Everybody Ages in Place

Michael Hughes  00:07

I am Welcome to the Art of aging which is part of the abundant aging podcast series from United Church homes. On this show, we look at what it means to age in America and in other places around the world with positive and empowering conversations that inspire everyone everywhere to age with abundance. We are filming a series of shortcuts to support our annual symposium with the Ruth Frost Parker center that is happening on Friday, October 4. Ruth Frost Parker center is the sponsor of this video series. And I have with me today the Reverend Beth long Higgins who heads the Center is also my wonderful co host on this podcast series. Welcome, Beth. Hello, Mike. And we are putting together a series of shorter video shortcuts that will go through each of the are a number of topics that we feel helped to define the work of the center. And again, we encourage everyone to check out our annual symposium. Friday, October 4, the subject is going to be meeting purpose and redefining retirement, terrific speakers all lined up like Richard Eisenberg, Anna Hall, and Janine Vanderburgh. Please check out how to attend the symposium we’d love to see in person, but you can also attend virtually check it out at www DOT United Church homes.org backslash Parker hyphen center. So Beth, all that being said, our this episode is all going to be about this concept of aging in place. So I remember someone saying that I think it was an AARP study that said that, you know, 90% of people wanted to age in place. And the joke is there’s an APB out for the other 10%. Because first of all, you know, I mean, when you hear the term aging in place, what kind of runs through your mind?

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins  01:49

Well, first of all, in our last shortcut, we kind of laid down that we believe everyone is aging. So everyone is aging, right? Everyone is in a place, even those who are houseless, they’re then aging in the place in which they find themselves. We don’t age outside of the local area. And this phrase in the culture has come to equate aging, as being people that we all want to age in the home in which we are currently living. And there’s an assumption that we own that home. And if that’s what people mean, when they say this phrase, then I think there are a series of questions that are helpful to consider. Right? So if I could have a conversation when someone says those 90% of the people so we can have conversation with 90% of the people who are in place, I would say why? What is it about the place where you’re living that you think is going to allow you to thrive? And age? Well, what’s

Michael Hughes  03:00

the place? I’ve got all my memories, right? I mean, this is, you know, I look at everything that I got around here. I mean, you know, I’m weird the most because we love to collect antiques, and collectibles, and oddities and all that, but I look around and I see in my home that we lived in Yeah, for since 2012. And I see all sorts of things that just sort of remind me of, you know, this antique store, we found this out or this vacation, where we found that I mean, it sort of provides me with just that warm blanket and that sense of sort of safety. Right?

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins  03:30

Absolutely. Absolutely. And so the next question is, do you know how it is that you are going to age in the future? Can you anticipate the physical needs and the psychological and mental health needs that you’re going to have in the next 510 1520 years? And can you ensure that the place where you are right now is going to meet all of those needs that might present themselves in your life

Michael Hughes  04:01

I’m a bit of a ringer and seeing as this has been my career. So yeah, I’ve got the double, I’ve got the double grab bars on the stairs, like an all the walking in place for the eventually, but it’s all really it to be honest with you, it’s all really kind of centered around you know, function, and functional wellness and physical wellness and just this idea that there’s an inevitable decline in that and that sort of like the specter that looms around here is like you know, either you don’t think a better when you do it’s a negative, you know, so I don’t know that’s a big question about because I don’t know what I don’t know the totality of my progression from a mental standpoint, you know, how does my physical interact with the mental and so I can’t say that this house is because I don’t know what that’s gonna look like. Exactly. So you made me fall into that one.

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins  04:57

You know, the reality is we are present bias We think that the way we are today is the way we’re going to be in the future that even if we a as we age, not if we age as we age and knowing that aging is all about change, we don’t think that change that there’s going to be much change going forward. So the next question is, do individuals who would like the home that they live in, they’ve built the home or they’ve lived there for a long time, or they liked the stuff around them, is a part of wanting to age in place, a way of avoiding making decisions about what to do with that stuff? Or avoiding the grief that very ago, we let go of a year ago, things that have been important to us?

Michael Hughes  05:42

Oh, man, now you’re blowing my mind here. You’re right now it’s it’s, yeah, it’s that that’s the thing, we have a relationship with our past, we have our relationship with our lived history, we honor the lived history, we kind of mourn the loss of maybe adventures that we could have taken earlier, and or whatever it might be. But yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of stuff in this house right now. And it’s going to be really hard to break up with it.

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins  06:09

Yeah. And that doesn’t mean that you have to do it right. Right this minute. But I think, like my dad always used to say, thinking in terms of he was also a pastor in terms of his ministry, he tried to keep in mind the fact that he was never going to be the minister in any location forever. And he had to be mindful of the folks who can follow after Him. So for me, and this part also comes from experience with our family, if I can’t part with those things, and I stay in this house with all of these beloved things around me and I die, then I am leaving the burden. Within it’s an emotional burden, it’s a physical burden for my kids, for me, it isn’t my kids, for them to have to sort through this stuff. And the reality is, I know, you know, people in Ireland who are our age, who are having to do this for their parents, and literally, they bring in the dumpster. And they’re and they’re not even going through the stuff and they’re just throwing it in the dumpster.

Michael Hughes  07:14

Everything in our house that’s not upholstered came from somebody else’s house, you know, we’re just, you know, we love the treasure hunt. We love all of that. But you’re right. I’ve seen it hundreds and hundreds of times with just various kinds of like, you know, I don’t know, and I don’t see a lot of sentiment in that, you know, it’s just it’s basically let’s just get rid of it, get rid of it, get rid of it. There’s not a lot of sediment. So how should people be looking at this path? I mean, what gave us a tip to kind of maybe just get ourselves into a better or starter was sort of a thought process into a way that may be more healthy here.

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins  07:45

Yeah. So I’ll tell you about a process I’ve just gone through. For the past 35 years, my family and I have directed the camp. And for 30 of those years, I set up a battery. And every afternoon for a week, I was helping and providing the materials for folks to make jewelry, you know, and over 30 years, you acquire quite a few beats, just Sam, and since the pandemic that disrupted the ability to have camped for a year, and I realized I did not have joy or energy in doing that activity anymore. And so those beads have been in bins, some of them are available but most of them have been in bins in the basement. And I’m talking about, you know, a lot of bees. I could have literally opened up a small beach sort of

Michael Hughes  08:41

worms hoping someday bats. Yeah.

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins  08:44

Yeah, well so they were sitting there. And I’ve been aware in the back of my head. Both of my kids participated in the activity at camp. And sometimes we would do stuff at home. Like when we do birthday parties, that was something we their friends would do. But they don’t, they’ve never had the same passion about this hobby that I did. And quite frankly, I don’t have the same hot interest in this hobby. And yet, I couldn’t, I wasn’t ready to part with those beats. And so they sat where they sat for the six years that we’ve lived in our current home. And finally, last month, I decided I need to find a new home for these beads where they’re going to be appreciated so that they don’t just go into the dumpster somewhere because they are worth something. And so emotionally, I’m not throwing them away, but I’m finding a good home for them. I’m giving them to a couple of people who I know are gonna appreciate them. And so I did it 10 days ago, loaded up the car and we took the rest of the battery to a dear friend and to her husband’s dismay is now going to be converting rooms in their house into her own mini bead store because she. Do you have some of your own? Well, what

Michael Hughes  10:01

Do you like it, though? What did that feel like to sort of just unburden yourself from maybe just this thing that had been kind of just in the back of your mind, and

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins  10:10

It was five years ago? Well, actually, it was longer than that. Because the last couple years that I was doing it, I was resentful that I had to keep honest, honestly. And then for the past. For the past five years, it’s just been weighing on me. And it’s not a daily weight. But you know, when I think about it, I go, like the stack of stuff in the basement, it’s like, I can’t tell you, it is a relief, I don’t have the burden, I don’t have the burden of that stuff anymore. And so it is a process, it is a grief process, it is, but it’s also kind of a legacy, you know, if these things are really important, and I think that there are others for whom this is going to be important than Can I share them with them. You know, for some of us, we need to sell stuff, because there’s a financial reality to the value of things. And hopefully, as we sell things, we’re finding individuals who are going to appreciate them as well. But the stuff can also become a burden and prohibit us from making decisions, which really need to be made. And I think of the individual whose wife had died. And one of the first things they bought was a dining room set. And they did it kind of over a series of years. And it was a table that could fit a large number of people on the table and there was a hutch where they could display the piece.

Michael Hughes  11:33

Murray’s around the table. And yeah, and because the

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins  11:36

the table could collapse, you know, besides having lots of leaves, but the ends folded down, he was able to keep that through to move. And so he’s in an apartment living by himself. And as his health and his physical abilities were declining. And the kids were talking about, you know, we need to maybe it’s time for you to move. And when he would go and look at places, there wasn’t room for the dining room set. That was the excuse. None of his kids have room in their house for this dining room set. And by the way, they’d all been married for 20-3040 years, they already had their own stuff, their grandkids were not in his, the grandkids were not in a place where they said yeah, I’ll take that. And that became one of the final stumbling blocks. So when our physical stuff or our attachment, emotional attachment to the place where we’re currently living, or to the things that surround us in that place, are prohibiting us from really making the decisions which need to be made, it becomes a problem. And for this individual, it took a couple more months and multiple falls, and multiple years, going to the ER before the doctor finally said you don’t have an option, you cannot live on your own. And at that point, he wasn’t moving into another apartment, he was moving into an assisted living one room in a greenhouse that the dining room set couldn’t go to. And then the kids felt guilty, because the dining room set then went to the church garage sale. So hopefully somebody found value in that and you know, money was contributed to the church, but they never told dad, they never told their dad, this is what happened. When

Michael Hughes  13:21

you take a look at everything that you have. And you think about, you know, the space that it takes up and then, you know, you start to pair that down. It’s almost like the possibilities open for you again, you know what I mean, what would happen if you were to distill your life down to just a few things you could put in your car, and then boom, you could go anywhere with it. Right? So it’s, I mean, there’s a lot more to unpack this, this, these are supposed to be mini cuts. But you know, there’s just I think you’re opening up people’s eyes just to the proxies we place in the things that we can touch and see and have sort of like this relationship with. And it’s almost like for me, you know, if you get rid of the thing, you get rid of the memory thing, you get rid of the memory. And I think that’s lots of food for thought, you know?

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins  14:08

Yeah. And, and just one final piece. My husband and I did a lot of traveling recently. And so we were away from home, literally living out of suitcases for about two months. We switched out clothes from one climate to another in the course of those two months. And there was something very freeing about being able to live with this much stuff. And I also know how, what it felt like to go home and to be surrounded by all the things that we have put in our home that are familiar, but I think leaving our place and spending time away from our stuff also helps us to realize what’s important in in so this giving away of those, the Beanery kind of came in the aftermath of that significant time away. It’s like okay, what am I hanging on to here that really I don’t

Michael Hughes  14:59

That’s it. Love that depth. Thank you very much for chatting about this subject with me again for the audience. Thank you for listening to this relatively shortcut compared to other episodes we’ve done and of course please attend our annual symposium which is going to be on Friday, October 4 At Nationwide conference center in beautiful Columbus, Ohio. theme of the symposium meaning purpose and redefining retirement, and for more information, please visit UnitedChurchHomes.org/Parker-Center. Thanks for listening to everyone. We’ll see you on the next one.