Tag: love

Last Week’s Links

Going for the Gold in the Golden Years

Here’s a look at older adults “undertaking rigorous training and testing themselves in competitions”:

At the last National Senior Games, held in Minneapolis, nearly 10,000 participants competed in 19 sports — not just swimming and running but also little-known contests like pickleball and retirement standards like shuffleboard. The first National Senior Games nearly 30 years ago drew 2,500 contestants.

Marc T. Riker, chief executive of the National Senior Games Association, “estimates that 200,000 older athletes compete in these organized games at the local, state and national levels.”

When a Spouse Dies, Resilience Can Be Uneven

Although not specifically aimed at older adults, this article addresses an issue many people are likely to face in their later years. Previous research has suggested that most people, about 60%, return to their previous work, daily routines, and prior state of contentment within a few months to a year after the death of a spouse.

But new research is calling this global assessment inadequate to describe the aftermath of spousal loss for many if not most people, suggesting a need for more effective and specific ways to help them return to their prior state of well-being. Someone who ranks high in life satisfaction may nonetheless be having considerable difficulty in other domains that can diminish quality of life, like maintaining a satisfying social life, performing well at work or knowing who can help when needed.

This new research found the factors that contributed most to resilience were “remaining socially connected and engaged in the usual activities of everyday life and knowing where they could turn for help and comfort and receiving support when they needed it.”

How The Simple Act Of Paying More Attention Compensates For An Aging Brain

As we get older, our brains gets slower at certain tasks—but that just means we need to work smarter.

New research from Germany suggests that our brains are able to compensate for the effects of aging by paying more attention and by suppressing information that’s irrelevant to completing a given task.

Secrets to Lasting Relationships From High School Sweethearts

Scientists now know that the part of the brain concerned with executive functioning (what we typically call “growing up”) continues to develop into at least the early 20s. Therefore, high school sweethearts do a lot of their growing up together. In this article several couples whose relationship began in high school discuss how they met the challenges of growing up together and how their partnership continues to thrive today.

 

© 2016 by Mary Daniels Brown

My Circle of Five Contains Six

The good folks at WordPress provide a daily prompt to give bloggers something to write about.

This recent one particularly spoke to me:

A writer once said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” If this is true, which five people would you like to spend your time with?

To me, this means the same as “you are the company that you keep.” This prompt spoke to me because several years ago I decided that it was important for me to surround myself with only good people. More recently, the 2,100-mile relocation from St. Louis, MO, to Tacoma, WA, has allowed me to make friends deliberately and wisely.

But this topic especially appeals to me because it offers the possibility of a hypothetical circle that isn’t restricted to people who all existed in the same time and place or whom I actually knew. So I thought of the people I’d include in the three main areas of my life: love, friendship, and writing.

Love

  1. My Grandma, whose unconditional love of me taught me how powerful love can be. When I was a young child, she provided the love and stability that I desperately needed to maintain a sense of identity and worth. Even though she died nearly 40 years ago, I still think of her daily. What I remember most is her beautiful smile and the way she beamed whenever she saw me.
  2. My wonderful husband of almost 44 years, whose love and devotion remain steady. And yes, I do realize how extremely lucky I am to love and be loved by him. Sometimes I feel that he’s more than I deserve, but I plan to keep him anyway (I’m selfish like that).

Friendship

  1. My friend Anne, who died much too young (age 60) almost 14 years ago. She was a librarian who ran the book club at my local library, and that’s where I met her. She was intelligent and witty, and, like my Grandma, she had a beautiful smile. I thought I loved books, but she loved them even more, as became evident from all the work she put into selecting books for book club and preparing for meetings. I still think of her often.
  2. My friend Frayne, who also died much too young (age 54) 13 years ago. I also met her at a book club, at the local Borders store. She was kind and considerate, and she taught me how to hug and really mean it. I also think of her nearly every day.

These two women are still the touchstone that defines friendship for me.

Writing

Here’s where the hypothetical part of my circle comes in.

  1. Emily Dickinson. I’m not a poet (not really, despite my recent participation in the Writing 201: Poetry class), but I love the way Emily Dickinson so succinctly and seemingly easily uses imagery to convey some of life’s most profound secrets. I wish I could think so concretely and so universally at the same time. Sometimes when I read one of her poems and catch the depth of meaning, my breath sticks in my chest. I’d love to have a mind that can write like that.
  2. Anne Tyler. I like lots of authors’ works, but I particularly like Anne Tyler for her ability to capture and celebrate the quirkiness of human existence in well-drawn characters. I love how she can make the ordinary seem so extraordinary.

I tried hard, but I can’t decide which one of these six people to banish in order to comply with the prompt. So the prompt will just have to comply with me. Six people it is, and fine specimens they all are.

What about you? Whom would you include in your circle of five (or six)?

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