What about becoming old at heart?

From Amy Ambrose, Executive Director, Milwaukee Aging Consortium.

The Old Lady in My Head

I shared this story at the National Grantmakers in Aging Conference, during a luncheon at the Pfister Hotel featuring Dr. George E. Vaillant, author of Aging Well. A Consortium Board member asked me to repeat it for this blog.

Over a year ago, I participated in a guided imagery exercise that was a tour of people and events I had known at different stages in my 35 years of life. I knew nothing about guided imagery before this experience, and you are free to think that it's a bit flaky. It can be. But read on.

Before it was over, I wound up face-to-face with a woman I didn’t know. She was 105 years old, hunched over a cane, and smiling. She seemed to have a very generous spirit, to be the kind who loves without thought of return.

She offered me a cup of tea. There were other parts of this guided tour that were not so pleasant, but the presence of the old woman was a comfort. I felt safe with her, safe from judgment. She offered me a gift to guide my way home. It was a candle.

At that point, the woman leading the guiding imagery exercise made an announcement to our group. She said "The woman you have just met is you."

Me? You must be mistaken. I felt overwhelmed by the idea at first, and then had the good sense to ask my 105-year-old self what she knew.

Her message was simple. She said: “Give up the worry. It all turns out alright.”

Much has been said in popular culture, literature and lore about the benefits of staying "young at heart," of aging well by basically refusing to age. But being young at heart is a mixed bag. Most of us during our youth are so busy trying to earn the respect and love of others, or looking for them to earn it from us, that we waste years on anxiety and hustle and judgment. Have I accomplished enough yet? Have you?

Instead, I think it might be helpful to embrace what it means to be "old at heart." For me, this means being fearless because you have moved past the need to prove your worth. To love completely, because today is all you have and because that’s what life is really all about. And to keep giving, whatever little thing you have to offer the world.

That’s just my own little perspective. I am eager to invite yours, whatever age you are.

If you could close your eyes and come face to face with yourself at 105 years old, what would this person have to say about your life?

What can we learn by connecting with the part of us that is "old at heart"?

Why blog on aging for folks in "the business"?

One thing I’ve learned about life stages: you can understand the ones you’ve already been through. Sort of. But the ones that lie ahead of you, you can only imagine. Stories other people tell us about their experiences are one of the best ways to imagine ourselves into empathy and, maybe, brilliant acts.

A blog is a great place to share those stories.

Some of what goes on in our personal and work lives just doesn't fit into the usual categories--reports, analyses, news stories, instructional materials. It comes from the place where who we are intersects with what we do.

A blog is a great place to explore the intersections.

Sometimes, the stories around us fill us with despair. A blog is a great place to mark and honor the sadness--or to write new, happier endings.

More mundanely, this blog was created because it’s part of our communications plan to develop new ways to connect members of the Milwaukee Aging Consortium around common issues in the work we do, the people we care about and for.

Finally, in learning about this field—a new one for me, a career change--I’m turning up fascinating information, ideas, people, and programs that I want to share.

Here's a ferinstance: Milwaukee's Danceworks Gallery is opening a mixed media exhibition Walking in Someone Else's Shoes starting Friday, January 19, from 6 - 9. The exhibit is "envisioned stories and works (that) celebrate the lives of Milwaukee elders and youth. . ." It's part of the ongoing Intergenerational Multi-Arts Project (IMAP), and it will continue through April 11. The opening also takes place during the Third Ward's Gallery Night And Day.

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
--Pablo Picasso

What's a job worth?

Most prognosticators seem to agree that in the new year, the rich will get richer and the rest of us. . . won't.

Ex-CEO Bob Nardelli will be given $262 million to walk quietly out the door of Home Depot in one day. Meanwhile, most of us will earn the same amount we earned last year, more or less, even when the people we work for are delighted with our performance.

Flat wages and increasing costs of living are especially a problem for direct caregivers.

In Wisconsin, the average wage for nursing assistants, home health aides, and personal care aides is $10.37 an hour (National Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce. That's $5.35 an hour less than the "self-sufficiency" hourly rate for a full-time worker with one child in Milwaukee County (The Self-Sufficiency Guide for Wisconsin).

Why does a home health aide make $9.68 an hour while a copy-machine repair technician makes $17 an hour as a trainee, $22 in the field afterward? Aren't our parents and our children as valuable as our office machines?

Of course they are. But we don't need copy machine technicians 24/7, and the ratio of technician to machine is much higher than the ratio of caregiver-to-care-needer.

Then there's the elephant in the room: caregiving is still largely a woman's job, whereas copy machine repair is. . . not. At least not traditionally. And in Wisconsin, even for the same job, women make 71 cents for a man's dollar.

I think every job should afford a person who works it full-time and does a good job the income to be self-sufficient--have enough food to eat, a roof over his or her head, health care. . .

But how do we accomplish that? Even non-profit organizations need to have enough money (margin) to do their job well. As the head of a Catholic hospital I once knew always said, "No margin, no mission."

It would be hard to dispute that reimbursement isn't high enough and costs keep rising. Institutions face problems with money-in versus money-out, too, but on a larger scale.

And it would be easy to get discouraged and overlook the accomplishments of so many astonishing people who dedicate their lives to this work. Then we remember programs like Wisconsin's admirable pilot Family Care to improve choice, access, quality, and cost-effectiveness in long-term care.

Disclaimer time: please remember that these are my personal ruminations, and while this blog is for issues near the heart of The Milwaukee Aging Consortium, they aren't the Consortium's notions. Our members are both caregivers and organizations that hire them. Everyone is committed to making the lives of older people better, but there will always be differences among us about how to do that. Let's talk about it here, in the interest of better understanding--and finding win-win-win solutions!

One thing that might help: taking some of the burden of health insurance off the employer's back. Governor Doyle wants to expand Badger Care to cover all children in the state. That's a noble goal, but what about covering all people in the state? I'm buying the evidence that a statewide plan for everyone could be much less expensive for both the employer and the employee.

What's your take on this? How can we help employers, employees, and the people we serve to thrive, not just survive?