I love reading about Boomers who retire to a houseboat or a yurt or some other oddball place that will give them a shot at fulfilling the dream. Now that the kids are gone and they have a measure of freedom, options begin to emerge.
Bill and I go back and forth, not sure what we want. Sometimes he’ll start a sentence with “In about five years, when we move…” and I’ll say, “When did we decide that? I like this house, and I don’t want to move. Maybe ever.”
But we might. Bill has been warning the kids for years that, at some point, we’ll stop doing holiday parties and expect to come to their (big, grandchildren-filled) houses for the holidays. Parties are a lot of work. Might be smarter to have a small home unsuitable for big parties. Young people feel sorry for what they see as shrinking lives, but older peeps cry crocodile tears. We get all the partying with none of the cleanup, and if we want to go somewhere, we just lock the doors and head out.
In fact, we both have a fantasy of living way up in a Florida high-rise overlooking the ocean, with a balcony/patio to serve as all the yard we need. The only problem is that my family doesn’t live in Florida, so that’s never going to happen. But we might do a couple months’ lease one of these years, just to pretend.
Bill has a fantasy of renting a nothingburger two-bedroom apartment somewhere and using that as our home base while we travel around the country, staying several months at a time at each of our kids’ locales: Atlanta, Oregon, and southern California. He would either rent a place in each city or own an RV.
Frankly, he’d have to be a widower to enjoy that particular daydream.
I guess, at 60, I’m starting to dig in. Just to make it fun for our adult kids, who at some point in my widowed, elderly future will have to use dynamite to get me out of here.
Embarrassing update: If you saw a “post” about Steve Jobs entitled “Bad Advice for Millennials,” I released it by accident in an incorrect format, and – oh, never mind. Just ignore it. Sorry.
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I read a couple of comments about Florida not being such a good place to retire. Well, I guess we all have opinions, and luckily they are usually worth what you pay for them.
My wife and I are originally from Virginia, and over the years of our careers we also lived in NC and SC.
Well, we are Boomers, and we have a small house in Southern Florida in a 55+ community. That is our Home Base. And, we have a Motorhome. The motorhome is fantastic for us. We get to go and visit our Kids and grandkids whenever we want and we take our home with us, so no crappy hotels and eating out all of the time for us.
We take our lifestyle with us.
Me, I am a writer, or as I tell people, I am a story-teller. And I have found that our fellow campers are a constant source of entertainment and new characters to write about.
And, we get to check out so many interesting places and learn so much about America and its people that rarely want for inspiration.
And, when we need to just recuperate from camping and travel, we go back to our Home Base while we recharge and honestly, see our Doctors, etc.
I guess what I am saying is that I recommend Florida and I recommend RV Travel for other Boomers.
Have a great day,
DON
Thanks Don! I think the one person who said that was basing it on her own life situation, which benefited from heading back north due to health issues, etc. But having visited Florida repeatedly, I can say wholeheartedly I LOVE IT!
I always thought my husband and I would travel a bunch when we retired, but here we are over 70 and still have our business so my thoughts were kinda displaced or maybe just not meant to be. If I could pick the ideal place to live I think I would choose Hawaii. We have spent quite a few vacations there and I truly love the big island. But staying in a five star hotel is a lot different than living in a condo or house there, and I would hate being that far from my kids and grand kids. So when I ‘wake up and accept my life’s reality’ I guess where I am is really pretty good. I like my house and the weather is nice here in the desert except for those ‘holy crap’ hot months of July and August. If I would have any advice for anyone it would be to retire as soon as you can and enjoy it! When you get older it is more difficult to be away because of the uncertainty of health issues.
Good advice, Judy. As they say, life is what happens when you’re making other plans!
Hey Lynne,
I lived in South Florida for 13 years and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, especially, if you have family elsewhere that can’t come visit. Once I left my job I was never able to feel a sense of committee. I tried joining groups but found most of them hard to break into the friendships they’d already established. Thank gawd for my writer’s group. They were a great bunch.
Anyway, after much pondering, we moved back to New York to be closer to my son and extended family. It’s been quite an adjustment because old friends have aged like me but either have health issues or have grandchildren that absorb their lives. Luckily, I have some cousins, who are grand-childless like me, that like to meet up for happy hour. It’s rather tough to get out sometimes in February, tho.
All-in-all, I’m glad I’ve come back to my old stomping grounds despite having to buy a winter wardrobe. LOL. We sold the house in Florida and we’re renting a lovely loft apartment in an urban area. It’s great not to have to worry about the upkeep on the house (or shoveling snow).
So, I get what you’re saying about being near family, friends, and familiar places.
I had to move away before I knew enough to appreciate it. 😀
Great post – hugs.
Vonnie
Vonnie, what an interesting comment. I’ve followed your moves as you pondered leaving Florida (and thanks for the reality check); I was glad when you moved back closer to family. Your life is rich and interesting, and your last sentence is so freakin’ profound it just stopped me. I wish you the very best, my friend.
I’ve been wanting to downsize, but my husband won’t hear of it. Do we need a separate living and dining room? We rarely use them. Is that 4th bedroom really necessary? But I do like our home’s location–a nice, established neighborhood where people actually know one another that’s not too far from my son and his family. One of these days we will no longer be able to drag ourselves up the stairs, and I guess that’s when we’ll move. Until then, I’ll get plenty of exercise keeping the place fairly clean.
Some interesting comments here. I am a little bit different in that I am single. I have owned several houses where I raised my children or lived alone as an adult. I have loved many of those houses I left but I never had the same connection that you do with your house. I think it is possible that you are in the house absolutely right for you. I think your husband’s plan sounds great and I would be willing to try. You are not ready to try, not yet anyway. Maybe you will be one day, but may be you won’t. It will be interesting to see if you change your mind later. In the meantime, you are home and you are happy. That is great.
Barbara, hats off to you. I’ve never lived alone – well, there was that one disastrous year – so it may be that my feelings have always been influenced by another. In the meantime, you’re right. Happy at last!
Hi Lynne,
We sold our dream home in the country last Spring and moved into town. We’ve refurbished the entire place and while not as fancy as the old house, it suits us perfectly. It’s a much smaller home with less maintenance and still has enough room for grandchildren to visit. We were fortunate, as houses in the area don’t come on the market often. We’re close to beautiful walking trails that run beside a river, shopping, theatre and nice restaurants, something we really missed living in the country. Thanks to good neighbours we are comfortable locking the door and taking off on vacation for a month.
I’ve seen first hand the results of staying in your home too long and having to make a move out of necessity. Usually, this happens when one of you suffers a serious injury or illness and your options can be limited. We hope to stay here for as long as we are healthy and can manage the maintenance. There are plenty of nice condos and apartments close by, when the time is right to make another move. The point is we want to make the choice as to where we live and not have someone else make the decision for us.
So here’s to starting over at 70! Yikes!
Lynda, my mom had to start over at 86. I don’t recommend it. But your home sounds great – in a gratifying location. I’ve always thought it might be fun to live in an apartment in the middle of a downtown area with a lot of walking life. Maybe on the 4th or 5th floor to offset the noise, but able to ride down the elevator and walk to coffee in the morning, meet friends there. Walk to the market and library, etc. Or take a short bus. One would never be lonely, even if frequently alone.
Where is that you live, that makes it so you cannot leave?
Elizabeth, I don’t want to leave because there’s something about the place that makes me feel as if I’ve returned to the land of my childhood. I’ve never been VERY far away, only moved from one part of Southern California to another, but this place – just a little old blue collar town called Hemet – makes me happy. The mountains around me, the air quality, the fact that I know so many people in this part of the state…I feel grounded here. My house must have great feng shui because I feel at peace here. Plus family is nearby, which is important for my mental health. Long answer, TMI.
My husband is a farmer. He now works mainly in the spring and fall for our older son, who owns and operates the family farm.
Our two sons and their young families live nearby…one family lives just down the road and the other family is five miles away. Our four grandchildren range in age from 5.5 years to 7 days old.
We were in the process of building a custom home 36 years ago, at the same time I was pregnant for our first child. When we envisioned, discussed and planned our “dream home”…it was designed to be a good place to raise children (who were still twinkles in their father’s eye at the time)…and then as a home where we could grow old together.
So, where we are today is trying to figure out how to take an “aging dream home” and turn it into a “dream home for aging.”
This process of envisioning, discussing and planning is every bit as exciting and engaging as it was 40 years ago.
Love it, Sue! Exactly. It’s so exciting. One of the best things about being this age is having the blinders come off: we are so used to thinking a certain way that we don’t realize the freedom we have to think differently. Have fun with your challenge!