The question that quietly follows us into our senior years.

hearlady said:
That's because I still tell myself he's coming back. It's all a dream like on Dallas and Bob Newhart. 😔
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Well. He’s not coming back but one day in the distant future you will be going to him.

About a year after I looked up at the sky and screamed “If you’re there give me a sign!” I walked half a block and found matches from our local grocery store. He used those matches. I used a lighter. One curious thing. We lived in NH. Son and I moved to Long Island NY.
WHERE DID THE MATCHES COME FROM?
Did he answer my question?
 
Pepper said:
Well. He’s not coming back but one day in the distant future you will be going to him.

About a year after I looked up at the sky and screamed “If you’re there give me a sign!” I walked half a block and found matches from our local grocery store. He used those matches. I used a lighter. One curious thing. We lived in NH. Son and I moved to Long Island NY.
WHERE DID THE MATCHES COME FROM?
Did he answer my question?
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YES!
 
Warrigal said:
I think the next five years of my life will be very rewarding and if I am granted more, I will be a very lucky woman indeed.
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Sliverfox said:
Now family is grown & we are tried........ waiting for the grim ripper.
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Is he the same one who prowled the streets of Whitechapel in the year 1888...?

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I don't want to live to 100. I'm not sure I want to live to 90.

But, no matter how long I DO live, I'd like it to be meaningful and memorable.

When I die, I don't want people to say, "Jeez, I thought she died YEARS ago!" I want them to say, "Holy Toledo, I thought she'd NEVER die!" but not because they were glad I finally kicked the bucket, but because they can't picture life without me. Oh, well, I can only hope....... <snort>
 
This is a great question @bobcat. I wasn't expecting to retire as early as I did at 62, but I've enjoyed every day of it. I got the results of my physical today. At 68, I'm still completely healthy and on very few medications. I'm happy just going to the gym 5 days a week and visiting various markets to put together meals.

However, my goal is to still travel at least two times per year. I went on a cruise to Mexico at the end of March with friends. Now we are planning a cruise to Europe or Canada in late summer with my BIL and his roommate. I want to travel as long as I am healthy and mobile. I much prefer the longer hauls right now because I may not be able to make them when I am older. If I can travel and continue to experience new things, I'm good.
 
After retiring in 2017, I continued to engage in the same activities I've had for decades. Before retiring between jobs, I never went directly from one job to the next but rather because I could without ever being wealthy, took off from work for months to years, despite that going against common employment wisdom. So have had plenty of practice over decades doing things like those I might in retirement. Most of those things are not money oriented, but rather nature or science or fun oriented. The kind of activities and materialism wealthy persons often seek are not things I've ever placed personal value pursuing.

Oh, if my lifetime was far longer, I'd loved to travel the cultural world, understand its history in depth, meet the large amount of interesting and fascinating things on this vast planet, but don't because I'm content to limit my life as narrowly as I have because pragmatically, it is enjoyable, fun, and satisfying enough for the limited time this 77 year old probably has left.

In recent weeks, made plans to backpack with one or two others, mid to late July for 9 days into the John Muir Wilderness, High Sierra, a spectacular Earth region I greatly value. And next week, may be returning to the below.

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Rakaia said:
@bobcat
I have a deceptively simple answer to your question.
I want to do as much as I can for as long as I can.
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I'm afraid to push it. Every time I do, I suffer. Plus, I can't afford another fall.
I'm in the habit of sitting at rest for ten minutes, then alternating 1) a daily chore, or 2) exercise, or 3) work at advancing a priority. Today's top priority is cataracts surgery coming up soon. .
 
bobcat said:
What do you want to do with the rest of your life?

I’m curious how others think about this. Do you plan? Do you drift? Do you follow impulses? Do you set goals? . Do you feel you’re living the life you want, or the life that happened to you?
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This is a complex question for me.

Until Devin died, I would have said I was living the life I wanted, making plans, reaching goals, future-thinking life.

After he died life was just whatever happened to me because I didn’t care. It just carried me along with it, sometimes unwillingly, and always as a passive, despondent observer.

We moved in September 2024 to our current house so that I could get away from all the triggers of Devin’s death. I felt like I could breathe again, and began making tentative, small future plans. That lasted a month before my husband fell out of the attic, broke his foot and was non ambulant for several months.

That put a stop to any forward motion I had begun to experience, because I was entirely focused on his care and just getting us through daily.

It was 6 months before he was well enough that he was walking again and could manage on his own so at that point it was almost mid 2025, and once again I clawed my way up and out of just reacting to whatever was in front of me, and we again began to make future plans, for the house, some redecorating, a couple of trips we wanted to take within a year.

The rug was pulled out from under me again when Ron was diagnosed with stage IV prostate cancer. And at almost the same time his daughter’s cancer came back and she’s in dire straits. Once again I feel like I’m living the life that happened to me, unable to keep up, trying to just stay in the moment and keep my head above water, not making future plans, because there are too many unknowns.

I don't know how his cancer will progress, don’t know how his treatments will affect him one week to the next, don’t know about his daughter’s cancer and the future of that.

I’m back to having life just carrying me along with it because there is no clear path and too many uncertainties to be able to plan beyond the next day or week.

It sucks.
 
Messy said:
Today I thought: Lets start walking dogs. My son needs to find something to do. My job is boring and only part time. I can help him. The only thing is: I can't drive. He's too young to even get driving lessons. That means you can't load a bunch of dogs in a bus to go to a wood or nature park and if you walk em here in the park you have to pick up poop. Maybe give em diapers.
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I just bag it on walks and at home I sweep it up and put it out in the green bin. Diapers for dogs??? Probably not unless there are extenuating circumstances as there were for my dog Heidi you developed degenerative myelopathy. Doing her business was just the tip of the ice berg for her. I did get her a drag bag when she could no longer stand on her own and a cart to run around in, but I also bought young kids' undies for in the house to contain messes.
 
EmptyCup said:
I keep moving. I have several interests that keep me going and out of the house each day. It could partly be ADHD which I don’t care to medicate. I am happy with it.
I have quite a few senior neighbors on this street. Some are very active and others just stay in the house all day staring at TV/Computer.
The active ones seem to go on and on. A lady down the corner is 80ish and always walking her dog and out and about in the city.
The sedentary ones seem to lose mobility and seldom leave the house. One day the EMTs come and take them away. Sometimes they return days or weeks later. But then the EMT’s return again and it’s time for the nursing or funeral home.
Bottom line is physical activity and something to motivate/excite one to get up and out each day is key.
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Sounds great but some of us have a hard time navigating without a rollator.I do make an effort.
 
Babs2u said:
Sounds great but some of us have a hard time navigating without a rollator.I do make an effort.
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And some of us live out where there are no sidewalks and even though I don't need my rollator right now, I still feel kind of unsteady without nice even pavement to walk on. I do try to move around inside the house, though.
 
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