We return to the topic of being “retired” and explore what it means to be in the space of retirement. Staying connected to our past work, exploring other interests, moving from one city to another or taking temporary contracts have impacted our retirement so far. But we are starting to see elderhood as a time to explore new opportunities, nurture others and use our newfound freedom to curate what we have in our lives and what we don’t. Health is important and mobility, which means making adaptations when things change, taking risks and mitigating them. And as we finance our retirement, we talk more about what we are spending our money on, prioritizing what is important to us. Ultimately, we are reconstructing our life and our identity as we move through our 3rd Stage. The conversation is lively with some great anecdotes.

Without engaging in nostalgia, we begin by talking about trends in fashion, music and sports that started out on the fringes and are now mainstream. How we act on our beliefs and values is changing. For example, our participation in the women’s movement has gone from participating in protests to supporting female businesses, authors and influencers daily. Technological, automotive and other such trends are explored as they shifted to mainstream. Sustainability has come to the fore as second hand markets, growing produce and preserving it, do it yourself renovations and other practices are notably practiced today. The long term benefits of these trends are worth supporting individually and as a society.

Inspired by a retreat with granddaughters, we look at those people who have had an impact on our lives. From Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, to family, to colleagues, to teachers, pastors, great thinkers and leaders, we identify the folks that have helped shape us. We acknowledge our children and grandchildren as our mentors in learning new things and being culturally appropriate. We discuss theologians and how some, particularly women, challenged the church to broaden and grow. That led us to talking about post modernism and the complexities of life when there are so many opposing ideas and opinions that their adherents insist are true. We land this episode by identifying that our group of four serve as mentors to each other and we are appreciative of the opportunity to grow.

There are many kinds of power and we try to identify where our sense of power and agency now resides. Gendered power in terms of white male privilege, our complicit roles within it, and our struggles to push against it is primary to the discussion. Sharing our agency, leveraging our life’s journey, and supporting the inclusiveness we value is imperative to redressing the inequalities that exist. Resistance to coercive power is a means to addressing the inequities we see in the world. This can take place on both large and small scales and we explore ways to embody that resistance. Our children have adopted new language and approaches for this, and we are learning from them. We are more powerful than we think.

We’re cautious about sharing our wisdom for a variety reasons, especially without being asked to share wisdom. Though, we did give ourselves permission to talk about wisdom in this podcast. Story telling is a good way to share wisdom, especially with grandchildren, inviting them to make their own decisions without telling them what to do. We laugh about some of the wise sayings we learned from our parents and find ourselves saying today. Wisdom, we agree, is not knowledge alone, but comes with lived experiences. Religious practices can offer wisdom, or it can be found in silence, or the sacred, beautiful places that move us. To be wise involves challenging our assumptions, practicing empathy and being able to say “I don’t know”. Wisdom teaches us to be open and helps us to take the things from other traditions or beliefs that we can apply to our own lives. Wisdom is being present to the mystery of life.

Do we think of ourselves as seniors? What does the word senior mean to us? The word senior when applied to older people can have a negative connotation, but its origins have more positive, stately meanings. Youth culture, capitalism, privilege and lumping everyone over 65 as a senior may all contribute to the negative connotation. The boomer generation has redefined what being a senior means. They are working longer and demanding more, including having higher expectations of the health care system. They are taking a more active approach to staying healthy, active and involved, redefining what retirement means. Elders in many cultures have traditionally been carriers of wisdom, and we explore that. In the end we aren’t sure what it means to be a senior, but we are working on it!

Having fun elevates our spirit and connects us to others. Keeping fun in our lives as we get older can be more of a challenge when things happen to derail us. It helps to have good role models, intentionally taking moments to laugh every day, and not taking ourselves too seriously. Being open to new ways to have fun as we age can take the place of old ways. From scatological humour with grandchildren to having fun in church, looking for ways to uplift our spirits in the joy of community is critical to being vibrant and alive as we age.

Our topic is introduced by a reading from The Wisdom of Morrie: Living and Aging Creatively and Joyfully, written by Morrie Schwartz and edited by his son Rob. Morrie invites us to make a choice in our later years to grow and change, in short to continue to learn. Our conversation explores the ‘unlearning’ we may need to do in order to grow, such as throwing off our binary thinking and seeing life as messy instead of black and white. We explore traditional education and how it is different from the type of learning that fits for us now. We talk of focusing our energy and becoming involved in things based on new moral insights and empathy as we age. Although we may want to be activists, we acknowledge that may cost us when encountering people in opposition to us. In the end, it is our humanity that binds us and our willingness to view learning as a continuum that shows us a path forward.

Aging is complex and sometimes gratitude is difficult to practice. Our conversation about gratitude exposes some of the barriers to practicing gratitude as well as the opportunities. Worry, anxiety, pain and loss of function all get in the way of being grateful. Yet, there are natural, familiar ways to incorporate gratitude in our lives that can occur both spontaneously and intentionally, without feeling forced. Staying grounded in our bodies, or our faith, nature, or the present moment all help us to find our gratitude and to stop the ruminating thoughts that keep us from enjoying life. It is a lively conversation.

We begin by sharing our experiences of growing up in rural communities with extended family around and continue to reference the influence of extended family throughout the conversation. It is in exact contrast to the experience we had raising our own children and being separated from extended family by either distance or our parents’ death. We touch on genetics and how familial features and health care issues manifest. Exploring the gifts given to us by our parents, education had a huge impact. Strongly encouraged to get further education we work through the reasons for that and the consequences, as well as what influenced our career decisions. How did education change the trajectory of our lives? How did it impact the relationships with our family? We are still growing and learning and processing our early relationships forging our own path, even as we enter our seventies.