Figure out where and how you’ll live out the next stage.
I have heard it said that every woman eventually turns into her mother. I never really thought I was like my mum, even though I shared her body type, and her love of children and gardening. I had more of the rambunctious, passionate Sinclair blood in my veins. But lately, as I look at the jars of preserves that line the wall of my pantry, or behold the baskets of fresh fruit that cover the kitchen counter during the harvest, I find myself wondering if I am turning into my grandmother.
When I think of my mother’s mother, I always imagine her at home. She lived in a tiny, windswept cottage on the Sunshine Coast. As girls, my sisters and I were sent to our grandmother’s house for weeks at a time. She was a poor, hard-working woman, and her home was a fraction of the size of our own in North Vancouver. I adored it. What luxuries she lacked inside she more than made up for with beautiful flowerbeds where there was always something blooming. She had a large vegetable garden. Her cupboards were filled with preserves she had harvested from her own property. She had few possessions, but everything she owned was of the finest quality. There was no excess, no fluff. She lived a simple, pared-down existence. More and more, I’m conscious of a great urge inside me to live as she did.
For a long time, it was unfashionable to talk about anything domestic. The home, with its dirty dishes and unfolded laundry, was an emblem of female subjugation. (And few women were listed on the deeds to their homes.) Though I know that menial household chores are not just for women to do, I have always gained satisfaction from accomplishing small tasks that add to the comfort of my loved ones and me. I seldom have a cleaning person for long; I do not like having someone else muck with my stuff, and I get angry and then have negative feelings about the person working for me. Best just to take care of myself, even if that means I sometimes live in domestic chaos. Often, though, it is bliss. I am a feminist but I have also always been a devoted homebody. No matter where we live—in a little, ocean-facing cottage or a downtown condo—our home represents our place in the world. Home is a critical part of our self-definition, hence our cultural obsession with decorating and landscaping. But my homes haven’t been merely a canvas waiting for my unique imprint. They have shaped who I am.
Following Michel’s death and the breakdown of my marriage to Fried, I left the dream house I’d purchased following my first divorce. I moved into a serviceable house across the street from Fried so that we could raise Kyle and Ally together as easily as possible. Serviceable in this case means horrid. The townhouse was tall and narrow, and huge trees in the backyard blocked the light. It was always cold, no matter how high my electricity bills. I felt miserable in that place. Contrast that awful house to my grandmother’s cottage with its commanding ocean view and orderly charm. I always felt safe and happy there, as sure of infinite possibility as I was of the never-ending sky.
As we age, the question of where to live and what possessions to surround ourselves with becomes practical as well as existential. When I was younger, my possessions alternately lifted my spirits and weighed me down. But in advanced age that gorgeous, fading rug I can’t bear to part with could catch my toe on a midnight journey to the bathroom and literally be the end of me. And as much as I idealize my grandmother’s cottage, that beautiful, remote domicile is an awfully long way from the nearest restaurant (not to mention the hospital). So any exploration of how to live a vibrant, purposeful life after 60 has to include home—where and how to live. No matter where we live, it is the conduit through which we access that most vital part of a healthy and vibrant old age: community and connection.
Samuel Johnson wrote that “to be happy at home is the result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends.” I couldn’t agree more. The happiest times in my life have had everything to do with home. When Pierre and I were newly married, I counted down the days till we could escape the city for the house at Harrington Lake. It was a huge old country home, surrounded by acres of thick forest on three sides and a deep, dark lake out front. Free of housekeepers, cooks and the pressures of political life, a deep contentment spread over me. I gardened, cooked meals and sewed. The boys were so small then, and on the odd occasions when I had the house to myself, I simply sat and drank coffee and relished the silence. That home was the quiet, solid centre of the universe for my little family, a place where we truly belonged.
The house at 24 Sussex, on the other hand, did not feel like home, though we lived there for seven years. We were never truly alone, for starters. And while I am enduringly grateful for the care shown to me by the staff, and the privilege of living in such a beautiful house, I found it difficult to relax there. I would just settle down with a cup of coffee and a book when in would bustle a housekeeper, ready to tidy an already pristine room. We hosted lavish dinners that required hours of painstaking preparation. Pierre often brought half a dozen of his colleagues in for lunch. I felt like I had to literally stand on guard. And the grand old house at 24 Sussex never provided me with the one thing we want from a home: a feeling of safety.
No matter how old we are, home is both a refuge and a launching pad. It’s the place where we can make a mess and leave private belongings lying around for days on end. Home is a place to rest, recover, dream and plan. Our choice of dwelling is important at all times of our lives, and becomes increasingly so as we get older. That’s because home is so intricately tied to our independence, as well as our emotional, financial and physical health.
Sally may adore her spacious, memory-filled family home—but does she have the financial and physical resources to maintain it properly deep into her seventies and eighties? Ruth may prize the privacy and anonymity of life in her high-rise condo, but who is around to notice if she falls, breaks a hip and doesn’t emerge for days?
As we get older, where we will live becomes a far more practical and strategic consideration. When we live in a place that supports and allows us to be independent, we have less need for advanced care options such as nursing homes. When our homes do not support our independence—either because we are isolated inside them, or cannot care for ourselves properly within them—we sacrifice our freedom and, to varying degrees, our self-determination. There are many choices—the family home, a townhouse, an apartment, a unit in a seniors’ housing complex, shared accommodation with friends. The real question to be answered is this: what housing situation will enable us to live as independently as possible for as long as possible?
The Seniors’ Housing Crisis
Across North America, we face what many experts are calling a seniors’ housing crisis. Housing prices are going up at the precise time our income is going down. Research by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives from the province of British Columbia provides local insight into a national problem. According to the 2006 census, twelve thousand seniors in B.C. spent more than half their income on housing, and 94 percent of them were single women. Of the 20 percent of B.C. seniors who rent, just over half are having difficulty making their rent each month.
This inability to make rent underlines a deeper problem we’ll tackle later in this book—the worrying numbers of seniors living in poverty. In B.C. for instance, 14 percent of seniors and 40 percent of single seniors live in poverty, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Meanwhile, market rent for subsidized seniors’ housing in B.C. has gone up 55 percent since 2005. Between 2002 and 2012, the number of seniors in B.C. increased by 36 percent while the number of socially funded housing units, such as retirement and nursing homes, went up by only 2 percent. Because of this, lobby organizations such as the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives are advocating for a number of actions to enhance sustainable housing options for seniors. Foundations of this lobby include providing rental assistance, protecting seniors’ rights and prioritizing the construction of retirement homes.
I admire these efforts and believe they are worthy of support. No matter where you live in North America, chances are high you know someone who is affected by this crisis of affordable housing. But while group action is vital, we cannot ignore the need to protect our own independence. The first step is exploring and understanding the housing options available to us in our senior years.
Retirement Homes
When we think about housing for seniors, one of the first options that springs to mind is a retirement home. In fact, the term retirement home, or seniors’ home, may refer to a number of different types of accommodation, the personal suitability of which is determined by your preferences, financial means and ability to take care of yourself. If you are unable to live on your own but require only a little daily assistance, you would likely look for a retirement home. This type of accommodation, sometimes described as social housing, is suitable for active seniors who want to rent their own apartment but share housekeeping, laundry and meal services with other seniors living in the complex. While this is not my personal choice, I know many people who live in retirement homes and enjoy them immensely. Many offer hair salons, spas, shops and workout facilities within the compound.
If you require a high level of care and cannot stay at home, you’d likely look for a nursing home that offers a range of high-level nursing assistance—personal care workers to help bathe and feed patients, for instance. Nursing homes are typically operated by non-profits, health boards, municipalities or private companies. They are licensed and at least partially funded by provincial governments. These types of facilities are normally subsidized, yet seniors may be asked to pay as much as 70 percent of their income to cover the costs. You won’t be turned down if you don’t have the money to pay for a room in a nursing home, but money isn’t the only limiting factor. Given the rising numbers of the elderly and frail, wait lists for these homes are long.
A third and increasingly common option is the private nursing home. These operate much like retirement homes, but offer additional nursing services. These are not usually funded by the government, but in the wake of long waiting lists, they offer those who can pay the option of enhanced care.
I’m comforted to know that should I ever require intensive care in my older age, I will have options available to me that don’t require my children to care for me themselves. My mother spent her last years in a private nursing home. It was a clean, bright place, and my sisters and I felt reassured knowing that she was safe. Retirement and nursing homes provide an important and necessary service. Yet, when it comes to nursing homes in particular, experts suggest that we should avoid them for as long as we possibly can.
“Staying at home as long as possible is really the best option,” says Susan Eng, vice-president of CARP. When older people are able to “age in place,” they retain their independence longer, save on nursing home expenses and are able to maintain their established social and community connections. What’s more, Eng and others point out, Canada is unprepared for the rising number of seniors. While wait times for nursing homes are long today, they promise to get worse over time. Not enough social housing is currently being built to meet the demand. The number of seniors living in nursing homes is rising dramatically—up 38 percent over the last decade.
But wait lists aren’t the only reason to avoid nursing homes. When adequately staffed with properly trained employees, long-term care facilities have a place—they provide much-needed support for people living in advanced stages of dementia, for instance. But the reality of nursing homes often fails to live up to their promise. As one dementia specialist told me, “They try to be good, but they’re awful places … they’re understaffed.”
And in some cases, the staff who work at the home may be inadequately trained to meet the needs of older people. This combination of understaffing and inadequate training can have horrendous consequences for seniors and their families.
In early 2014, a Toronto Star newspaper investigation found that hundreds of nursing homes across Ontario were using antipsychotic drugs to calm seniors in the wake of staffing shortages. The paper found that half of all residents were being treated with antipsychotic drugs at roughly forty nursing homes, while a third of all residents were on the medications at almost three hundred homes. If these numbers weren’t upsetting enough, many of the medications being used, including olanzapine and quetiapine, were not approved by Health Canada for use by seniors. In fact, older patients who took those drugs were found to have a 60 percent increased chance of death. The investigation also revealed that family members, physicians and at least one coroner had concluded that the use of these antipsychotic drugs was responsible for the deaths of some seniors.
“These drugs are being used to treat a behaviour,” says geriatric pharmacist Carla Beaton. “But the real focus should be on understanding what’s causing the behaviour.” She points out that in some cases, small doses of antipsychotic medication might be a suitable short-term fix to alleviate distress over physical pain and therefore improve a person’s quality of life. But it’s more important to understand what is causing the elderly person to feel distraught or upset. Pain, needing to go to the bathroom or possible infection can all be difficult to identify in elderly patients, especially if they are suffering from dementia. Beaton says staff must be trained to recognize the signs of these conditions. For instance, while fever is a telltale sign of infection in children and younger adults, fever does not always accompany infection in an elderly person.
More training for nursing home staff is indeed critical, and should be part of a dementia strategy. Retirement homes may be a good option for some, but building a rash of retirement homes across the country isn’t going to solve a housing crisis for the elderly, because older adults require a variety of living options—not simply retirement homes. And even if every nursing home in Canada were suddenly and miraculously adequately staffed with caring and well-trained employees, such facilities should still be avoided as long as possible.
“Stimulating environments are best,” says Dr. Tony Phillips. Nursing homes—utilitarian buildings often located on the periphery of towns or cities, and home to a relatively homogenous group of people, are less stimulating than housing situations integrated into the life of the community. “We need communities that are designed to facilitate social interaction, stimulate the brain with beauty and nature, and promote exercise,” he says. In other words, the fact that you are in your seventies or eighties doesn’t mean that you should live in a home where everyone else is also that age and everything is provided for you. In fact, quite the opposite.
Urban planners suggest there are five main elements that characterize the best in sustainable housing for older adults: physical accessibility, proximity to community services, infrastructure that connects housing to those services, a healthy living environment and high-quality social spaces nearby. In other words, ask yourself these questions: Can I easily get into, get out of and move around my home with a cane, walker or wheelchair? Am I close to the grocery store, pharmacy, hospital, nurse practitioner, gym, yoga studio? Is public transportation easily accessible? Is the air quality good? Is there a place I can find entertainment close by? If in evaluating your housing option you can answer yes to all these questions, then you are living in a place that gives you a wonderful chance of living independently.
Another consideration is the accessibility of practical support. To sustain a high quality of life, we need two types of support, emotional and practical, says gerontologist Dr. Amy D’Aprix. “Emotional support—the listening ear and open heart—is actually much easier to come by than practical support,” she says. My friends are scattered all over the place. When I have great news to share, or when I feel wretched and need to vent, I can confide in these women as easily by phone as I could if they were sitting in front of me. Practical support, on the other hand, is much harder to find. Practical support is the person who helps you hang the curtain rods, the hands that make you chicken soup when you feel ill, the helper who shovels the snow off your stoop. Living close to people who can offer practical support is in some ways even more important than living close to one’s dearest friends. Though perhaps not quite as much fun. Still, as I remind myself during the long Montreal winters, a laugh can be had on the end of a phone line. The snow, on the other hand, simply will not move itself.
In my case, I have family members living close by, as well as doormen who keep tabs on the residents in my building and offer security. I have a number of friends who live in town, and we make a point of gathering weekly either to eat together or go out to movies or performances. Developing relationships with neighbours, maintaining friendships and having a list of paid helpers you trust are all ways to ensure you have the practical support you require.
Affordability is another consideration when choosing a home. The sad reality is that few Canadians have saved enough for retirement, and most of us are living on either a fixed or might-as-well-be-fixed income. My home was the right choice when I bought it, but I’m afraid it may not be the right place for me for much longer.
I moved to Montreal in 2007 with the idea of starting over. It was a time of endings and new beginnings. My marriage to Fried had dissolved, and the darkest days of my mental illness were behind me. Ally had been accepted at Concordia University, and I felt a pull to help her through the transition from high school to university life. My struggles had forced her to grow up too fast; I wanted to support her as best as I could. At the time, both Justin and Sacha also lived in Montreal. Most important of all, the newest love-of-my-life was there, little Pierre Trudeau, my first grandson. It felt right to pack up my life in Ottawa—a city that had seen some of my tenderest and most unhappy moments—and start fresh. It was very difficult for me to live in the same town as the ex whom I couldn’t seem to let go of.
I knew I wanted to be in the heart of the city, close to the Concordia campus and near my sons. A real estate agent took me around to see a range of condos that fit my modest budget. The proceeds of the sale of my (awful) Ottawa house had given me a small sum of money. And though Montreal is one of the more affordable cities in Canada to buy a place to live—compared to Toronto or Vancouver—I was rather depressed to see the sort of place that suited my price range. Clearly, my Fifth Avenue days were far behind me. Despite my inner shudders over the shabby places I saw, I knew that I was fortunate. Women are far more vulnerable to poverty after age 60 than at any other time of their lives. To have the means to move cities and buy a condo meant I was relatively well off compared to so many. But I couldn’t shake the yearning to live in a place that inspired me—even if it was one I apparently could ill afford.
Buying a home is an intensely personal and emotional decision, and when I first walked into my Montreal condo, it was love at first sight. I adored the little terrace outside my bedroom (because it was “my” bedroom the moment I saw it). I loved the quaint bathroom with its formidable water pressure and black-and-white tiled floors. The place wasn’t perfect, mind you. It required some TLC. But when Sacha pointed out—quite astutely, I thought—that one of the rooms would make a perfect self-contained apartment for a nurse, should I ever need one, I was sold.
My friends tried to warn me off it. Buy this place, they told me, and I’d be signing on to years of soaring condo fees as one refurbishment job led to another. I could hardly afford it as it was, a helpful friend pointed out. Really, they insisted, I should think it through. But while my dream home had rough edges, I felt a sense of rightness within its walls. And that was enough to bolster my confidence that I would find a way to make this place work. Besides, I had always lived by the mantra that “money follows”—advice that I now realize is risky at best.
I spent nearly everything I had to get it. Then I spent what I had left renovating the kitchen and set about making my new home truly mine. I still adore this place, but six years of condo fees later, I’m carefully considering my options. You see, mortgages and condo fees are just one part of the housing equation. As we get older and confront the possibility of declining health (and at the same time try to avoid nursing homes), we must face the fact that we may need to pay for assisted living: home care or renovations that render our homes fit for life as an 80- or 90-year-old. What may have been affordable in our sixties may not be affordable in our seventies and eighties. As much as I love my home, I must find a place that suits my financial reality now and also in the future.
There are many sustainable housing options to choose from. And explore the options I must. I don’t want to live in any old serviceable place. My heart thrills at the notion of living beautifully, creatively, vibrantly, but also affordably. How might I do that? As I dug into the question, I (happily) turned up a number of solutions.
Make Do with What You Have
If you can afford to stay in your home and it fulfills the criteria of sustainable housing for older adults (proximity to services, for example), it’s possible that you can simply make do. In fact, an innovative program from Johns Hopkins University is transforming the lives of seniors in the Baltimore, Maryland, area by helping them do just that.
Researchers from the School of Nursing launched the CAPABLE study (Community Aging in Place, Advancing Better Living for Elders) to determine what basic, cost-effective adjustments could be made in seniors’ residences in an effort to keep them out of nursing homes. According to the researchers, most seniors want to remain in their own homes. But the loss of their ability to complete “instrumental activities of daily living”—dressing or cooking for themselves, for instance—is the leading predictor of nursing home admission. In an effort to enable seniors to stay at home, the CAPABLE study sends a crew of handymen, occupational therapists and nurses into seniors’ homes with a total budget of $4,000 per residence—of which $1,100 is reserved for renovations. While the budget isn’t large enough to cover large-scale renos—putting in an extra-wide doorway to accommodate a wheelchair, for instance—it is enough to make myriad little fixes that support independence.
Researchers discovered, for example, that the three main problems affecting a person’s ability to live at home include the inability to bathe oneself, to prepare meals and to get up and down the stairs. Installing an additional banister, so that each staircase had two railings versus one, made it possible for subjects to climb and descend the stairs without assistance. Lowering microwaves to within arm’s length and installing easy-to-reach shelving promoted cooking. Exercises and stretches—suggested by occupational therapists—made unloading the dishwasher or bending to put casseroles in the oven easier. Grab bars, floor grips and shower seats made the difference between taking standing “bird baths” at the sink and proper bathing. Knobs affixed to the car’s steering wheel made driving easier. Replacing patched or uneven floors, and removing rugs or excess furniture, promoted mobility within the home and reduced the likelihood of a serious fall. All these adjustments are small, and most are affordable, especially when compared to the costs of a nursing home or lost independence.
Some parts of Canada offer similar services, while in other parts of the country, we’re on our own. But the results of the Johns Hopkins University CAPABLE study are clear—if you want to stay in your home, it’s better to make the adjustments you need to make your house safe, comfortable and accessible for years to come.
Find Room at the Inn
What happens if you love your home, but you can’t afford to remain there anymore? The following story shows the dangers of staying after your financial ability to maintain a place runs out.
A friend’s father passed away recently. He had lived in a large house in a prominent neighbourhood. He was asset rich and cash poor, as the financial people say. He lacked the money required to maintain the house, but continued to live in it for many years as it gradually faded around him.
His children—my friend included—supported his belief that his house would be the financial legacy he left to them. But he should have sold his house years before he did. The lack of upkeep reduced the value of the house. In its heyday a decade earlier, the house could have fetched double what it finally brought in. The amount was nothing to sniff at, mind you, but I share the story because it touches on a concern many people face: what to do with a lovely, big house. As I say time and again, it’s always best to know when to exit.
I was discussing this story with a friend when her eyes lit up and she started flapping her hands, obviously bursting to say something.
“Whatever is it?” I asked her.
“The Nantucket Solution!” she replied. “It’s brilliant!” And she went on to explain.
When one of her friends found herself in a similar situation—saddled with a big house in Nantucket that she adored, but lacking the money to maintain it—she devised a plan. It all started because one of her closest friends needed a place to live. The friend asked if she could rent one of the six bedrooms in the woman’s Nantucket house. Over the next few years, four more people moved in, until every one of the five extra bedrooms was rented. The friends now cook their meals together, share the yard work and support each other in various ways. Best of all, the rental income provides the home’s owner with a modest salary and the money she needs to maintain the house so that it keeps its value.
Not everyone wants to open up their family home to renters, of course, even though they might see the benefits of sharing at least some of the costs. For these people, the co-housing model might be especially appealing. First conceived of in Denmark in the 1970s, the co-housing model describes a unique form of community that encompasses both private and public accommodation. In seniors co-housing communities, individuals or couples live in private dwellings while they share public spaces, which may include meeting rooms, living areas or even large joint cooking areas. Co-housing communities are generally built to be accessible, and residents manage the housing jointly. In addition, they pool their money to hire a resident caregiver as needed, and provide help, or “co-care,” to each other. Proponents of co-housing suggest that this solution enables people to live independently for as much as a decade longer than if they were living in their own private homes.
My friend Ann and I have tossed around the idea of inviting a group of single friends to pool our money, buy a lot in some charming town or small city and build a commune of sorts, with a central shared living area and a series of private pod-style apartments branching off from the centre. Each pod would have its own parking garage, driveway and entrance. Imagine a spaceship, only tastefully designed (naturally) and constructed from wood. I’ve also heard about friends who bought adjoining townhouses so that they could enjoy each other’s company and also check in on each other on a daily basis.
The idea of living in such close proximity to one’s friends might not suit everybody, but we are children of the ‘60s. If you’ve tried a commune once—or even if you only wanted to—you can always give it another shot, I say. The beauty of informal shared accommodation is that it enables people to live well and affordably. Depending on who you’ve got living in the next pod over, it could be every bit as fun, and possibly as adventurous, as it ever was.
Scale Down
Co-housing may not be for everyone. So if you do want to live in your own home, but for financial or practical reasons you choose to leave the family home, an option is to downsize. This is often easier in theory than in practice. And this comes down to the fact that our homes are often a critical part of our self-definition; they represent not only who we are, but also what we have built.
Marg Hachey’s transformation from stay-at-home mother and Avon lady to multi-million dollar entrepreneur brought her many rewards, the most cherished of which was her dream home: a 6,000-square-foot Cape Cod–style abode nestled in the Vivian Forest, north of Toronto. The home was a testament to her taste, values and success. The eight-acre property was beautifully landscaped with lush gardens and a custom-made waterfall she could see from her living room window. She had trails cut through the forest and she spent hours in the woods with her grandchildren. The spacious kitchen was outfitted with a four-metre-long island and lots of comfortable seating. “I could cook, entertain and never miss a thing.” She even installed an in-home theatre—fitting perhaps for the CEO of a company that provided audiovisual service for Queen Elizabeth II. “That home was my creative canvas. I loved it,” she says. Marg and her husband figured they’d stay in their dream home forever.
But within a few months of each other, first her husband and then Marg herself developed cancer. After a long and challenging recovery, they came to the difficult realization that they didn’t have the physical wherewithal to maintain the sprawling home. They needed an easier life. In short, they needed to downsize.
As a businesswoman, Marg had made hundreds of difficult decisions. Leaving her dream house was different. “It was incredibly emotional.” They put their house on the market expecting it would take months—or even years—to sell. It was gone in two weeks. Within a month, Marg and her husband found themselves in a 2,000-square-foot single-level home on a golf course, in a community populated by many people also in their sixties, seventies and even eighties. The house is spacious and comfortable, and life is indeed easier. All the landscaping is taken care of by the developer. In winter, the snow is cleared from their driveway and steps by six a.m. There are security patrols, and nearby neighbours provide an additional layer of security. There are frequent social gatherings, nearby amenities and a restful golf game is as close as her back door.
Possessed by Possessions
Many of us will have to downsize eventually—whether to a smaller apartment, a co-housing facility or a seniors’ home. When the time comes, one of the most difficult tasks may be dealing with decades’ worth of possessions.
I was flipping through the TV channels one evening a few months back when I chanced upon a program about hoarders. I watched in morbid fascination as a woman about my age guided a camera crew through her unspeakably cramped home. From the street, the house appeared to be an average 1980s-era split-level with a paved driveway, brick porch and fading white siding. The inside, however, was straight out of a horror movie. The countertops, shelves and tables were covered with stacks of magazines and folders and plastic bags filled with who knows what. In the living room the furniture was barely visible because it was all loaded down with garbage bags full of old clothes, extra sheet sets and assorted junk. The place was dark, dingy and horrifying. When the commercial break came on, I snapped off the TV and willed the nausea that had overcome me to subside. When I could manage it, I sneaked a look at my jumble of boxes and Tupperware bins stacked untidily in “the corner”: a smallish nook off my living room that had gradually become my own miniature version of a hoarder’s paradise.
After that one episode of Hoarders, I’ve never allowed myself to watch another. Hoarding is a bona fide mental illness, related to obsessive compulsive disorder. Some people suffer from the illness acutely, like the woman I watched on TV, and others have a milder strain—so mild, in fact, that you would hardly call it an illness. If a friend were to walk into my apartment, her eyes would likely skim right over “the corner” and think little of it. In our “buy lots, buy cheap” society, most households are drowning in stuff. But now when I look at “the corner,” a little shudder runs through me because on the one hand, I know I have to deal with the contents of those boxes; on the other hand, I absolutely don’t want to.
Extreme hoarding aside, I know that most people have problems dealing with clutter. One explanation is our consumerist culture, but the tendency to hang on to possessions goes much deeper than that. We cling to possessions for three main reasons: we think they may be useful in the future, they are emotionally significant or holding on to them gives us a sense of safety. The problem is that so many of things that make us feel safe are actually delusions. A bad marriage, a toxic friendship, nightly snacks of sugar cereal with warm milk. In the same way, stuff we hold on to can become an albatross. I likely would have started fresh years before I bought my Montreal condo if it hadn’t been for the basement of my dreary little house in Ottawa.
Before the dreary Ottawa house, I lived in the dream house that I bought after my divorce from Pierre. It was a spacious, comfortable house with four bedrooms, a big warm kitchen and a generous, leafy garden. I lived there for twenty years, but downsized after the end of my second marriage. Therapists and life coaches often say that the state of a person’s house mirrors her interior life. The dreaded house in Ottawa perfectly reflected mine at the time—dark, inhospitable and cloistered. And this external environment not only mirrored my mental state when I moved in, but also, I feel, reinforced my depression for much longer than if I had been in a brighter, more hospitable place.
When you downsize from a big house to a small house, you end up with a lot of stuff you no longer have space for in the rooms you use for everyday living. Which is how my basement came to contain a stack of boxes containing the boys’ old clothes, toys and schoolbooks, ancient skis and snowshoes, forgotten books and other paraphernalia of a full family life. The boxes tugged at me each time I went down to the basement. I knew I should deal with them, but it felt like a Herculean task. I was still seeing my psychiatrist regularly in those days and each time I visited him I’d end up talking about the boxes. They were my nemesis. Part of me was afraid to sort through them; I knew Michel’s boyhood belongings would be in there and I couldn’t bear seeing them. Nevertheless, having his stuff packed away in boxes beneath my roof made me feel as though he were still close to me. But it was a false comfort. My boy was gone.
I began to avoid going down to the basement altogether. And whenever I had thoughts of selling the house, I’d remember the boxes in the basement and how I’d need to deal with them. And so the months and then years wore on and a stack of cardboard and a pile of possessions kept me in a house I truly hated far longer than I should have been. I couldn’t move forward because I couldn’t make decisions about how to leave behind the past. All I could do was moan about the boxes. When I eventually bit the bullet, bought the condo, sold the dreary house and started to pack, the process of sorting through the boxes was far easier than I had thought. I got through them in a day. You see, it wasn’t the stuff itself that held me prisoner. It was the unhealthy attachment I’d cultivated to the stuff.
I got rid of a lot of my belongings when I moved into the condo, but soon after I moved in, little piles of clutter began to sprout up again, and not just in “the corner.” Some of these I had deep emotional attachments for—the stacks upon stacks of family photographs, for instance. But there was a lot of my stuff that I hadn’t yet parted with not because I loved it but because it was valuable. The pink flower-rimmed bone china dinner set for twelve, for instance. I offered it to Ally, but she wrinkled her nose, said it wasn’t her taste and that she’d prefer a plain white set from Canadian Tire. (She may have a point: little pink flowers on plates have been done to death.) But whether Ally wanted my china or not, something had to be done. As my mind got clearer, my instincts, which I have learned to trust, were urging me to cull. And quickly.
I have always had lots of energy, and still do. But I know that energy will not last forever. The time to get rid of stuff is now. The father of a dear friend passed away recently, leaving his three children—all in their sixties, with various health complaints—to sort through the mountains of possessions he held in his 2,500-square-foot home. Grief, in my experience, is best done over bowls of hot soup, a few choice photo albums and contemplative walks. Sorting through ancient junk drawers, hauling mothball-scented winter coats down from the attic and boxing up cupboards of empty Mason jars does not enhance the process.
The funny thing about possessions is that the things that held so much meaning when a person was alive usually lose their sentimental value quickly after that person dies. In the days after her father passed away, one friend told me, she didn’t want to part with anything. Three years later, she has some photographs, a handful of books and his old fishing rod.
I don’t want to burden my children with my stuff, nor do I want to be schlepping boxes when I’m 80. Inspired perhaps by The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel—a film about a young East Indian man who remakes a failing hotel in India into an apartment complex for Brits of a certain age—a friend of a friend is considering building a retirement community in India. What if I decide that’s the place where I should spend the rest of my days? I couldn’t possibly cart the entire contents of my 1,000-square-foot condo to the subcontinent, and I am far too practical to pay to store things I neither use nor love. What’s more, I’m aware that we often use our stuff as our protection or armour against the world. More and more, I feel a calling to simplify, to let go of belongings and just be me.
I developed a little mantra to help me with the indecision that swept over me each time I held up an old serving platter, stuffed animal or book. It is actually a rhyming phrase I learned from my mother: Keep the best, get rid of all the rest. Because the tendency to hang on to possessions is so engrained, and each item feels meaningful in its own way, decluttering is an act requiring great willpower. And the trouble with willpower is that we start off the day with a vessel of the stuff, but it is quickly depleted. (Hence my frustrating habit of resisting sweets all day long, only to cave to a bowl of sugar cereal before bed.)
As I sorted through the basement boxes, I asked myself whether it was the best in its class. Was it really among my best serving platters, or was it merely good, or worse, serviceable? Only the best made it to Montreal. Another decluttering strategy is to do it in short bursts—focusing on one small area each day and then moving on.
It’s tempting to hang on to family heirlooms, for instance, but I simply don’t have room for all the trinkets. Instead, I’ve kept certain items that encapsulate an important piece of my family’s history. For instance, my great-times-five-grandfather, William Farquar, was a Scottish-born British officer in the East India Company who played a pivotal role in the founding of Singapore in the early nineteenth century. While there, he commissioned various Chinese artists to illustrate local plants, animals and insects. Copies of several of the original 477 paintings hang in my guest bedroom, as an homage to my adventurous ancestor.
I also keep a few select objects that trigger powerful memories. Reliving happy times has been shown to increase happiness, and provide an overall boost to one’s mental health. Rather than post family portraits around my house, I have carefully selected pictures that jog my memory about happy times. There’s one I keep in my bedroom, for instance, of a tanned, bare-chested Michel playing hacky-sack with a circle of hippie friends. I see that photo and I celebrate the fresh-air-loving, free spirit he was. It makes me smile.
I’m not on any urgent deadline anymore. I have no imminent move. So rather than exhausting myself sorting through my possessions, I’m taking the slower, methodical approach. I am gradually going through my condo, shelf by shelf, identifying the best of what I have, and giving the rest away, to family members, the Goodwill, or, when no one wants it, to that final resting place of possessions that have outlived their use, the city dump. I have also instigated a new wardrobe rule: One thing in, another thing out. Despite my manic bouts of over-shopping, I’m not the sort of person to come home with handfuls of bulging shopping bags. My mother drilled into me and my sisters the idea that it is better to buy one fabulous piece of clothing versus a bunch of clothes that are less expensive but of poorer quality. I have saved some of my best vintage outfits for my daughter, but nowadays, if I buy a new blouse, I force myself to get rid of an older blouse before I can hang the new one in my closet.
Down with Downsizing
When you reach a certain age, there is tremendous pressure to downsize. On the one hand, this makes sense. Cull your possessions, simplify your life, tread lightly. And yet, there’s something about the smugness with which downsizing advocates extol the benefits of living small that provokes my inner rebel. The notion I don’t like is that getting older should automatically mean living smaller.
Nancy lived well within her means for many years. She, her husband and five children shared a discreet, elegant family home, one without pretension but filled with fine art and lots of laughter. During the winter ski season, they all squeezed into a 1,000-square-foot apartment in Whistler. When Nancy and her husband retired, they decided to trade in their pint-sized urban footprint for a sprawling existence. They purchased a 250-acre farm in the countryside just north of Toronto and built their dream home, complete with a bedroom for each of their grown children. Yes, it means that much of the house stands empty most of the year. But on the rare occasions when everyone’s holiday schedules align, they can live together comfortably as a family—complete with partners, and one day grandchildren as well. As much as the idea of maintaining a large house tires me, I do love the idea of having a large, inviting gathering place for my five children and their families. The other option, of course, is to live beside one of my children in a quaint granny flat with a private entrance and soundproofed walls.
The important thing for me, and for you, is to carefully consider our options sooner rather than later. Despite new building codes that have improved the accessibility of new homes and buildings, Canada, like most other developed countries, is woefully unprepared for the tide of aging baby boomers. We must safeguard our own happiness and independence in old age. We can’t control what will happen to us in our senior years, but we can prepare as best we can by dealing with our possessions and planning where and how we will live.
The truth is, I’m happy in my little condo, for now at least. The doormen help me hang pictures and install curtain rods, and it’s comforting to know there’s someone downstairs who would notice if I didn’t come out for a few days. I’m two blocks from the hospital and a short walk from the trails at Mont Royal. Two of my children live in the city, and two more a few hours’ drive away. I am happy and comfortable here for now. But I will keep culling the clutter in case a room ever opens up in that seaside house in Nantucket.