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Most of us are out and about these days, eating more in restaurants, getting on planes and trains and even hugging and kissing friends and family at events. However, after spending too much time in our homes during the pandemic, have our conversation chops become rusty and need a good oiling?  We get together with people we haven’t been around in ages and fumble and fidget about what we should say. We try to remember to ask about the other person and avoid certain hot-button topics. Before Barbara went to a wedding recently, her usually affable beau admitted to her,...

You make a friend. That’s the first step. Pat yourself on the back. Although we’ve written about friendship in past blogs and touted some of the best books on the topic, the focus has been more on how to make new friends, even at an older age.  But how do you cultivate those friendships to keep them healthy and ongoing, sometimes despite hurdles?    We call this endeavor, The Friendship Bond. It’s similar to our Smile Project, which apparently put a smile on the faces of many and generated several comments on the blog. https://lifelessonsat50plus.com/blogs/news/when-you-re-smiling-the-whole-world-smiles-with-you-maybe Since you may be smiling at more people on...

   We all have our good and bad days. Very few things in our lives today are simple. Some struggles are terrible and out of our control—the national debt, mass shootings, hate crimes, gerrymandering, horrific illnesses, religious prejudice and so on. But many of the little things are not so bad. We often struggle with those daily, however—a bad hair day, allergies, a friend too busy to talk. Our purpose in this blog isn’t to whine, although some may think we are. We’ve simply reached an age when more things are happening that give us pause and trouble us. We...

  Do you think you’re losing your mind because you can’t pull up the right word for something? Actually, your memory probably isn’t as razor sharp as it used to be in most cases. Yes, it’s another “at your age…” condition.  Words elude you. Purposes do, too. You walk into a room and forget why. You can’t pull up someone’s name (maybe your bestie’s, how insulting)—you know, what’s his name. And you put something down like your keys or phone and forget where you left them. A chunk of time is spent trying to locate them. Often, they are right...

  It’s inevitable. At some point in our lives, as our parents and partners age, a very close friend or one of our children might get injured, have an illness or need a replacement part. We must step into an important and big job for which we never went to school to learn, have no degree in the specialty or in many cases, no experience. It’s called caregiving.    Right now, skilled caregivers are hard to find and terribly expensive. That’s when loving family members usually step in. It’s no easy task and can often morph into a full-time endeavor. Many...