Health is Wealth: Insights on Health, Relationships, and Self-Care

Join us as we explore meaningful conversations from a community of seniors sharing their journeys through health, aging, relationships, and self-discovery. This episode offers diverse perspectives on maintaining vitality, building community, and embracing life's evolving chapters.

Key topics covered:

• The importance of community and social connection in later life
• Personal health journeys: managing chronic illness, mental health, and aging
• Innovations in self-care, including diet, exercise, and alternative therapies
• The role of spirituality, religion, and secular communities in aging
• Overcoming addiction, mental health struggles, and maintaining sobriety
• The impact of medical insights, including medication management and lifestyle changes
• Embracing authenticity and self-acceptance in senior years
• The significance of shared experiences and peer support in overcoming challenges
• Practical tips: nutrition, exercise, mental health, and social engagement
• The value of open discussions about aging, health, and relationships

"Good Times - Disco House" - Produced by Danya Vodovoz

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's Happy Endings! Shameless Acres!

SPEAKER_08 0:04

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us stopped getting invited. The bars changed, the friends scattered, and nobody handed us a map for what comes next.

SPEAKER_06 0:14

So we made one. I'm Scott.

SPEAKER_08 0:17

I'm Colin, and this is Happy Endings at Shameless Acres, also known as Hessa.

SPEAKER_06 0:22

And this is the Hessa Happy Hour. Real conversations with gay men, 55 and up, about aging, friendship, purpose, and everything we were never supposed to say out loud. Pull up a chair. You're not late.

SPEAKER_08 0:34

You're right on time, and you're right where you're supposed to be. Tonight's topic is health is wealth. I don't know about you, but for many of us, turning 60, we wake up to a whole new reality about our health and also the health of people around us. And also there's many people here that have lived through the AIDS crisis, so this is not strange to us. Thankfully, it's been dormant for many years. Um, but now I I feel like in some ways, you know, reliving a little bit of that that crisis, having friends that are having health issues and my and facing my own uh health issues as well. Personally, for me, when I turned 60, I was pre-diabetic and uh I was quite a bit uh heavier than I am, about 35 pounds heavier than I am now. And I didn't have well, I didn't have like serious health problems. I definitely was, you know, uh heading to uh having a lot of problems. And uh thankfully I had a doctor who just who was uh my endocrinologist who just sat me down and said, you know, uh I've been doing this for 40 years, and I can tell you right now what the next 20 years is going to look like. And it really spooked me and it made me realize that um if I want these next 20 years to be of any quality, I was gonna have to take things really seriously and now. And so I did. And thankfully, through you know, peers and friends and doctors and stuff like that, I've been able to put myself on a path that has really, you know, improved my health, and I've never felt better since I was in my 40s. And just to what I encourage with our meeting tonight is just talk about our own health situation and what we're doing to take care of ourselves and each other. For me, I I'll just start out what the things I've done. Um, I went on GLP once about two and a half years ago, and it was a big game changer for me. And it was more when it was still more new and everything, and and I did a lot of research, and thankfully I didn't have the big side effects, and it really helped me. And then, as I was able to lose weight, and then also I was chronically low on testosterone, and I started testosterone therapy. And with the combination of those two, I was able to start for the first time in my life a serious exercise program, and then done other things to take care of my health when listening to my friends. You know, I wanted at my life a better sex life also, and a friend of mine uh who goes to the sauna all the time and is in his 70s, and I said, How do you do that? You know, I just couldn't imagine it. And he says, Oh, I take daily Cialis. And I thought, oh, really? And uh, and he told me in uh that there's this daily thing, and I thought, oh, okay. And I talked to my doctor about it, and he's 75, and he said, Oh, yeah, I take it too. Would you like here? I'll give you a whole bunch of free samples. And so that was another thing that I did that really improved my uh life and vitality and everything else. And and it was really great. And I realized that so much of it was just sharing this stuff from one to another of what we're doing in our lives to kind of deal with things and take care of ourselves. I used to also be on antidepressants for about 25 years, and I've been now almost four years off of antidepressants, um, you know, uh, through doing uh psilocybin uh therapy. And so that was another something else I did to take care of my health. The last thing I'll say before I go to let other people share was um I'm a big fan of RuPaul, and I think his story is really fascinating. And I read his book, and he adopted a mantra which was called Health is Wealth. And uh when I was 61, I adopted that mantra as a I don't do New Year's resolutions, I adopt a mantra for the the the year, and that's what I adopted. And and so that's what today's topic is is how do we take care of ourselves and each other. And with that, the floor is open. If I can ask people to mute themselves, and then uh when who would like to speak up, just put your hand up and then and we will pick who's first we think is first and and and share. Since we've only got uh I think about nine people right now, uh, we we probably have about five minutes each. So that would be great. The floor is open, and I'll mute myself.

SPEAKER_07 4:58

Yes, Don, go ahead.

SPEAKER_08 5:00

Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yes, we can hear you. Okay, great. Similar story. I had a personal trainer years ago that that gave me uh a mantra said we're we're organic beings, so keep growing or die. And that sort of has stuck with me with uh always trying to learn something new and uh discover something new. When I turned 65 a couple of years ago, I learned how to scuba dive and being healthy, and I discovered when I was 40 that I was type 2 diabetic. I uh have a totally opposite story with the GLP ones and will have nothing good to say about them, but that was my experience, and it my my result was uh found myself 35 pounds later, which I didn't need to lose, and spent my afternoon sleeping on my couch, which was not how I wanted my retirement to be. So had a quick chat with my doctor, and they said, go off them, get off them, and I'm I'm back on a on a regimen that that works for me. And I'm at the gym six days a week. I've I'm working with a personal trainer, I'm taking a painting class, I'm uh trying to be more social and learn learn something new and just keep growing. So that's my story. Who's next? Merv.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

There, I think I'm unmuted. Similar story. I I uh I'm HIV positive and was diagnosed in 1990, and I would frankly be dead without the Canadian healthcare system, which has uh probably spent more on me than I've earned in my life, you know. It's uh it's it's a it's a great thing. One thing I wanted to talk a little about is uh my most recent husband died in October, so I nursed him through his death. And the my lover before that, he died in 2009, and I nursed him through that. But when I met Paul, my most recent husband, I moved from Ottawa to Burlington, where I am now, and he had multiple issues. He was HIV positive, and he had a heart condition, and he had diabetes. And you know, when I moved here, suddenly I found myself eating no fats, no sugars, and no salts. And I started losing weight incredibly, so much so that I went to the doctor and said, I'm concerned I'm losing weight so fast, you know. So they checked me all out. And it was just it was just about diet, his diet. But through our time together, we shortly after I uh moved in with him, he had a quadruple bypass surgery, so I was the nurse, and then I lost, I had a detached retina, so he nursed me, and you know, it kind of went back and forth, which was one of the wonderful things about having a partner. Now uh I find myself alone, and care caring for myself is something I really have to get my head around. Uh, I mean, for example, I've slipped back into my my own diet and I'm putting on weight like there was no tomorrow. So interesting to hear you guys' comments on how you uh how you manage your health issues. Looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_08 8:31

Thanks, Merv. I can just jump in just on the diet issue. Um, you know, I like I said, I was about 35 pounds heavier, and yes, the GLP ones helped. Um, but one of the biggest things I discovered was the the the you know that ultra about the whole thing about ultra-processed foods, and I really studied a lot about that, and I found out that you know America, United States reached peak calorie consumption in year 2000, and yet they continued to gain almost 20% more pounds on average. And it was like, oh my god, it's the food, it's the food. So because of the taking the GLP1s and they're just not the cravings have gone away, I've been able to focus way more on just eating real food versus the ultra-processed foods, and I know that that has made a huge difference on a lot of things. And it doesn't mean I don't eat ultra-processed foods, I've just the average American eats 70% of ultra-processed foods nowadays, and they try get get you to try and get that down to under 30%. And I'm definitely in that category, and I really noticed the difference in my whole digestive system, uh, mood, and all of these other things. And uh, so I just really wanted to throw that in out there that it's something that I really learned at this. Uh, there's 10 uh food companies, and it's either seven or eight are owned by the tobacco companies, and they started buying the food companies in the 80s, and they figured out how to make everything very addictive, just like they did cigarettes. And the government can't really regulate it because they don't really know really what's in the food and what is causing the health problems or the addiction, and they couldn't even put a soda tax on in New York, so there's no way that they can really you know legislate uh you know, additives and things like that in food. So just really wanted to throw that that out there. This is the kind of stuff that I've been learning and just wanting to share with other people about that I've learned that has made a big difference in my life. So with that, I'll just mute and uh who's next? Forrest.

SPEAKER_11 10:38

Well, Greg's gonna you can talk if you want.

SPEAKER_07 10:43

Lord, I have had all my life I have had problems with weight. I was a fat kid, and when I started doing martial arts and weight watchers, when I was a teenager, me and my mother, I lost 60 pounds as a teenager by the time I was 15. And then with martial arts and a lot of uh activity, physical activity, I I was able to keep it off for quite a while throughout my 20s and into my 30s, and then I because I played with girls, I had a son. As Greg says, when you play with girls, that's what happens. Well, anyway, I I had a I had a son and I started eating what he ate, which was you know, chicken McNuggets and French fries and hot pockets, and and I gained a hundred pounds, and then I became I became a vegetarian and I lost a hundred pounds.

SPEAKER_11 11:33

And then we got together and he gained 40 or 50 pounds back because he starts to eat like I do. I've never had been, I've never gained weight against his genetics. But when we're here, we spend half our time here in Costa Rica and maybe half in Kentucky. When we're here, we lose weight.

SPEAKER_07 11:52

Yeah, the we we we the the food is fresher here, it's more tasty. Um, there's less emphasis on meat. Speaking of meat, as because of a gift from a tick last year. I have a condition known as Alpha Gal, which is uh an addiction, I mean, or rather an allergy to red meat, any kind of mammalian meat. So I cannot have red meat now because of a lone star tick bite, which transmitted this condition uh anyway. But yeah, I I've I've lost a hundred pounds once, and then I went back on Weight Watchers back in 2017, and I lost I think what 60 pounds, something like that. And then, but anyway, once but when I got a piano, I had not played piano a lot for about 20 years, but then I got a piano and then my interest instead of bicycle riding became relearning piano, and it well it's not very uh athletic. Let me just say that. That's right, I'm his little butterball.

SPEAKER_11 12:53

We spend about half our time here and half our time in Kentucky. Uh we live a bifurcated life, and I hate it. I wish I were in I wish I were just here, but we're at the point where my parents are living, and his mother's parents doctor, church, rental property. So we go back and forth and spend half the time here, and then maybe a little less than half the time up there, and hopefully eventually we'll be able to spend almost all our time here.

SPEAKER_07 13:19

His cousin made an made an interesting comment when we were at the funeral of his longtime business partner. And he said, When you retire, your health becomes your job. Well, I've not been doing a very good job of that. Uh uh over my past life I was very athletic in various and sundry times, but these days I'm way too safe.

SPEAKER_11 13:40

It's harder to be athletic here. We have bicycles, it's hard to ride bicycles here because the roads are too narrow, and it's it's it's also incredibly hilly. Whereas at home things happen in Kentucky, things happen a little bit easier as far as staying busy. But here you have to make an effort.

SPEAKER_08 13:55

Great, thanks, Forrest. Um, who's next? Remember, the topic is how do we taking care of ourselves and our this chapter of our life and each other? Oh, Chris, you want to unmute? This was a challenge, so Okay, well you're a hero, that's amazing. Tell us where you're from.

SPEAKER_05 14:15

I um live in the villages and part-time and then part-time in St. Petersburg.

SPEAKER_08 14:23

Great, okay, I'll let you go.

SPEAKER_05 14:25

Yeah, so um, I just uh as far as health is concerned, I don't unfortunate not to have any health problems right now at the age of 65. I'm not on medications, I'm not having any surgeries or anything like that. So I feel blessed. Um, but I wanted to join just to kind of hear what everybody else kind of, you know, had to say and all the good stuff. So that's it.

SPEAKER_08 14:53

We're really glad you're here. I'm glad that you were able to get on. I I did what I could could to try and help you get. I'm not much of a techie, so but you're here. That's the main thing. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_05 15:05

I'm not, yeah, I'm not nice. Thank you. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_08 15:09

Okay, and who who's next? Uh Scott from Ecuador.

SPEAKER_09 15:14

Um, I am 75. I live at an in very interesting place. I live high in the Andes in Ecuador. I live at 9,000 feet elevation. When I moved here, my health story three and a half years ago on my very first exploration visit here to Ecuador, I went home and two weeks later had a stroke. And with that stroke, I lost the vision in my left eye completely. The blood splat of the optic nerve was cut, so the optic nerve died. And the retina in my right eye was fluttering. So I had to make the decision: was I going to move to Ecuador as a one-eyed no-depth perception person, solo? And I decided, yes, damn it, yes, I would. When the intensive care team with my stroke, the stroke happened in Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center was spectacular, and they had me in their stroke unit. And I asked them, I said, is elevation going to affect my health? And they said the most important thing you can do for your health is to lose weight, 50 pounds. And then they had me on a cocktail of medications that keep my blood pressure within reasonable limits. So they said I needed to, before I made the final decision whether to move to Ecuador, go to the doctor here, uh, and make sure that every medication that they had on my list was available without substitution and without it being generic version, they wanted brand version. So, really interestingly, more than 60% of the population of this little village that I live in, I describe it as think of it as the size of a small English village. More than half of the population here is indigenous quichua people. They actually outdate the Incas. That's an ancient, ancient civilization of people. And my doctor is Quichwa, and that does not she she got her license in Florida, and her mother was a physician, and her specialty is gerontology. And so when I said to this woman, here's the list of meds that I must have, are they available? What she did was got up, turned off her office lights, walked me to the pharmacy on the corner, and did the review. The good news is everything is available, the prices are reasonable, everything was fine without substitution. And I told her that I thought that I would to get around. Here I am living in this mountain village. I don't have a car, I don't have a driver's license, and I only see with one eye. So I said, I think what I'm going to do is buy one of those Chinese three-wheel scooters to get around. And she said to me, the first prescription I have for you is walking, and that is not a suggestion. That is a prescription. And within three and a half months, I'd lost 50 pounds. And it's it's it's a combination of high elevation exercise is extraordinarily beneficial. Much, much less focus on red meat in this in this culture. Uh, when I was 40, I lived in Costa Rica for five years. So I'm familiar with what you guys are referring to, the vegetables, the fruit, the produce. Everything that I consume today, today happened to be market day. Uh, Thursday morning is everybody go to the market, and I bought eight pounds of bananas and it cost a dollar, and fresh beets and fresh. I didn't buy any meat today at all. So I spend a lot of time eating extraordinarily fresh food. I still do not own a car. I make it a challenge every day to learn something new, and that generally is either words in Spanish or words in quichua, so I can continue communicating and increasing my the depth of the conversations to more than hi, how are you? Lots lots of walking. I still don't own a car. I did buy my Chinese scooter. So I'm the half-blind guy motoring around Kotakachi. But it did it motors slow enough, and the roads here are rough enough and that they keep me slowed down. So uh there is something that I would like to share. Uh one of one of my healthy regimens at 75, uh, we have I have I'm experiencing what my grand my Polish grandmother used to say, oh, the aches and pains of old age, it's just old age. The and and I we I we describe it now as general inflammation of your joints. You just every joint, you wake up in the morning stiff, sore, and non-energetic. I have tried uh anti-inflammatories that you buy over the counter. Nothing has had them. I I take a daily beverage that I make in my kitchen that is extraordinary. I can share the recipe with you very, very quickly. It is made from fresh beets, the zest and juice of two lemons, turmeric, fresh ginger, cinnamon, cayenne pepper. And I have a glass of that once a day, three days on this regimen, and you wake up every morning and your joints have no inflammation. It is an extraordinary uh um organic drink that I make. And it's it is I'll be very, very happy to share that recipe with anybody that wants it. That's all it you pressure cooker the beets so the skins come off easy, and everything else is done in the blender.

SPEAKER_08 21:58

That's great, Scott. Really appreciate it. that. Why don't you just if you got a moment throw that in the chat and uh just the uh and people will be able to see it and just to put it out to everyone. But that's right.

SPEAKER_10 22:09

I do uh smoothie regimens as well and uh I uh with uh greens and and uh those kinds of things so they've they've really helped me all right so who's next Patrick before I before I start my story I want to just say that I live in Costa Rica and now I've been to Colin's place twice and it's really really really really nice uh I recently stopped drinking and I had been drinking since I was 13 so uh it's been a very long time I'm 56 now um I've moved around a lot I'm from Canada but I was uh had the chance to live in Chicago New York uh Santiago de Chile back to Oakville those are the ones in Burlington there because I worked for IKEA for 27 years so I went all over the place but for me if I'm gonna start what I want to say is addiction uh I started addiction when I was very young uh then when I left home I had a very very bad childhood a very violent home and there was sex abuse uh I went through a lot so when I hit 18 and I went home went to Montreal to study uh then I fell into drug addiction I fell into sex addiction uh alcohol was there already but I still balanced everything and had a very big career because I was a workaholic so addiction was across all spectrums and then I decided that I had to leave my job at IKEA because the culture in Chile was really really really brutal and I couldn't bring IKEA to them it was a franchise they just refused everything about the company and I couldn't do it anymore and I went into severe depression even though I had been living with depression my whole life never took medication did a little bit of therapy and then my partner I'm married I've been with my partner for almost 27 years now and we decided to pack up he was uh early retirement with pension and everything so we packed everything up and came to Costa Rica and lots of things happened right away I would say the first thing that happened was a spiritual awakening so a lot of people experienced that when they moved to this country for some reason that triggered a midlife crisis believe it or not but at the same time it triggered me to say I've had enough I had enough of depression I had enough of alcohol the drugs I gave up in 2019 so that was already off the table. When we moved to Chile we decided to stay away from the community completely we were only with straight friends there was no drugs anywhere around and even when they were available I was like nah that's not me anymore lots of things happened so I switched my addictions they got addicted to healthy eating because they like you guys said it's so easy to eat healthy and I started studying studying studying studying I did do Ozempic in Chile didn't work I lost 40 pounds in four months and I got off of blood pressure medication I got off of my cholesterol medication but the thing that I got off the most important and if anybody uses this and if you know anybody that takes this propecia is crap. I took propecia because I was so vain and so afraid to lose my hair I still have it all but it wreaks havoc on so many other things uh your sexist life your sex drive your sex organ is affected and then when you have it in combination with other diseases and other medication it's amplified so we drop that both me and my partner were on that for a long long long time we give it up and it changed everything the sex came back full the sex drive there were changes physically uh it was quite special so the good news is that I feel like I'm 18 again believe it or not at 56 I just reversed my age to by 20 years mentally I feel wonderful um something else happened I fell in love so now since we had an open relationship already I have a boyfriend and a husband and it's okay it works it's man we're managing uh but I will tell you that in my bucket list not bucket list sorry I have bucket list I have my golden rules and the golden rules are healthy eating check your numbers all the things to really be healthy I start every single meal with a pile of vegetables even breakfast I don't eat fruit for breakfast too much sugar I might have a smoothie at the end of the of the breakfast but uh we eat protein and vegetables for breakfast and one of the things and the number 10 on that list is good sex and love and if you don't have that in your life you're not going to be healthy so if you don't have that look for it because it's a part of being human and I discovered a lot of things in the last year I had dissociated sex and love that didn't go together never had because of violence and sexual abuse and that came back together and it's fantastic because if you don't connect the two you're missing something. So I'm reliving things that I had never lived in my life at 56. So that's my story.

SPEAKER_08 28:26

Great Patrick thanks a lot and um I have had the pleasure of meeting Patrick a couple times. He hasn't been thrown out of the club yet so he's on our our VIP list. Just for a background for some people is um I too am in recovery for uh many years of actually over 30 years. And most people except maybe Merv uh don't know me from my drinking and drugging days. And uh I tell people that you know that I used to be an alcoholic and and also a drug addict and they just don't believe me because nobody knows me from those days. And I'm like, okay well you need to know I I spent my two years in a crack house before I got sober and nobody can really believe that and um and and I just what I just say today is I'm still addicted to crack. It's just a different kind of crack um and it's a lot healthier. So I've still I still call myself a crack addict and uh I'm proud of it. So uh and uh it uh I I just want to say congratulations uh Patrick uh believe me you have a life ahead of you just you could have never dreamed possible and and I owe everything to my sobriety in staying clean and uh um so congratulations so who's next may I just say Colin that uh you may have been on drugs at the time we knew each other but you did a good imitation of sobriety I had no idea well we I was pretty young then I was just getting cooking you know and I I was too busy also teaching Gerald Hannon how to be a prostitute so you have to remember that so who's next what happened how about Doug from Arizona well I thought I had a pretty uh eventful early life but uh I guess I'm in good company.

SPEAKER_04 30:16

Um my health issues kind of started at 13 when I found drugs and alcohol and uh kind of took a nosedive when I had a car accident at 19 where my spleen was removed and three incisional hernia operations after that sero converted at the age of twenty one at the same year I started in recovery trying to get sober. I uh began with long-term sobriety I I I became far more interested in in the health I hadn't paid any attention to for decades so um I did a lot of research uh started uh studying what medical students learn just to learn about the body anatomy and physiology sort of stuff and became interested in calorie restriction about 15 years ago and tried various methods of that currently I'm on time restricted eating which is working pretty well I uh I maintain a pretty good weight eight years ago I discovered pickleball which is the first sport I've ever had in my life so um I started building some stamina that I didn't have before um but that was also the year uh that I was diagnosed with uh throat cancer so um I've been through two bouts of chemo and radiation and just last month this month three weeks ago I uh had a had a cyst removed from my thyroid um which wasn't associated with the cancer but I needed to have it taken care of so I'm in recovery from that and every insult that happens to my tissues my recovery is a little bit longer my stamina takes longer to recharge and so I eat better than I ever have. The radiation has affected how I swallow so uh beef is no longer part of my diet don't eat much meat at all for that I have a nice garden and I try to eat a lot of that stuff and uh kind of my mantra is um uh for health is a is a daily uh uh a routine of uh of of modified yoga stretching that keeps me limber and not having the aches and pains. I learned uh about ten years ago when I started ignoring the fact that it hurts to get out of bed in the morning that um I was developing plantar fasciitis until seven years after the fact that if I don't address things right away it takes years to recover from what I could have taken care of early on. So that's what I do these days. I uh am partnered I've had a husband for 18 years but he's gone and he and I were R Vers and I met uh Tom who's over there um not being part of this right now um but listening listening in the background on the road and we have been together eight years and uh um wonderful relationship in the it's complicated category. Um and uh so I was jazz to read about this I I don't remember where I heard about Isa and the and the online group you guys were throwing together Colin thank you for that but as I I shared last time um in in all the research and readings I do about what we can do to stay healthy as we age uh one of the things that's always top on the list there is having a good social connection. Whether it be church or family or and I'm not atheist and I I have no family of of of blood origin that I want to have anything to do with. I'm not close with anybody in recovery here in in the red county that we live in. Um and uh so most of most of my our our social connections are RB people who are all our age and some of them are dying and are moving away and so we have been dabbling with trying to get a Facebook group of men in our um very sparsely populated county the size of Connecticut together but that's not working very well so I was interested in in checking this out. Um we traveled we're heading out to Alaska in August for a uh a seven day cruise we've been to Europe is kind of on a back back burner right now but I would uh be interested in coming down and and and checking your place out Colin um I have looked at the the the um website for you and um yeah I don't know on a bucket list yeah that's that's kind of my my story in a nutshell it's kind of hard to get to get to know anybody is you know in in two minutes of of conversation but I'm glad to see some more some familiar faces from last week and thanks for letting me share.

SPEAKER_08 35:33

Thanks Doug it's really great to have you here again and um uh it's also great to hear you're in recovery as well too I uh just as far as the social thing is just I I just know from my experience if we just keep pushing it and try and commit to it it it it will happen. I I know for myself I I just have to put myself out there and uh you know I live in in a rural environment and and these days especially now with the club but also just with other things I am just I've never been so social and it has really added a lot to my life and uh so don't give up you will you will find your community there around you you're just you just gotta you know push people along and be there and uh and it'll happen. So who else do we have that hasn't shared? Enrique is hiding there in the corner.

SPEAKER_12 36:25

Hi I'm not really hiding but I don't have much to share today. Um a couple things going on internet at my house is down so I'm using the phone so if this is really slow or hard to understand I have a bad connection today. But I today I I I was more in to listen than to share because uh I'm actually pretty healthy and I've been pretty healthy throughout my life but I am getting to a point where I don't know my knees start feeling or sounding like eggshells and uh you know I have other issues. I get up you know late at night to go to the bathroom that kind of thing. And that's fairly new to me. Like it like for years I never had anything like that. So I'm I was interested in this topic uh just to listen in and sort of see where things are headed for me I guess in a way. I I don't really have a the story of my own to share other than uh like Doug mentioned and I I I also remember you from uh a couple weeks ago when we had a first uh the first of these meetings uh the sense of community you're just having uh conversations with people who have had similar experiences or or interesting experiences around the type of life that uh we've all lived in a way with of course a lot of variation but but there's a lot in common and these are things that I don't really talk to many people about I you know I'm out in my community my family knows who I am I had a partner for 15 years uh I've been on my own for the last three but uh even so I I'm not one to easily open up or talk about a lot of these things and so just finding a community where these conversations happen uh is is very valuable to me but that's what I have.

SPEAKER_08 38:15

Great thanks Enrique and uh stick around uh I know you're on the younger end of the group here so trust me uh it gets different um but also thanks for I actually snuck in right technically I'm I'm supposed to be 55 I'm just a couple years under that but yeah yeah don't worry I won't I won't talk about it snuck in so uh all right thanks you haven't hesitated so yeah coming with Patrick yeah we I've survived a lot of people have mentioned about um you know um you know having partners and partners that have passed or or separated and and um and or being in a single or in in complicated relationships um so I'm in that category and for 14 years um you know I've been involved with somebody and um but yet I tell still tell people I'm single and it's like and people know me really well. It's like what are you talking about? You have a relationship with this guy for 14 years and it's like oh yeah yeah yeah we do I guess and um so next uh week's topic is is senior and single and uh because I've seen a lot of uh people who talk about you know where they're at in their life um at this age and and uh a lot of them looking for another partner lots of people who are comfortable being single I I'm kind of not sure depending on the day where I'm in um but I am very comfortable where I'm at in life that's the most important thing. And so we we have next week which not next week the next topic is two weeks we hope to go every week that's our goal and we're still working on getting it together and can use anybody that's willing to volunteer with us if anyone's got any video editing especially because we're putting this on um uh you know the podcast so we can reach as many people as possible and and try and start get the discussion happening. You know, even people just listening will pick up a lot from these podcasts just from hearing what we have to say and how we're coping through our lives. This we also I I really commend everybody sharing so freely. I mean we're very courageous because there's a lot of things that people won't talk about. But you know I I um you know want my new mantra for this year is to embrace my it's called embrace the mess which is um embrace my authentic self and uh it's been great um I really feel uh a whole new chapter opening up in my life uh senior wise and and the other thing I I just want to put out there that I'm sure everybody knows is none of us are doctors, I don't think and um so please you know just remember what you're here here is not uh as a doctor's advice it's just peer advice us sharing uh with each other as what we're doing to to to to get through these challenges that we face in our life at this time and and for me myself I have gotten definitely just as much from my friends and my peers for my health as I have with my doctor but I also have a good doctor and I run everything by him just to make sure that I'm not doing anything too crazy.

SPEAKER_07 41:33

What also welcome everybody we're gonna get ready to close the meeting here do we have anybody who wants to double dip and and share something else before we get ready to close up Forrest okay well I was actually just writing uh uh Doug a message but but he mentioned church um I was a church person for a long time and actually I have been a church person all my life I went to a Pentecostal church but they I because I wanted to have the demons of homosexuality cast out of me I was raised in a Protestant denomination my mother was a musician choir director and excellent musician and so I was always singing in her choirs. Greg and I are church people we and I've got the computer near me right now but anyway we're we're we're church people and we have found a congregation here but what I was going to say Doug is that if you're not aware of the Unitarians I I don't know how you could be as as as you know as as as fenced in age as we are and not be aware of the Unitarians but if you want a church congregation and if you can find a Unitarian Universalist congregation near you I am an atheist and I lost my religion after I was kicked out of a United Methodist church having been a music minister there for about uh three years and also being a church musician for for uh many years but I lost my religion is the best thing that ever happened to me to me other people are now embracing different kinds of things but to me if if if something is not verifiable and not replicable by independent sources I don't want to accept it as true. But the Unitarians they absolutely welcomed me and the fact that I'm gay or or whatever that I had an illegitimate son that's where you know I had known Greg before I ever went to the Unitarian church but Greg and his former partner Steve and I had introduced them many years ago but they invited me to the Unitarian church after my breakup with with Jesus. And so it turned out to be a really good thing. Now that we're here in Gracia Costa Rica believe it or not we found a church which is Jesus light but they I say Jesus light because they like the queers they're not they're not against the queers so um I I'm I'm playing piano for a church. Greg just laughs we that that in the past that wherever we go it's our life in a different place. Well by God he's now a landlord here and now I'm playing piano in a church. So who would have thought you know but the Unitarians are a good bunch of people if you can find a congregation of Unitarians go in and try and tell them every reason that they won't like you and you're going to find yourself amongst friends.

SPEAKER_08 44:29

Great thanks a lot Forrest um so what we do now is uh we are going to get ready what we call the the backroom cafe. So the recording is turned off and everybody is welcome to unmute and just share. And anybody also that is open to being contacted by other members uh please just put your uh name in the uh chat and and your phone number or email or however you want to be contacted. It's not mandatory just anybody who's open to being contacted by other people just throw it in there. And um please if you can uh share and tell your friends uh about this group because next uh session is anybody that's looking for love lust or uh coping with being single or loving being single we really want uh everybody to to participate and I think it'll be a lot of fun and and uh see what everybody's doing in this chapter of their life with their romantic and intimate lives so with that I'll ask Byron if you'll uh stop the recording there's a brand new dream is gonna find laugh a little louder taste one madder