Podcast Newsflash: Aging is Hard (and Joyful)
Podcast Newsflash: Aging is Hard (and Joyful)
A new episode of Don't Think Twice talks community and friendship in old age
Earlier this year, while sketching out this season of the podcast, we had a friend ask us: “…but what does old age have to do with your podcast?” This episode had always been a part of our thinking about this season. Not only is aging a creative fascination for us (ask us about our nursing home comedy script!), it couldn’t be more core to our rationale for building a life that centers friendship and chosen family
In this episode, we spoke with Christina and Jasmine, two people administering programs for older adults at SAGE and Lenox Hill, respectively. They each independently told us that the top affliction for their members is loneliness and social isolation. Compounding that are the bodily and monetary challenges of aging in an America that lacks safety nets for housing and healthcare.
SAGE and Lenox Hill are stemming that loneliness tide downstream, providing places for elder adults to form connections, friendships, gathering places. And, as you’ll hear from Jasmine, that often looks a lot like it did at age fourteen: walking into a full cafeteria, clutching a tray, scanning the room and figuring out where to sit, whom to befriend. YIKES. And also, how funny the full circles that life turns!
Friendships and community form a lifeline for older people in a world where social supports are fewer than ever. Rhaina Cohen (whom we had the podcast this season), notes in her book that elder loneliness is on the rise as people are having fewer children, more divorces, and becoming increasingly “kinless.” She writes that, as a result, 1 in 5 older adults is — or is likely to soon become — an “elder orphan.” Can you think of a more melancholic term? Rhaina also writes about the benefits of friendship for elders: friendship is actually shown to be more significant for older people than marriage. Research shows friendship to be more predictive of mortality rate, reducing the health burdens of loneliness.
Organizations can provide a great framework, but it’s impossible for them to do it all. We resist planning for the inevitability of our own twilight years, but it’s just gotta be done. What foundations are you laying now for your later chapters in life? How are you caring for folks in older generations, and how do you wish to be cared for in turn as you age?
As
said so elegantly in our last episode, “when I get old, I think about: ‘who’s gonna wipe my butt? And whose butt am I gonna wipe?’” We often don’t want to think about getting old, and the kinds of care and social support we will need. All signs point to us requiring support that extends beyond just a spouse, or even having kids. We need meaningful community.1BRB, manifesting a vision of retirement years like Christina’s friend Paulette in the podcast: white jumpsuit flowing, throwing ass to the sweet strains of Big Freedia at NYC Pride with all our best buds.
[A NOTE: if you’re so moved, rate us on the podcast app of your choice! We dig hearing from you, and it helps us out]
SO much good NEW stuff on the radio show this week. (And yes, apropos to this week’s theme, it does not escape us that our show is called Assisted Living — that is by design. Communal care in radiowave form!)
I mean, AND we need housing and healthcare.
Tell me about your nursing home comedy script!