Do I Stay or Do I Go?

I find myself in a bit of a conundrum.

I have finished my M.A. in Gerontology and need to find work in my career field.

To be more specific, I need to find work related to my education, in my field AND work that contributes to, enhances and furthers my career path. As much as I appreciate having a job, I can't live as an admin assistant forever.

The problem is that I have been in school, busting my brain for several years. During those years I didn't gain any real experience in the working side of my field, save that gained during my 300 hours interning with the Provincial Government.

That internship seems now, to count for very little and the job market is more than a little depressed.

I feel like leaving to find opportunity and betterment anywhere but here. Yet I'm not alone. Any decision I make to stay or to leave must be made with consideration for my partner and his family as well as for mine.

Finding career opportunities for myself may be detrimental to my partner and visa versa.

I could go to Kamloops where he has a job opportunity, but I don't know if there will be anything there for a Gerontologist.

I could leave for Ottawa where careers for Gerontologists in public health are more fruitful, but there could be nothing for him.

We could move to Vancouver Island, be bound by the Ferries and perhaps neither one of us will find work.

Part of my conundrum is the lack of awareness in both private industry and in health care, as to how to utilize Gerontologists who are not nurses. It seems that the entire LTC industry is built around licensing and policy that has nurses at the core of practice.

Gerontologists aren't all nurses, its true. I most certainly am not. Part of the barrier I'm running into, is the lack of awareness that Gerontology is the scientific study of the biological, psychological and social aging process over the ENTIRE LIFESPAN. Take a gander at the diversity of research being conducted at the Simon Fraser University Gerontology Research Centre here.

Knowledge of aging and the aging process, healthy aging practices and age friendly planning is not only applicable to older adults! Aging happens to every human being from the moment they are born. One does not have to be a nurse to have a positive impact on the aging experience and quality of residents in long term care or living independently in the community.

Gerontology and gerontologists can contribute to ANY environment in which there are goals to enable people to be healthy, live well, die well, support themselves and maintain their independence and achieve quality of life not just quantity of years.

This applies to policy development, community planning, city planning, care facility and hospital design and planning, activity and recreation planning and health programming both at the community level and the home or facility level.

Where does aging happen? All over the world, wherever people live, all day long, every day.

So, my dilemma is - Do I stay or do I go?

Attention world: Gerontologist At Large.

Music + Aging = Powerful Healing

If you have not had the immensely moving pleasure of watching "Young At Heart", an independent Fox Searchlight film about a senior's chorus in M.A., then you need to make it a priority.

This chorus is filled with humour, kindness, wisdom and wild rebellion. It is awe-inspiring and heart-stopping.

Every day I come across ageism and people who underestimate the power of and value of, older adults.

To each of you who commits ageism I say, watch this film. I DARE you not to change your mind about aging and the older adult.

Click on the title of this blog post to watch Fred Knittle cover "Fix You" in tribute to chorus members who had passed away. I dare you not to shed a tear.


Fix You Lyrics
Original Artist: Coldplay
Sung by: Fred Knittle in Young@heart

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse.

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

And high up above earth or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Tears stream, down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face and I...


Tears stream, down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face and I...

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you.

Hypertension is Not Just an Older Man's Game

Yesterday, Scienceblog.com listed an article about the connection between hypertension and the onset of dementia in 1,403 older women (65+) based on the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS)published in the December 2009 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Hypertension.

Results indicated that women who, on entry to the WHIMS trial, had elevated blood pressure had significantly higher amounts of white matter lesions in their brains, when they underwent MRIs at follow up, eight years later.

The study co-author, Dr. Wassertheil-Smoller suggests that women should maintain their blood pressure at normal levels, thereby also reducing their associated risk of dementia.

Once again, body weight, stress, hypertension and lifestyle congregate. Much of what happens in older age is NOT BECAUSE of chronological age, but because of lifestyle.

Take note...your quality of life in older age is dependent upon your lifestyle NOW.

A Birthday is a Birthday is a Birthday

Growing up, each birthday was a milestone. Each birthday was a source of excitement bringing with it a set of new physical and cognitive skills that moved you farther away from being a child and closer to being an adult in your own right. Closer to the ability to act autonomously, to make your own decisions, steer your own rudder and direct your own steps.

Year 1 was momentus for moving from being an infant to a toddler, for gaining control of muscle groups that let you hold yourself up, control where you look, what you do with your hands and feet and eating solid foods.

Year 2 is even more significant - within two years you have gone from helpless, wordless and controlless to a moving, uttering, running and terrorizing little human machine. With any luck you're parroting every swear word your parents utter. Each year is more significant than the one previous. Each year counts for something and we took stock of those things that counted.

As a child, each birthday was cataloged through photographs of a cherubim-like face covered in cake icing and a near clothingless body running around the yard with balloons and laughing uncontrollably. Action shots and stills of a person in the making, being celebrated for their potential and their survival to date.

When we reach legal age, we technically become adults. We can purchase alcohol and speak for ourselves, sign contracts and move on without parental intervention. We still celebrate ourselves and our milestones, but the chronological numbers begin to pass by with little or no meaning, slowly increasing but lacking in ordinal significance.

At some point, when I wasn't paying attention, the numbers stopped meaning something. At some point my chronological age stopped being meaningful or significant to me. My subjective age is made up of my life experiences and the age I "FEEL" inside. But my subjective age and my chronological age don't match. In fact, they are at least a decade apart...

I think that in this age of longevity and healthy aging, the meaning of chronological age has shifted. "Retirement Age" is meaningless as a common reference because so many people work well past age 65. "Middle Age" is no longer life in your 40's and 50's because life expectancy is a moving target. If 40's are the new 30's, then 30's are the new 20's and so on...perhaps that's why we expect teenagers to behave like children for much longer?

All I know is, I appreciate being celebrated. I appreciate people cataloguing my birthdays, eating cake and sushi with people I love and who love me, I appreciate good wine and good company, laughter and cake icing in places it shouldn't be. I appreciate every 365 day journey around the sun that I have experienced so far and will have in the future.

I don't care about the meaningless number...I do care about how I feel inside.

I feel ALIVE.

I'm going to take my balloons for a walk in the sun as we set out on day 2 of this cycle around the sun.





Photo by DaddyPete