Exactly! Until a couple of years ago I was a bit of a snob about my assurance of staying fairly able as I age and continuing to do “normal” things like stairs as long as possible as a way to stay youthful. Really, in my head I was twenty years younger than I am (still feel that way, really, the term “senior citizen” applied to myself just grates or makes me laugh a little. I’m still a kid!) I thought people should stick with stairs as long as possible in the “use it or lose it” vein. I’ve never been an athlete, nor a runner (I get shin splints) and got a bit soft and physically passive in the years I was schlepping my D to lessons for years every afternoon. But after she left for college I was walking many hilly miles everyday, pumping a stationary bike and taking yoga in my mid-sixties. Then I got lyme disease two years ago that knocked me off my feet (literally) for a couple of months and I’ve never been quite the same since, though I do do all of the above activities, in moderation, tiredness comes and goes but never quite leaves. During the worst of it I couldn’t walk five steps without reaching for a wall or chair to keep from falling down, or spend more than three minutes at a time standing at the sink. Took weeks after treatment before I could walk a quarter mile. That really knocked som sense in me how quickly things can change for a person, anywhere, anytime, and especially when elderly. I am now humbled and respect the precaution of looking ahead! I’m trying to stay healthy as long as possible, as my kid is only 22 and I sure don’t want her to have to interrupt her life to worry about me anytime soon!
My parents lived in a really nice buy- in with all the bells and whistles and loved it. My mother, always a bit shy and socially insecure morphed into a veritable butterfly who never stopped for a minute between her various activities and engagements with a gaggle of friends. I don’t think she was ever happier than those last twenty years of her life. When my dad got dementia he was moved upstairs and down the hall, taken care of 24/7 and she could visit him any time, for five minutes or five hours at a time because he was less than a ten minute walk away. After a stroke, she was fussed over and cared for for her last year and a half in the place she already called home. (It helped that my sister, childless by choice, was just fifteen miles away). Having said that, I don’t think that environment is for me, at ALL, I have a lot of serious food allergies that would make the group meals pretty impossible and I’m sure I couldn’t quite afford the ones nice enough to want to live in. But I’m thinking a lot about what might be possible down the line that could make me happy AND not a burden to my D in her busiest adult years. She’ll still be just 34 when I’m 80 and she’ll also have her dad to visit and think about (he’s a little younger though). Hoping here to open my mind and maybe learn about some affordable communities that are sort of half- half or smaller living situations that are homey and somewhat sociable with some built-in support and independence and not cut off from the stream of life (and have walkable outdoor pace. Maybe that doesn’t exist without great wealth. I do like real neighborhoods with some people of all ages integrated and don’t, personally like a country club feeling! My dream place would be close to nature, outdoor spaces with a lot of native plants and no industrial landscaping…acres of dyed mulch with a few exotics plopped into the ground and grass that might as well be carpet do not appeal to me (no offense to those of you who like it…but it would make me feel terribly depressed!) Anybody know of anything like that? I do realize this thread is likely not going to target these kinds of places so I certainly won’t mind if nobody discusses this particular preference!