Retirement home opens life’s doors
“The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.”
There are many pluses to living in a retirement community. One of the most beneficial is that since we are all of an age when our health is starting to wane, we are experiencing the same problems. If we are concerned about an ailment, there are 15 friends who can give us advice on how to deal with it.
At a time when we are battling arthritis, preparing for knee and hip replacements, or having cataract surgery, we take great comfort in knowing that many others have been there, done that and are now tackling the next problem with a little help from their friends.
Because growing older and living with ailments is so common among us, we begin to laugh at our plight and ourselves.
When friends say, “What?” or “Speak up,” we know they are experiencing the same hearing loss we are.
We laugh when most of us in our golf foursome need help seeing where our ball has come to rest.
We walk into a restaurant with our shoulders square at a fairly brisk pace. But when we get up from the table after sitting for an hour, arthritis keeps us bent over. We waddle and wobble to the door with baby steps until the pain has subsided. We look at each other’s posture and laugh together.
When our friends start a sentence and then say, “Now ... where was I going with that thought?” or, “What’s that word I’m trying to think of?” we breathe a sigh of relief that maybe we are not in the first throes of Alzheimer’s after all. We can’t all have it!
Our children think it must be awful to live in a retirement village. “Mom, I can’t imagine you and Dad being with a lot of old people. You are just going to curl up and die there.”
At first they have a hard time understanding why they can never reach us when they call ... why we don’t return their calls until days later ... why we’re not home after 10 p.m. ... why we don’t have time to read that book they recommended.
Then they come to visit. “You’re doing what?” they yelp when we tell them we’re going skydiving.
They look at our calendar with disbelief. “You’re golfing three times a week, Dad? How do you guys get this many dates for bridge in one month? You’re in a musical, Mom?”
They see that we are relaxed and happy and surrounded by many friends. They see us fulfilling lifelong dreams. By the time our children leave the village, they have decided that retirement cannot come soon enough for them. They envy our new lifestyle. And they decide that retirement most definitely does not have to mean slowing down.
When the children leave, we glance at each other with a grin and make a mad dash to the phone. There are golf tee times to be scheduled, tickets to order for an upcoming play, confirmation for a party next week and, finally, a quick call to our best friends: “Get the cards out. We’ll be right over.”
Those youngsters have slowed us down, and now it’s time to get back into circulation!