The Ethel, a newsletter produced by AARP, is not perfect for everyone (is anything?), but it does speak to the challenges/opportunities we are likely to face as we age.

So, with credit to a recent The Ethel, here are four things that “promise” to make us happier:

1. Sit or stand up straight. When I was young, I was unusually tall, at 5’10”, towering over all my girlfriends and most boys. My mother used to whisper in my ear “SB,” her signal to put my shoulders back as I slumped through adolescence.  I still hear that voice, and I still have imperfect posture. But if it is going to make me happier…
2. Have fresh flowers. I don’t need The Ethel to tell me flowers make me happier. Peter always knew that a bouquet of daisies would cause me to forgive any of his rare transgressions.
3. Be near water. Lake, river, ocean—it doesn’t matter—Being near water is my default cure for feeling blue.  Does it always work?  Nope, but it’s worth a try.
4. Clear the clutter. I probably wouldn’t put this in my top four ways to be happy, but I do feel a certain comfort when my “to do” pile on my desk is under control.

How about you?

I don’t “do” sick. It’s never on my agenda.  But things can go wrong.  And have.

This is my 8^th day of not leaving my apartment because I am sick with a mysterious--not Covid--something.  Even worse, I am home and not being productive because when my body says “lie down,” I lie down.

I’m on the mend, and I hear that it’s not much fun outside in this very cold spell anyway. 

But I’ve had enough of me.

I began to blog twice-weekly at 70-something.com seventeen years ago this month in order to “process” my aging.  Of course, I knew that there would be good times and difficult times, but I never expected to lose the home and community that were such a part of my happy life.

At 80-something, disruption has been a little harder to take as is the uncertainty of whether I’ll be renewing a lease in my hastily found apartment, or once again be packing up for a move in twelve months.

One thing I know for sure—my mother’s two-dozen crystal stemmed dessert dishes that I have never used and the kids don’t want will soon be donated to the closest church’s thrift shop, never to be wrapped for packing again.

It’s never too late to learn… 

It is true that as we get older, the years go faster, probably because they are a smaller percentage of our age.  So welcome to 2025.  It came very fast.

Of course, I am not in the business of predicting, but I hope that this year will be better than I anticipate.  I am basically a worrier.  I worry about global warming.  I worry about our divided country and more.  But I hadn't worried that I would have to move myself and my possessions out of the place I expected to live for what I hoped would be a long time.  And that’s been hard.

I’ve been in my new place almost four weeks now.  It’s smaller, but I was able to cram in all but one bookcase. It is a bit of a challenge to walk between the end of my bed and my dresser. It helps that I am thin.  On the upside, this building has a gym, and I am back on an exercise bicycle for the first time in several years.

Of course, the downside is a loss of a community that I loved. 

Onwards.

One of the down sides of moving is having to update your address everywhere. I started on this thankless task before Thanksgiving by trying and failing to update my social security address online. It just wasn’t happening, so I decided to try calling.  I put my phone on speaker and listened to them tell me how important my call was over and over again, Ninety minutes later, someone answered.  I meant to turn off the speaker, but instead, I disconnected the call.  So annoying and no one to be annoyed at but me.

On Monday, I tried online again.  I got all the way to a message that said it would confirm the change, and I watch something circle for more than 15 minutes before I gave up and tried calling again.

This time, I had a list of things to do while waiting.  It was the same music as the last time and the same message about how important my call was.  After two and a half hours (!) I decided to go to the gym, and as I was about to step on the elevator, a person answered!  I returned to my apartment, answered all the secret questions and succeeded in updating my address.

Doesn’t our government know how to tell one what the anticipated wait time is?  Couldn’t our government do what so many others do—namely promise to call you back in the order in which you called?

In my dreams…

Years ago, I bought four brightly-colored Venetian glass candies while on a bike trip to Italy.  They sat on my coffee table in a favorite blue glass bowl from Denmark.  I was amused recently when a friend getting ready to leave after a visit asked if she could have a candy—I advised her against trying to bite into a piece of glass.

Together with some other of my “treasures” that I didn’t want my movers to be responsible for, I left them  with a friend. 

Shortly after my move, I picked up those extra boxes, but I couldn’t find my “candies”.  I was heartsick, thinking I should have left them to the movers because I, myself, had misplaced them when I moved. 

The next evening, I recalled that I had wrapped them individually and put them in my rather large Mexican jewelry box.  I was very pleased and relieved, and attributed my forgetfulness to the stress of moving.

The next day I told the woman I hired to help me hang pictures what happened and how pleased I was.  Minutes later, a picture she had leaned against a wall on a bookshelf fell, knocking the Danish bowl to the floor and shattering the Venetian candies.

If only I had waited one more day to find them!

According to ChatGPT (and other sources), moving can cause what is referred to as relocation stress syndrome. I have moved thirteen times (not counting going away to college) and although I wouldn’t call my feeling of dislocation overly traumatic, I do have one inevitable bad reaction, namely, the inability to sleep.  Until I settle in, until all moving boxes are out of sight, until I have temporarily plastered every kitchen cabinet with colored stickers indicating its contents, to say my sleep is disturbed is an understatement.

On Thursday night, I slept eight solid hours.

This is now my home.

When I had to quickly find a new place to live because my apartment house was deemed unsafe, I settled on a building where my beloved daily newspaper cannot be delivered to my apartment door.  So after more than 60 years of reading The New York Times with my morning coffee, I have become only an online subscriber. 

It’s just not the same.

So, on Sunday morning I put my coat on over my sweat pants, and ventured out in 19-degree temperature at 7:30 a.m. to find a real NYTimes in Harvard Square.

I failed. 

As I approached my apartment building empty-handed, I saw a NYTimes blue plastic bag sailing through the air from across the street to the steps in front of my building.  I ran across the street, and asked the thrower if it was safe to deliver to the outside of the building, and she said she has been successfully leaving the paper on the street outside the front door for 15 years.

I asked her if she had an extra copy of today’s paper that I could buy.  She handed me one, and she wouldn’t take money for it.  I told her I would subscribe to home delivery again.

I’m still smiling…

I have been going to the same dentist for decades.  Over the years, I sent many of my colleagues to him because he was both convenient to work and an excellent dentist.  At some point, he thanked me by giving me my first electric toothbrush.

My most recent checkup was four weeks ago.  And one week ago, I moved into my new apartment six floors above him.

There are a few compromises I had to make by being forced to quickly evacuate—my new place is small, it has no parking, I can hear the giggling of the students next door, etc.  BUT, if I have a dentist appointment on a rainy day,

I can get to his office by elevator.

When Peter and I became engaged (on June 6,1968), he presented me with a beautiful hand-crafted diamond ring designed by a jeweler whose store we often walked by.  (I also always mentioned how gorgeous that jeweler’s designs were.)

I wore that ring every day until November 27, 2024.  On that day, my son Seth gave it to his prospective bride, Dani. 

My hand misses the ring, but I am so pleased about its new home.  When we said good-bye at the end of Thanksgiving, Dani told me she would be sure that the ring stayed in the family

For the next generation!