Ep 1: What is there to celebrate?

Hi everyone, I'm Isabel Tom. My close family and friends, they just call me Bel.

Whatever age that you're at or consider yourself to be, maybe that's young, young-ish, midlife, older, or maybe you just call yourself old. Welcome to the Value of Wrinkles podcast. I created this podcast to help you to see the value in the older generation.

What are your favorite holidays? National Donut Day? Groundhog Day? Anyone? Anyone? How about Bubble Tea Day or Easter or Christmas? Well, this month is May.

And so it happens to be a month of celebrating people, at least in my mind. First of all, it's my birthday, my daughter's birthday, it's Asian American Heritage Month, and I just found out today that in Hawaii, I think on May fifth, it is Kids' Day.

On these days, we celebrate these groups of people and well, they often celebrate and take pride in who they are.

I'm recording this in May, which also happens to be Older American Month. Older American Month. Did I say it right? I actually don't have this holiday cemented into my brain even though I do care a lot about the older generation. And I was thinking about this. Why can't I remember it? Why don't I know that it is in May?

Well, this is my thinking. While the library and magazines and senior care organizations may celebrate Old American Month, this is not a holiday where you see older people standing up, all proud that they are deemed old.

In fact, if you gave someone flowers for Older American Month, Would they be flattered or completely insulted? You got it. Being older is not something people are often proud about. And to me, that's a huge problem.

That many people who are older aren't grateful or proud or honored because of their age. Instead, they're hiding. They're ashamed. So this month I am launching this podcast, The Value of Wrinkles, whether I'm ready or not because I want to start a revolution or maybe just a podcast that reminds all people about how valuable our older citizens, family members, coworkers, neighbors, and older friends are.

And so we're going to try or I'm going to try for one podcast a month. And maybe this month I'll podcast a little bit more. I am starting this podcast for all the older people who have influenced my life, who have made an impact on others' lives. And I hope that you will follow along and celebrate with me. In the coming podcast episodes, I hope to just be showing you through a variety of different ways how we can value the older generation more, to give you a different perspective, and hopefully, hopefully, if this all works out, to hear from them as well and to give them a place to have a voice. I believe that whatever age we are, whether we are young and super cute at 2 and 3 all the way up to 92 and 93 that we are valuable in God's sight and I want people to know that.

Hey guys, so this is the very very first podcast of the value of wrinkles. And I was just wondering if you would help me out. So I don't care what age you are. If there is an older person in your life who has made a positive mark, who has made an impact, who has taught you an important lesson, would you share your story with me? It could be a grandparent, a parent, an uncle, neighbor, friend, co worker. Doesn't matter. You can use the link that Anchor provides, which You should be able to find in the show notes, I'm going to try to work on that, or just record the audio and you can send it to me at [email protected]. That's [email protected].

I want the older generation to be proud of their age and to know how valuable they are. And I can't do this on my own. I'm going to need your help. So thanks for considering and I cannot wait to get an email or an audio clip from you. Thanks a lot.

There you have it, the very very first episode of The Value of Wrinkles Podcast. What did you guys think? I don't know. Well, I'm just gonna be honest with you. This episode is much better than the other first episode that I recorded. It was, it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't best and I don't think you would have listened to it. Anyways, I would love to hear what you think about this very first episode. And I also want to thank you for listening to the very first episode.

So. You can find me on Instagram at Isabel C. Tom. That's ISABELCTOM on Instagram and that's where I am most of the time. Please you can DM me and DM means direct message. I'm telling you that because I didn't know in the beginning and I had to Google it. Or you can find me on Facebook at The Value of Wrinkles page. I'm not there as often but I do check it once in a while.

I would love to hear from you again and just get your thoughts on what you thought about this and I hope you stay with me. I'm going to share some other fun facts that I think you'll probably find pretty amusing about this first podcast episode and just some random facts along the way that I think you'll really enjoy.

So thanks for hanging with me and tune in next time for The Value of Wrinkles Podcast.