Speaker 1: When I started this YouTube channel, I wanted to always
be upbeat, to focus on what amazing things retirement offers
and ways to make your retirement remarkable. Most of the
time that means talking about the exciting parts of retirement, travel, freedom, family,
new adventures, fun, purpose. But retirement isn't always what we expected. Sometimes,
even when life looks wonderful from the outside, it can
really feel incredibly heavy on the inside. And today I
want to do a different kind of video, and I
want to talk about that. I'm more in Dobranski. This
his life starts at retirement. I produce a retirement lifestyle
video every Saturday at noonish. So I almost didn't make
this video today. I started it and stopped it. This
is probably the fourth or fifth time, not because I
didn't know what to say, but because I wasn't sure
I should or even could say it. Because for the
most part, for the most part, I have an amazing,
amazing life and it almost feels wrong. I almost feel
guilty admitting that at times I'm struggling if I think
about it. I have a great husband, I have wonderful children.
I have six of the most incredible grandchildren, two of
which just left this morning after five days at the
trailer with us. I get to live my dream and
travel the world speaking on a cruise ship. We spend
a lot of our winters in Arizona. By almost every
single measure, I have a great life, and I do.
I absolutely have a great life. I'm deeply, deeply, deeply
grateful and thankful for the life that I have. But
that's why this is so hard for me to talk about.
I'm struggling. I get bouts of anxiety, I get bouts
of depression, and I've never really struggled with any of
that before. Sure, I've had the odd, you know, week
or two when I was struggling at work, or you know,
things were tougher, I didn't get enough sleep when the
kids were little, stuff like that. But I've never really
struggled with anxiety and depression. But this past year it's
been one of the hardest of my life. And I
think I know why. But let me just go there. So,
first of all, my dad passed away. So a year
ago yesterday, my dad passed away. He had he had
severe dementia and he had lived in a care home
for three years, and we knew it was coming and
I thought I was ready. I was the one who
always said, Dad, go we'll be fine. But wow, I
didn't think it would hit me the way it hit me.
So that was I don't know why. That one just
really really really bothers me. Okay, then my mom mentally,
she's really quite sharp still, and I have a lot
of fun with my mom. I talked to her every single
solitary day on the phone. But physically I can see
a lot of changes. Simple things are Things that used
to be simple for Mom aren't so simple anymore. Her
little hands she's got our throat is so bad. Her
little hands are so crooked. These fingers go this way,
these fingers go this way. She can't open things, she
can't do things with her little hands. She can't hear
like she used to, she can't see like she used to.
She won't wear her hearing it, she won't wear her eyeglasses,
she can't walk like she used to. And every visit
just reminds me that time keeps moving forward fast. And
then recently another challenge came. Our youngest grandson, who's three,
is now facing some unknown significant I think health and
developmental challenges, and as a grandma, I would take those
struggles away in a heartbeat if I could, but logically
I know I can't. So all we can do is
just love the daylights out of him, support him, celebrate him,
help him, help his parents. But we can't fix it.
As much as I want to fix it, I can't.
And if you're a parent, are a grandma, you know
exactly how helpless that can feel. But the thing that
surprised me the most wasn't that all of this was
really happening. Like most of you, you know, life is
thrown plenty of challenges our way, but somehow, in the past,
I've always managed to just pick myself up, figure it out,
and keep moving forward. But for this time, I don't know.
This year, for some reason, it just it feels different.
I don't honestly think it was just dad. I don't
think it's mom or even my grandson, although that's a
tough one. I don't even think it's just one thing.
And I spent a lot of time thinking about this,
probably a good three or four months, really trying to
analyze myself. Good luck, but I think I've changed things
that I think I could have handled ten years ago.
Now just feel harder. They feel heavier. I worry way more.
And I was always a worrier to begin with. I
worry all the time now and worry stay with me longer.
And I can't seem to shake all of these things
the way I used to. And so I've thought about it.
Maybe it's just my age. Maybe it's retirement, because now
with retirement gives me time, so I have more time
don't worry and to think about these things. Maybe it's grief,
and I'm sure there's a part of that. Maybe it's
just the season of life. I honestly, I really don't know.
So this isn't going to be a video that says
here's five steps to go get over anxiety and depression.
It's not. I honestly don't know. But this one does
feel different. And I've always been the one who believed
to myself, oh, you'll just get through it. Just keep going,
put one foot in front of the other, just keep
going moreing, and so this is really really hard to
admit that I'm I'm I'm kind of stuck here. But
then I don't know, maybe two weeks ago, which is
really what made me decide to do this video. It
was always a thought, but I went, yeah, I have
to is more than the anxiety I discovered. I'm really
disappointed in myself. Now. Let me explain that one. I
don't talk about this often, but when I was a teenager,
someone very close to me struggled with severe depression, and
I watched what it did to them. I watched what
it did to our family. I watched what it did. Actually,
I lived what it did to me, and somewhere along
the way, I made a promise to myself. I told
myself that will never be me. I thought, if I
was strong enough, if I just kept going again, if
I put one foot in front of the other, somehow
I would be immune to those feelings. But I didn't
realize that that's a heavy promise for a teenager to make.
And maybe that's why this year is so confusing for me.
Because every time I felt anxious, every time I could
and shake the worry. Every time I find myself laying
awake night after night after freaking night, thinking about dad, mom,
or any of the other millions of things I now
worry about, a little voice inside me kept saying, come on, Mariene,
You're stronger than this. You've handled things more than this.
You should be doing better, but I don't know why.
I just couldn't do it. And so I realized I
was being hard on me. It wasn't life, although you know, yeah,
I don't like where the things that have happened in
my life, But it wasn't life that was being hard
on me. I was being hard on me. And so
I thought, as well, if one of my friends was
going through a different difficult time and they came to
me and said, you know, a year ago their dad died,
they're struggling with that. Their mom is getting older and
she's struggling. Their grandson is struggling with any of these things.
I would never never say to them, get over it.
You have to be tougher, put one foot in front
of the other. No way, I tell them, be gentle
with you. I remind them that they're carrying a lot.
I would say it's because you love so much. I
would say, maybe you need to get help other places,
maybe you need to speak to someone. So why wasn't
I saying those things to me? So maybe maybe that's
why this year has been hard on me, because I'm
not saying those things to myself. I'm being mean and
mad at myself and disappointed with myself. Maybe I've spent
the last almost fifty years trying to keep it promise
to never feel those feelings, and it's really a promise
no human could ever live with. So so I don't
know exactly. I don't know. I don't have it all
figured out. I'm still learning. I'm still trying to figure
it all out. But I don't know. I just know
that a few things in my life. When I am
feeling bad and feeling anxious, a few things help me
to deal with it. It doesn't solve any of the problems,
at least not yet. Maybe someday I'll figure that magic
bullet out, but it helps me to just keep going.
So a couple of things are I need to get outside.
I have a tendency. I love working on my speeches.
I love making videos. I could be I could be
attached to this computer. So I need to get outside.
And when I get outside, I am great. I go
for a walk, I go talk to people. I go
to the mall even when it's rainy or cold, whatever
it is, and I love love. Getting outside again. Doesn't
fix everything, doesn't make it magically disappear, but it helps.
Second of all, I really like people, as much as
I say. As I'm getting older, I say, oh my god,
I don't like people anymore. I really I really do
like people, especially my friends. So I in the last
three or four months, I've actually turned down a bunch
of people saying, Hey, let's go for a glass of wine,
let's go golf, let's do this, and I go, No,
I'm busy. I've got work. I know I'm busy. No,
I have promised myself I'm going to get out and
go visit with people and go talk to people because
that really seems to help me. And then this last one.
Maybe again, and I'm not sure yet, maybe recording a
video like this or talking about it will help. Now
I'm not sure about this. In fact, I don't know.
I don't know. I feel very vulnerable. I don't like
talking about it. It's scary. There's a part of me
that still wonders what will people think. Are they gonna
look at me differently? So I'm not sure, but I
think it's a good step in the right direction talking
about it. So again, none of these things are going
to solve everything, but they're going to just make it
easier to have more good times than more bad times.
So once again, I really don't know why this time around,
it just feels so different. It feels like I'm carrying
the weight to the world on my shoulders. And maybe
one day I'll understand it. Maybe one day I won't,
But I am beginning to think that understanding it isn't
necessarily the most important thing. Maybe the most important thing is,
just like I said a bit earlier, learning to be
a bit kinder to myself while I go through it.
So I'm not sure. So maybe it's time I started
saying those same things to myself. Be patient, be gentle.
If you need to go see someone and talk to them,
go see someone and talk to them. That's perfect. And
maybe if any part of my story sounded like your
story today, maybe it's time you two started saying those
kinder things to yourself too. Be patient, be kind to
yourself if you need to go talk to someone about it.
I don't know if this video gave you any answers.
I'm not sure it gave me any answers, But I
think that's okay, because I think the best thing we
can do is stop pretending we have everything figured out,
which I like to pretend I do, and maybe we
can simply admit that some times of life are harder
than of others, some days are heavier than others, and
that doesn't mean we failed. It means we're human. So
thank you, not just for watching, but for listening to me.
Be extremely brutally honest today, and if you're carrying something
heavy too, I hope you remember one thing. Be kind
to yourself as you would be kind to someone you love.
So take good care of yourselves and hope to see
you in the next one.