Tag Archive for: death cleaning

Healthy Aging Series by Mark Neese

How to Have a Killer Retirement: 3 Principles for “Writing Your Own Script” | Healthy Aging Series: Part 18

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I was sitting at a McDonald’s a few years ago and overheard a conversation between two men. Both men were in their early 60’s. I recall that one of them had already retired and he was trying to convince the other man to retire. His argument was that when you retire, your time is your own.

It’s interesting the way we are programmed about retirement. Work all your adult life until you turn sixty-five. Stop working. Live on your retirement income. End of story. That’s how it’s written. I get it. I can’t imagine working a job when I’m eighty or ninety. Or maybe I can. I met with a couple this morning. They’re owners of an agency called, “The Center for Conscious Aging.” Chris, who is seventy-three, has a mother who is ninety-three. She retired at eighty-seven. Chris is still working. Maybe, that’s not how it’s written.

My brother-in-law is eighty-four and still working. People continue to work into their seventies and eighties for several reasons. They want to make a difference. They need to supplement their retirement income. They need to stay connected with people. They simple love what they do. Lots of reason. There is no right way or wrong way to spend your senior years. Retirement is a social construct. It’s a pre-written script that many, many individuals during retirement age refuse to follow. Maybe, we can write our own script for retirement.

I’ve been reading a lot of books on aging and one phrase that has come up a few times is: “You need to write your own script.” Maybe the word ‘narrative’ resonates with people today. 

Creating Your Own Script/Narrative.

The beauty of the retirement years is you get to decide what they look like. They are YOUR retirement years. Not mine. Not your children’s. Not your co-worker’s. Not your wife’s. You only get one crack at your senior years. Maybe thirty or thirty-five years if you’ve taken care of yourself and if you’re lucky. You get the chance to craft a life for yourself that will bring you happiness and contentment. Sure, there are limits to what you can do, limits to what your narrative will look like, but still, regardless of your limits, you can craft a life that suits you. You can write a script that mirrors what you value and what you find important.

How does one write their own script?

For some of you reading this, it’s too soon to start writing you script. You’re in your forties and fifties. The last thing you’re thinking about is retirement. But it’s not too soon to start dreaming about your future self, about what your life might look like in your seventies and eighties.

But if you’re in your late fifties or early sixties, it’s time to start, and here are some principles that I have used to write my script.

First Principle: What Gives Me Meaning and Purpose in Life?

My script reflects my desire to make a difference in this world. I can’t imagine not doing what I do. I get up each week, knowing that I help people face and solve their problems. It’s tiresome at times, but a good kind of tiresome. I work with a teen that is struggling with gender identity issues. I work with an elderly woman that lost her husband. I work with a young man that has lost his way. And a woman that struggles with her life choices. My script involves working  as long as I’m able to listen and express care and concern. What gives you meaning and purpose? Making furniture? Volunteering at the local homeless shelter? Crafting? Being a mentor to young people in your church, synagogue, or neighborhood? Being a Friendly Visitor? Whatever it is, write those things into your script.

Second Principle: What do I value?

My Script reflects the relationships that I value. I value my relationship with my wife. No surprise there! I value my relationship with my sons, with my grandchildren, and with my friends. My script reflects the people that I value. My script has me home most of the time with my wife. My script has me spending some evenings during the month with my son, Derrick, and every three months with my other son, Trevor, and my two granddaughters, Sophie and Harper. My script has me hiking with my good friend, Sam, and a couple of young men that challenge the hell out of me, Chris and Stacy. I have written people into my script.

Third Principle: Taking care of Myself.

My script reflects the importance of taking care of myself. I remember visiting my father after a very long and grueling backpacking trip in the Sierra Mountains. His response was, “Kimberly (the name he called me), that doesn’t seem like fun to me!” I said, “We’ll Dad, it wasn’t fun. That’s not why I do it!” His script didn’t involve challenging himself, mentally and physically that way. Mine did.

My script involves hiking, biking, and lifting weights. It involves limiting my sugar intake. Watching my weight. Reading self-help books. It involves watching very stupid movies like Sharknado and watching funny series like “What we do in the Shadows.”
My script involves spending time with my extended family. It involves walking every Thursday with my friend Gordon. It involves having some good collegial friends that I can call and consult with about tough cases.

My script involves what we call, self-care. I tell the newer therapists that I supervise, if they want to continue doing what they are doing for the next 25 or 30 years, they need to take care of themselves. How are they going to take care of others, their family, and friends, and their clients, if they are spent? I have written Self-Care into my script. Maybe this is where I should have started.

Writing your own script doesn’t mean that you are literally writing a script. What it means is, you are living the life that you want regardless of what others say. It means following your own compass in your senior years, your True North.

I love the movie, “Citizen Kane.”  The character played by Orson Welles, is on his deathbed, and with his last breath says, “Rosebud.” The reporter that witnessed his death spends the rest of movie trying to figure out, who was Rosebud. I won’t spoil the ending, other than to say that Rosebud was important to him. His final word reflected the script that he had been living.

What will you say on your deathbed? What is your Rosebud? Are you living a script that you’ve written?

I’m not sure what my last words will be in my script. I haven’t written them yet. Maybe they’ll be, “Game over, man!” (I love the movie Aliens) Or, maybe I’ll write something else. Maybe I’ll write what McMurtry wrote into Gus McCrae’s last words, into his script in Lonesome Dove. “It’s been quite a party, ain’t it, Woodrow.”

This is part eighteen in the Healthy Aging Series, written by Mark Neese, LCSW, BCBA. To see more entries in this series, click here.

Heathy Aging Series: How to Clean up after Yourself, before You Die

How to Clean Up After Yourself, Before You Die | Healthy Aging Series: Part 17

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I think about dying almost every day. I know it sounds a little morbid. It’s actually hard to not think about it. I’m not quite pushing 70 but I’m closer to 70 then I am to 60. I have signs that I’m aging and in fact dying. Graying hair. White whiskers. Organs and body parts not working as well as they used to. When my senior friends and I get together, those meetings turn out to be what some referred to as an “organ recitals.” Comparing the last lab work, or doctor visit, or health insurance.

What do I think about when I think about dying? 

At times, I think about how I’m going to get rid of all the junk that I have accumulated over the years. I’ve begun to see my senior years is it time to start divesting myself of material things.  That’s why Margaretta Magnusson’s book, “The gentle art of Swedish Death Cleaning,“ caught my eye. I’m sure we’ve all witnessed death cleaning. My mother cleaned up after my grandfather when he died. I wasn’t living at home at the time, but I remember mom talking about how painful it was. When my paternal grandfather died, I remember my father getting grandpa’s Remington 16-gauge shotgun. I think there was a lottery process that grandma used to distribute his things. That was Death Cleaning. 

What is that cleaning? It’s the act of getting rid of the things that people accumulated during their life after they die. In some ways, it means cleaning up the mess that people made while they were living. Often, Death Cleaning falls on wives and daughters. They clean up after their family members when they die. 

Magnusson suggest a different approach to death cleaning, one that shows compassion to the ones we leave behind. She advocates that we “clean up after ourselves before we die.” Here are her or her gentle guidelines for the art of doing your own death cleaning. 

First, Magnusson reminds us that there is no sadness in thinking about or doing your own death cleaning. There is no sadness in visiting the things you accumulated one last time before finding them a new home. There is no sadness when you introduce your things to a new owner who will use them and appreciate them. I had a kayak and a mountain bike sitting in my garage. Neither one had been used for five years. I found them new homes with new owners that would use them and appreciate them. There was nothing sad about that desk cleaning. 

Magnusson‘s second gentle guideline involves getting started. Getting started generally involves three phases: 

PHASE ONE OF DEATH CLEANING

Go through your things. Do a survey. During this beginning phase you must get past your sentimentality. I don’t work with hoarders but I’m guessing that it’s sentimentality that creates the problem of accumulating all the things they have. It’s probably the answer to the question: Why do I keep my things and why did I accumulate them in the first place. As you do your survey of things, think about the boxes and boxes of things you have in your basement and in your garage and in your attic. The boxes of your children’s elementary school papers, and childhood toys, old Hallmark cards, childhood books, baby blankets, old tools, old dishes, the small appliances that you haven’t use for the past five years, bicycles you never ride, gifts you’ve never taken out of the boxes, clothing you never wear anymore, and the list can go on and on. Survey your storage unit if you have one. 

Why are all the new storage units being built? They are going up everywhere! And they are full of the things you’ve accumulated because of sentimentality. And it is sentimentality that is creating this hold on you and prevents you from getting rid of them. People who invest in building storage unts are counting on it. Think about how much people are willing to spend to nurture their sentimentality. Typically, a small unit is $75-$100 per month. Phase One: survey all of the things that you’ve accumulated and keep in mind the reason why you still have them. Sentimentality.

PHASE TWO OF DEATH CLEANING

Sort your Things. In your mind start two piles: The things you want to keep and the things you want to find a new home. Magnusson goes through the survey and begins with clothing. I do this regularly. I pull out totes with clothes that I haven’t worn for the past year or two. I have “keep and giveaway” piles. The giveaway pile I bag up and take to Goodwill. I have three criteria and deciding what goes into which pile. 

Do they fit anymore? Yes or no. Have I worn them in the past year? Yes or no. Would I wear them again? Do I still like them? Yes or no. Keep or give away.

Books. I love books and seeing them on bookshelves in my office. I have developed a new Death Cleaning policy for buying books. For every new book I buy I get rid of a book. I periodically go through my books and ask:

Why do I have this book? If it’s purely sentimental it’s going into the “giveaway“ pile.

I have a problem with coffee cups. I get cups from places I’ve visited. The Starbucks in San Francisco, Phoenix, Grand Canyon, make it hard for me to walk away without a cup. I’ve picked up cups in most national parks. I a new cup from the great Smoky Mountains national Park. I like to drink out of cups from places I’ve been. I’m kind of sentimental about that. But our kitchen cabinet can only handle so many cups. We have boxes of cups we never use. It’s time to sort through them. Two piles. Keep or give away.

PHASE THREE OF DEATH CLEANING

Get rid of the “find a new home“ pile. Magnusson has a couple of suggestions that make it a little easier on us as we confront our sentimentality. First, she suggests we take our time. This process can take place over a period of years. I’ve set aside some books my mother gave me for my granddaughters. I’ll give them the books. in a few years. I gave away four guitars to my sons. I think the important part of phase 3 is to begin the process of finding your things a new home. Her second suggestion is to start with less sentimental items and slowly move toward the more sentimental things. This helps “prime the pump.” You experience the satisfaction of getting rid of things that are less sentimental, and then you’re willing to try it with more sentimental things to experience the same satisfaction.

Stop accumulating things!

One of the best ways to begin cleaning up after yourself before you die is to avoid making a mess of things before you die. 

Quit buying things you don’t need!

Quit accumulating sentimental things that have no practical value.

Start finding things a new owner by never giving them a new home in the first place. 

Resist your sentimentality.

My Mother’s Death Cleaning

The day my mother died, I stayed in her little apartment. She didn’t have much. She had already given away most of her things. I had asked for her Gladys Tabor books a few years earlier and they had found a new home. I had given her Joseph Campbell’s, “Hero with a Thousand Faces,“ for her birthday a few years earlier. I did a little Death Cleaning and took it with me along with a knitted blanket and Clock. Her grandchildren were invited over a day or two later to claim the things they wanted. 

Mom made it easy for us because she had cleaned up after herself before she died.

I have a lot of stuff, a lot of things. I’m guessing you do, too. Do the loving and considerate thing and start the process of Death Cleaning now. 

Avoid making a mess in your life, that someone else will be forced to clean up, by walking away from the things you never needed in the first place. And give the rest away!

This is part seventeen in the Healthy Aging Series, written by Mark Neese, LCSW, BCBA. To see more entries in this series, click here.