It’s the end of another year, and at the risk of sounding like a Hallmark greeting card, may this year bring you new happiness, new goals, new achievements, and many new inspirations to your life. Okay, that was a Hallmark greeting card!

The holiday season is a special time to gather with family and friends and enjoy all the holiday excitement. But many find this time difficult: grieving the loss of a loved one, financial stresses, isolation, and loneliness.

Each week, I include a Brain Tease to challenge that three-pound lump of gray matter hiding behind your forehead, since brain teasers can stimulate multiple areas of your brain, especially those responsible for working memory, pattern recognition, and problem-solving.

Understanding Medicare is not a walk in the park. It’s more like crawling through a dark, damp cave: disorienting and challenging. And every year during Medicare Open Enrollment from Oct. 15 through Dec. 7 you get to explore that cave again!

Life is full of risks: stepping out of the shower, driving down I-84, walking around the neighborhood, flying the friendly skies, speaking in public. Many of those risks we try to avoid, others we find ways to reduce, and still others we ignore and proceed full steam ahead.

I’ve been back from the family reunion in Georgia for more than a week now, and it was quite a trip. All my worries turned out to be null and void: No noticeable humidity, temperatures comfortably in the mid-80s, and mosquitoes? Not even one, but I did see several varieties of colorful butterflies.

I wrote this column a few years back, but if I know my readers, I’m sure you don’t remember it. I mean, I don’t remember it, and I wrote it! So, I hope you enjoy this “summer repeat” with a new Brain Tease and “Remember When” question.  

Memories. Those recollections from the past — including the embarrassing moments, which I would like to forget unless I want a good laugh at myself.

Fear. How many of our decisions are driven by this unpleasant emotion that often controls our lives? Afraid of seeing the doctor about a persistent cough, fearing a terminal diagnosis. Afraid of telling our adult children what we actually want, because it may hurt their feelings.

Hundreds of thousands of older adults are abused, neglected, or exploited every year, and unfortunately, no one is immune. It occurs at every income level, and the abusers may be men or women, friends, people in a position of trust, and even family members. It can happen to anyone.

There is an ongoing debate about when you reach old age. Is it 50 when you receive your first invitation to join AARP? Is it 65 when you are eligible for Medicare? Or are you not  old until your children reach Medicare? And then there is the quote attributed to Bernard Baruch: “To me, old age is always 10 years older than I am.”