Grant, 66 yrs

"How we understand each other as we age is changing. I believe the word ‘retirement’ is slowly disappearing. My wife and I don’t own a home; we are moving to different places in Western Canada to try and decide where to live our 'next season'. I’ve also been to university three times which is symbolic of our aging generation. There’s a highly educated senior generation with time and influence in their communities who are setting a tone for how they want to be cared for.

My wife and I are taking time to reflect on what our 'next season' is. This is a season. If you asked me 6 months ago, I would have been in a completely different season because it has and will change and we’re both trying to be flexible and adaptable. Right now, we are embracing each moment and what’s presented to us by the universe. For the most part, we love what we’re doing. We’re still learning how to be together as a couple in this new season. And so far, we have our health to travel, so we are doing it. We know we must settle at some point; we just don’t know when. People always ask us, ‘shouldn’t you have your stuff together by now at your age?’ Yeah, actually, we do, we’re choosing to live this way.

We can live like we do now because we’ve done a lot of financial planning. I don’t want to kid anybody here. I was in a financial planning business for 7 years and to this day, I only see 5% of people who manage their funds well. I know people who make a lot of dollars a year and are broke, so it’s not about how much you make, but how much you save, plan, and look after your funds. We’re living longer, so it’s going to cost more. If you don’t look after yourself when you’re younger, your older self won’t be able to make it up. So, pay attention to your health and how you’re spending your money. It’s not selfish, it’s being responsible.

I had cancer; I talk about it. Some men still don't as they get older. I know a lot of people are afraid to talk about aging, but it’s so freeing. Let’s put it out on the table. What are we afraid of? I am getting older, there’s health issues, but we should talk about what that looks like, what kind of support we might need. Aging affects all of us."