseat driving, from shouts of “slow down, it’s icy!” to “watch out! – the truck on your left is cutting you off!”

Our togetherness has changed since Alzheimer’s entered our lives. From the time we were told he had “mild cognitive impairment,” and even when it shifted to “early Alzheimer’s,” we remained a team.

For more than a year, we together managed his meds, paid our bills, struggled to complete our taxes. We made socializing with friends a joint challenge: he’d start a story, and I’d supply the name of a French town, favorite film, old friend, justice issue, book title, historical fact.

As his condition changed, I resorted more and more to “20 Questions” guessing, as we both struggled to find the word he was searching for, what story from our joint past “we” could tell.

During the three years that my husband remained at home, “we” shifted to those of us who cared for him. Family members who took over the finances. Friends who offered soups and casseroles, when shopping with him became too difficult for me. Hired “companions” who I greeted with tears, grateful for the caregiving time off they gave me. Neighborhood pre-teens who listened and responded with respect when he talked to them – about what, they could not discern.

Before my husband had to move to a memory care facility, we “care partners” had to confer with each other behind closed doors over how to deal with multiplying crises, which in turn created new problems. He noticed and grew suspicious, accusing us of not telling him what was going on.

And he was right: we were not telling him what was going on. As we were becoming close as a team, my husband seemed to me to be drifting away from his former self.

At each neurology appointment, when asked how he felt, he’d say he felt fine. Then I’d be pulled aside and asked – how is he really? And how was I? Was I safe?

Was I safe? Depends on your definition. He often became frustrated. He thought I’d hidden his wallet, his hat, his glasses. He would imagine projects that didn’t exist and accuse me of not helping him achieve them. He would throw around papers or books, and bang on the table or wall in anger.

Even though I knew it was the disease that was making him angry, I initially over-reacted. I found myself responding as if to a domineering man. If he yelled, I would shut myself off in another room and shout: “Don’t you get violent, or I will call the police!”

My threats didn’t work, and anyway, he didn’t hit me. What calmed him would be an apology from me for hiding his hat, taking his wallet, or blocking his project – whatever he thought I’d done. I could then shift from being his adversary to being his collaborator: “Let’s look together– I’m sure we can find it.”

My friends told me I was doing a great job taking care of him. But my need to be constantly on alert, ready to respond to confusions, accusations and outbursts – plus the lying I had to do, got to me. I resorted to pacing our apartment or roaming the neighborhood streets, babbling, “I’m a good person, I’m a good person.” I started seeing a therapist to better understand what was happening, and to keep myself under control.

Now, four years later, I regularly spend time with my husband in his memory care place; it’s within walking distance of where we lived together for 50 years. In his new home, we don’t need to argue over where he misplaced something. He can tell me which staff or residents he likes and which he imagines have taken his belongings, or are trying to kill him. I now know to respond with a sympathetic “hmm.”

We go to live jazz performances, join in on folk song singalongs. We look at photo albums, listen to music, hold hands, dance a bit, embrace a lot.

We’re together again.

Posted in 70candles, Adaptations and accommodations as we age, Aging, Attitudes about aging, Caretaking, Dealing with loss, Dementia, EOL- This end of life, Family matters, Health, Men aging, Resilience | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

And so begins 2025!

Posted on February 1, 2025 by Blog Mavens

A warm hello to our 70Candles subscribers, visitors and blog contributors.

It’s taken a while to write this message for the new year, but much has been happening.
First, our apologies. There was a pause in our postings, while we communicated for months with folks in India responsible for the IceGram plugin. Success at last!!

You may have noticed that recent new entries appear in your email box with a “Read more” option that actually works! It takes you directly to the 70Candles.com site and allows you to read the entire new message. We no longer have to send out a Broadcast announcing the new posting. What a relief…Broadcasting was the task that had so terribly tripped us up with each of its new upgrades. A small glitch still remains as sometimes a past entry comes along for the ride, but that is being worked on.
Enough about technology…

As the world spins in unchartered directions we count on our social connections to keep us afloat. We are ever thankful for you and the continued activity on our blog. Hard to believe, but 2025 marks the 15th anniversary of this site. We have been moved as we’ve followed the lives of many of you from the very beginning, and we greatly appreciate all you have shared.

The current and hundreds of archived conversations at 70Candles.com continue to inspire many and attract new participants who, as they near or turn 70, discover topics here that still matter.

We wish you well through this year and look forward to rich conversations ahead.
Jane and Ellen

Posted in 70 from other perspectives: looking forward and looking back, 70candles, About turning 70, Aging, Inspiration as we age, Looking ahead, Networking, Older women connecting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Standing on books

Posted on January 23, 2025 by Blog Mavens

Barbara Beckwith, age 87

Confined to my home after a hip operation, I dedicate myself to the physical therapist’s assignment: 45 minutes (twice a day) of exercises, mostly seated.

I eventually graduate to step-climbing exercises to prepare me for negotiating the stairs to my second-floor apartment. I don’t have the necessary gym equipment (blocks of different heights) so I shuffle around on my cane, looking for what might add up to the desired elevation (six-and-a-half inches) on which I can do this new routine.

Soon I’m huffing and puffing atop Webster’s Third International Dictionary (1966), the 3-volume tome that I abandoned long ago because of its arm-stressing weight and eye-stressing print, on top of which I’ve added my equally heavy World Atlas (1974).

Days later, when I advance to higher (eight-and-a-half-inch) step-ups to prepare for the basement (laundry room) stairs, I pile up more books: my 33-year-old Mayo Clinic Health Guide and my college yearbook (Class of ‘59)

Meanwhile, my physical therapist insists that to keep my “core” strong, I must stand at my computer. Fending off panic at this additional challenge, I prop up my laptop screen with a footstool plus my marked-up 600-page biographies of Richard Wright and Georgia O’Keefe, which I’m unlikely to re-read.

My eye-to-screen angle is properly aligned, but I type on a separate keyboard, so that too needs propping up. I create a base with 8 Steps to a Pain-free Back (the one never-injured part of my body), and Oggi in Italia (I won’t be traveling anytime soon). Atop those two, I reluctantly add my well-loved (its binding bolstered with duct-tape) New World Dictionary (1966).

My make-do computer station now works. I should be content, but I’m not: Yes, my equipment panic has subsided, yet I still feel uneasy. Something’s not right.

Dictionaries (like the ones I’m stepping on) have been my life-long passion. As a teenager, I read them for pleasure, relishing each new word discovery. I’d try them out on classmates and be miffed when they called me a show-off, since I thought everyone would share my love of words.

In other words, Webster and Roget are my friends. I trust them.

So I’ve slipped the two out from under my laptop, found equally-sized replacements, and returned my two companions to their place of honor – a shelf within my stand-up reach.

They deserve to be safe from the indignity of being used as infrastructure.

Posted in 70candles, Adaptations and accommodations as we age, Aging, Attitudes about aging, Health, HUMOR, Our bodies, our health, Resilience | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments