Capitol Hill Blue Forums Life and Moral Issues Issues of Aging Retired ? Is it what you thought it would be?

We used to have little bins, when we lived in town. Out in the country we have 96 gallon machine-liftable bins with attached lids. We have two of those so we can have one out on the street for pickup, and still have one by the house to toss stuff in. We get the same amount of cardboard as all of you, but if we miss a weekly pickup, it's no problem.

Apologies if I've missed parts of the discussion. Trying hard to catch up.
RE: What Retirement is for us.
...............................................................

We never expected to be this old, or to be reasonably healthy.

We have spent the time to deal with the future, and are at peace with whatever might happen. Myself or jeanie.

22 years growing up and college.
30 years employed
30 years retired (frugally)
61 years married

Absolutely the happiest days of our lives.

Moved into our CCRC 15 years ago at age 68. Best decision, as we're comfortable and well adjusted to life without worries.

It was a bit of a tough decision at the time... live in the homestead 'til we died or be safe... with the ability to adjust to whatever might happen. We love living in Liberty Village... Just now came back from a driveway party with about 25 good friends who live here in the Villas. Same age group, same interests. Naturally many widows/widowers in a 300+ population so the transition, when it happens, is easier than living alone.

No downsides, and we will not be a burden on our four sons and their families.
__________________

Our home is already handicap equipped so we may try to stay in it for a long time. But we are aware that life can change.
We're very lucky so far.

Happy all is going well. At one time post retirement moves had the possibility for going from mid Michigan back to the UP. Love its beauty & most vacations take us there. I think once a person acclimates to snow, it’s not that tough. After plopping a 48x32’ polebarn in the middle of our two acres, it feels as though the anchor was dropped...but I also realize (hope) lots of time & possibilities are yet to come.

Two brothers migrated to AZ south of Tucson. Really nice & active retirement town, and wifey loved it on her first visit. I said come back in August & tell me that. One brother still has a home & does 5-7 months of summer/fall in OH. The other does parts of July & August in northern MI where his daughter lives. I need green, water, humidity, brisk air, etc. Feel like a literal fish out of water in the SW.

I do occasionally think I may hit the day maintaining two acres of growth gets to be too much. We’ll see how much assistance we get or pay for. Once the young couple in this little semi rural stretch of homes, we are now the second oldest. All others stayed. We helped the others out as much as possible. But I don’t see the same community dynamics down the road. We’ll see. Maybe others will surprise me.

Til then, though I’ve been told I’m an introvert who has to be occasionally dragged into social situations, I feel I have a pretty good set of family & friends to consistently interact with. And I really do think that’s important. And despite all its flaws, I think that’s a big plus to this social media world...interacting with lots of others - family, friends & acquaintances - we might not otherwise much see.

I see a lot of my dad in me. Some tell me that as the opposite of a compliment, but I take it as one. I didn’t see him with a lot of friends, but he didn’t have a fear of interacting when it presented himself. If he withdrew too much, I knew how to push his buttons with simple questions meant to make him give oral pronouncements on the world around him. Others let him stew in silence. I did not like that. When he had a dog, he’d take multiple long walks per day. Sometimes the dog would come home alone. At first it was worrisome, but we soon learned that dad was simply working his way slowly through the neighborhood having conversations with anyone out & receptive. During his work life, he had few of those opportunities. When the dog had to be put down, so did his health...rapidly. The walks, the talks, his life diminished. Didn’t have to, but it did. And like me, I recognized he reflected the receptiveness of those around him. Want to interact? I’m here. Want to ignore? I’m okay with that too...though not really. I find that to be the foundation of many “introverts”.

Ramble, rant, tangents, life...SQUIRREL!

My wife gave me a new shopping philosophy today...

I wanted it.
I got it.
Get over it.

Her words...

Sounds like what Karen says. She gets the most adorable little dimpled grin on her face when she says something like that.
It's a deadly weapon.

Since we're sharing...

Odd thing is that free school and early retirement were at the top of my priority list when I was 17. And I got on the track... appointment to the Naval Academy with a possible retirement at 42 on a captain's half pay. I think in 1973 that would have been something like $40K, don't know what that is in 2019 dollars.

But I did not like life in the navy, and the shock of leaving the mountains of Idaho for 24 years of greyness, rules, and not being able to make things (I probably would have made a better Seabee than a nuclear engineer), stimulated a previously dormant critical thinking brainwave and I soon caught the bug of idealism.

Though I accumulated enough credits at university to graduate, I never took a degree, as my side-life of working to pay for school (never had any debt - different thread) became dominant and I was off in a career as a building contractor and woodworker. Always liked innovating and doing interesting things that seldom evolved into "makin' da money" - that nasty bug of idealism working its way with me.

I became a true enough environmental activist in the 80's, filing timber sale appeals on Forest Service decisions and suing the State of Idaho for mismanagement of state endowment lands. Got certified in a variety of water quality management programs, served on innumerable economic development and restorative land management project boards (none of them paying gigs), and started a 501-c-5 nonprofit in '98 to figure out how to restore forests and save rural economies at the same time. All the while taking construction jobs to pay the bills.

Today, at the ripe old age of 64, I have very little money in the bank, but have an almost embarrassingly humongous pile of assets in the form of property and equipment that I am still trying to see used in the furtherance of saving the planet - if only humanity in general would take some responsibility and pitch in to help.

So the idea of retirement is really not on the drawing board. My colleague in the biochar stuff is 80 years old and still putting in full days at the shop, inventing, designing, welding, and grinding - and dreaming about when the good ideas will finally be applied to the problems that we have created to plague ourselves with. We are both aware that he may not be in the game much longer - hell, I think the same for myself. But if he goes first and our joint mission blossoms, then his daughter will be well-fixed and can retire, or whatever she wants to do.

As for me, I am a bit worried that if I go before there are competent people involved to carry on the mission, that all of our work will be lost and my pore wife will have to clean up after me (there'll be a big auction, I reckon, and the salvage vultures will pick apart everything that we have built). Convert the dream back to its molecular structure for ten cents on the dollar.

Life is kinda weird, ain't it?

I just googled it - I'd a been making about $63K a year since 1997, for doing whatever the hell I wanted to do. If there was such a thing as going back and sticking out the Navy career, knowing the current alternative, would I have made that choice?

No...

One interesting thing about being older and a responsible person, is serving as executor and trustee for various estates and trusts. I did this for a stepmother and now I'm trustee for my mother. I can see why people would want to avoid this, for fear of being sued. I am actually trustee of two different trusts, that may have a conflict of interest. I see a legal problem in how one of these was administered before I became a trustee, and if I do something to correct the mismanagement, it will cost me. I think I will probably get sued either way! And unfortunately, the bigger of the two trusts does not include one of those poison pill provisions that cuts out anybody who sues.

While we're opening up our lives to friends, something I'm not sure I explained in any earlier posts. At age 83, am progressing on the Alzheimer route... currently stage 4. Slow moving since age 75 or so, but moving. As prepared as I can be... jeanie's aware and helps me through the tough social situations where I don't recognize people, or remember those things that would ordinarily be important.

The good thing is that we can discuss the subject, and work together to plan for the future. What used to take minutes to express in a post or a full discussion, now takes much longer...some caused by AZ, but partially caused by peripheral neuropathy... mostly a nuisance rather than a disability.

That said... when asked how retirement is? Couldn't be happier.

My Dad passed in ‘89 and putting his affairs in order with my Mom still around was pretty smooth. My Mom passed in ‘06 and that meant doing it for real. It was first assigned to one brother, but passed to another better positioned to do so. He had said the bet documentation he ever found was written by a Michigan probate judge who was tired of so many people being clueless to disjointed laws on the topic. The judge wrote it, in essence, to simplify his own job.