Intentions vs. Actions when Getting Older

[fassmac]

Although I intend to ER in a few years, this post is about my parents who retired in their 50s and are now in their late 70s, early 80s.

Upon ER my parents had a very sound plan for their retirement including to investigate CCRC options throughout Germany; my parents both live there. Their plan was to sell their house and move into a CCRC facility in their 70s.

However, when the time came, they were more than reluctant to execute this plan. Instead, they suffered through multiple years of grocery shopping via bicycle, taking care of yard work and living/managing an oversized house; not to mention the awfully dangerous concrete staircase connecting the floors. To my siblings and I it was clear, the CCRC plan was abandoned, due to the fear of change, the concern of downsizing and loosing "precious" possessions and a general lethargy towards change.

It took significant "convincing" and "pressure" to guide my parents back onto their original plan. They finally agreed and have lived in a CCRC place for over two years now. They love it! They now live in a large city, with great public transportation. My mom often goes to the theater, she doesn't need to cook anymore and the grocery store is just 5 minutes by foot. My dad has a huge public park to enjoy and the car stays in the parking garage for months at a time.

Looking forward to my own retirement, I am concerned I may behave just as "illogical" when my time comes.

What is your experience? Any tips "up-front"?

 

[38Chevy454]

I think you are probably right, fear of change. I also think for a lot of older people, they fear giving up independence. While living in a CCRC at first has lot of freedom and independence, the thought is there for the eventual downgrade.

Also hard to notice slow changes in yourself, but others can see it. Especially in OP's situation where parents were away and not seen on regular basis.

 

[Amethyst]

Downsizing and living in close quarters is the issue for us. We like company of our choosing, not what's forced on us by circumstance.

Also, my impression of the old ladies who live in the nearby retirement communities (and invade the local theater in gaggles on Sundays) is that their entire conversational store consists of gossip and grandkids. I would probably be unpopular and ostracized the moment I let an idiosyncratic syllable out of my mouth.

Edit to add: In later life, it would be despair to have to pretend to like what everybody likes and think what everybody thinks, at every meal, all day long, with only a little room to escape to. It would be like being condemned to re-live seventh grade until death.

 

[Sunset]

Although I intend to ER in a few years, this post is about my parents who retired in their 50s and are now in their late 70s, early 80s.

Upon ER my parents had a very sound plan for their retirement including to investigate CCRC options throughout Germany; my parents both live there. Their plan was to sell their house and move into a CCRC facility in their 70s.

However, when the time came, they were more than reluctant to execute this plan. Instead, they suffered through multiple years of grocery shopping via bicycle, taking care of yard work and living/managing an oversized house; not to mention the awfully dangerous concrete staircase connecting the floors. To my siblings and I it was clear, the CCRC plan was abandoned, due to the fear of change, the concern of downsizing and loosing "precious" possessions and a general lethargy towards change.

It took significant "convincing" and "pressure" to guide my parents back onto their original plan. They finally agreed and have lived in a CCRC place for over two years now. They love it! They now live in a large city, with great public transportation. My mom often goes to the theater, she doesn't need to cook anymore and the grocery store is just 5 minutes by foot. My dad has a huge public park to enjoy and the car stays in the parking garage for months at a time.

Looking forward to my own retirement, I am concerned I may behave just as "illogical" when my time comes.

What is your experience? Any tips "up-front"?

Thanks, OP for bringing this up.... I've never really considered it too much, but thinking of some 85 and a 91 yr old relatives, I can see this playing out right now.

How they struggle to manage in their own homes, like putting a bed in the living-room as the stairs are too hard to go up and down.

Worse is they are, due to age, not computer savvy, and not really mobile, so investigating options is extremely hard to impossible for them, which I sure leads them to dismiss the idea entirely, if they are even aware of the choices in the first place.

I guess for myself, this is something I should plan out and investigate before I get too old to even check stuff out, and make good decisions.

 

[Mdlerth]

I don't have the right answer. My parents did a poor job of preparing for their old-old age. No copy of a will, no AMDs, assets randomly scattered about all over God's half-acre. They clung to a house* they couldn't maintain rather than move to one of a selection of luxurious assisted living homes. Their inability to thrive on their own accelerated their physical and mental decline to the point they are no longer healthy enough to be admitted to AL.

After months of 911 calls to the local emergency room, the hospital would no longer release them except to a skilled nursing facility. It's adequate, not nearly as nice as the AL places they could have gone if they hadn't been so ornery. They won't ever leave that place other than to meet their Maker. It's unfortunate, but too late to do anything else.

No doubt a big factor was they were suffering age-related cognitive issues for a lot longer than my sibs and I knew. We all live hundreds of miles away, so we'd see Mom and Dad only once or twice a year. When regular contact was limited to phone calls, they proved expert at covering up their declining health.

Their unwillingness to take a few practical steps when they were still mostly lucid created a huge amount of extra confusion and distress for their kids. The one positive I can draw from their example is that DW and I are getting our own act together. I am determined not to leave such a steaming pile to my own children.

* - The most frustrating aspect of this was they didn't even like that house. Their first retirement home was their dream house, a custom-built chalet on a mountain peak surrounded by woods with magnificent vistas. But eventually the hills got to be too steep, so they sold it and moved into a far more modest house in an ordinary neighborhood. They spent the next decade pining for the mountain house. I intend to plan a little differently so when change comes I won't be intimidated by it.

 

[Hermit]

You mean live in close proximity to other people !?!?

I am building my house on a hill top, not a mountain top, but it has great views. All living essentials including the washer and dryer are on the main level. The stairs are straight so if needed, a lift would be easy to install.

When I first started the planning/building process, my daughter asked me if I was going to be ornery about coming down from the mountains when the time came. I told her I understood it might not be forever. Later, after spending some time up here, I told her I changed my mind and she would have to drag me out of here kicking and screaming all the way.

I do like living here, but in reality, DD has all the keys. We have talked about when she sees I am slipping to the point where I need assistance and can no longer live full time up here, she will help me relocate probably to assisted living. She will also help with the financial decisions when I need that help too. All the legal documents have been put together with this plan in mind.

 

[pb4uski]

It is a fear of change thing. I saw it with my grandmother and my mother and aunts complaining on how unreasonable gram was being in not moving into assisted living and that they were never going to be like that. Now they are all in their 80s and moving to assisted living isn't close to being on the radar... admittedly, they are all doing fairly well living on their own in the homes that they have had for years.

For me, when the time comes, I think that I will be fine with it other than perhaps moving into assisted living will be an implicit admission that I'm old.... but having a nice little apartment with a kitchenette and being able to go down to the dining room for meals doesn't sound terrible to me.

 

[Walt34]

For me, when the time comes, I think that I will be fine with it other than perhaps moving into assisted living will be an implicit admission that I'm old.... but having a nice little apartment with a kitchenette and being able to go down to the dining room for meals doesn't sound terrible to me.

When I got my Medicare card in the mail that was my official curmudgeon card so I'm already used to being old.

We saw it with my mother and DW's father. My mother went into a CCRC and it worked out great for her but she was very social and engaged in many if not most of the social activities. FIL was afraid of the CCRC and regarded it as the 1960's style nursing home (give you a bed, a TV remote, and wait to die type place) which it most definitely was not, but he couldn't see it for the fear.

Both of us agree that FIL would have been much better off in the CCRC. He was also very social, but declining funds and driving ability, and later when he couldn't drive at all, kept him isolated in his suburban type home that he refused to think about leaving until he was physically forced to by health issues.

That's why we're on a waiting list for a CCRC. Hopefully that's another ten years or so out but there will come a time when this house is too much work for us to keep.

 

[Mdlerth]

When I first started the planning/building process, my daughter asked me if I was going to be ornery about coming down from the mountains when the time came. I told her I understood it might not be forever. Later, after spending some time up here, I told her I changed my mind and she would have to drag me out of here kicking and screaming all the way.

+1

When my folks retired 25 years ago, moving from a large, crowded city to the mountains was a great, wonderful, pioneering adventure. Clean air, no traffic, just the sounds of nature wafting along with the breeze. it was a bucolic paradise, with raptors and deer and bears in the yard. Their driveway was a mile long, but if a tree fell across it (a common occurrence in the woods), no problem; that's why they kept a chainsaw in the back of the truck! Both of them were in good health and up for the rigors of country life. It's no wonder they regretted having to leave their mountain.

But tasks that were physically demanding at 60 became physically overpowering at 75. Also, their memory loss advanced steadily, but of course they never noticed it because they were losing their memory.

Still, they got 15 good years in before the not-so-good ones. If I ever start adding OMYs, I hope someone here reminds me that every extra year at the sweatshop costs not just a year of retirement but it's one of the good years.

 

[aja8888]

What is your experience? Any tips "up-front"?

Yep, that's us. No plan for an old person's commune. And doing things like the gaggle of ladies mentioned above. We are too independent and want to stay that way. DW is 72 and I am 74.

Excerpt from Amethyst's post (emphasis mine):

Also, my impression of the old ladies who live in the nearby retirement communities (and invade the local theater in gaggles on Sundays) is that their entire conversational store consists of gossip and grandkids.

They don't talk about doctors, ailments, and treatments?

 

[RunningBum]

With my parents, it was more the opposite. My dad, especially, once he gets an idea in his mind, he gets impatient and wants to act on it. They put their name on a list at the independent living center they liked best, and things actually worked out well with selling their house when a floorplan they liked came available. My fear was that they were still relatively young and they might get bored of it before too long so I'd have thought they'd be better off waiting until there was more of a need for them to move out of their house. Dad did get a bit bored and frustrated (which would happen wherever he lives) and they've since moved into another place where they get all meals, rather than just a couple. Still probably not their last move as my mom may need a memory care unit eventually.

 

[Amethyst]

No doubt they do, but that doesn't bother me much except when it goes on and on and on.
Ailments and aches are something almost all of us have in common as we age.

It is not that I imagine I can live independently forever...it's that the alternatives are all just so awful. The "lovely" places are only lovely to visitors. In the end, you are stuck in a little room when you used to roam all over a whole house and yard decorated with things you love, and you are surrounded by people whose company you did not choose and who didn't choose you. And everything throughout the facility is relentlessly geared to the common-denominator, and I'm an outlier.

They don't talk about doctors, ailments, and treatments?

 

[RunningBum]

No doubt they do, but that doesn't bother me much except when it goes on and on and on.
Ailments and aches are something almost all of us have in common as we age.

It is not that I imagine I can live independently forever...it's that the alternatives are all just so awful. The "lovely" places are only lovely to visitors. In the end, you are stuck in a little room when you used to roam all over a whole house and yard decorated with things you love, and you are surrounded by people whose company you did not choose and who didn't choose you. And everything throughout the facility is relentlessly geared to the common-denominator, and I'm an outlier.

I hear that completely. As long as I'm mobile and clear minded I want to be on my own. If I get to where I can't really get around, I could make one of those places cozy enough, I hope, but I dread the thought of going down to the dining room and getting trapped at a table with people I truly don't want to eat with. So I don't think about it.

 

[Music Lover]

My parents are 80 and 75 and are living in the retirement home they built 25 years ago. Unfortunately, they built a bi-level (against my advice) and I worry daily in winter about them navigating the slippery outside stairs. Thankfully, I live down the street from them and can get there easily to help clear snow, but I really wish they would move to a place with easier and safer access.

On a good note, their financial affairs are 100% in order and a detailed list exists of all accounts, funds, passwords, assets, etc., and they have also started to get rid of extra stuff they no longer need both in the house and in garage.

 

[Amethyst]

What would happen to me, I'm sure, is that I would I would be able to squelch myself just so long...and then I'd end up PNG at the tables and would have to eat by myself in my little room If my room was a great big house full of art, books, and cats, I would not mind a bit, but that dinky little room....I have visited in too many of those, lately. They are all the same. Like little motel rooms. The same bed, night table, multi-photo frames on the wall, "comfortable" chair, durable floor covering....

I I dread the thought of going down to the dining room and getting trapped at a table with people I truly don't want to eat with. .

 

[Nemo2]

I hear that completely. As long as I'm mobile and clear minded I want to be on my own. If I get to where I can't really get around, I could make one of those places cozy enough, I hope, but I dread the thought of going down to the dining room and getting trapped at a table with people I truly don't want to eat with. So I don't think about it.

L'enfer, c'est les autres ........Jean-Paul Sartre. (Another reason we always eat at the buffet on ships rather than at a fixed table in the dining room.)

 

[RunningBum]

What would happen to me, I'm sure, is that I would I would be able to squelch myself just so long...and then I'd end up PNG at the tables and would have to eat by myself in my little room If my room was a great big house full of art, books, and cats, I would not mind a bit, but that dinky little room....I have visited in too many of those, lately. They are all the same. Like little motel rooms. The same bed, night table, multi-photo frames on the wall, "comfortable" chair, durable floor covering....

My parents have a separate bedroom along with a reasonable size living room adjacent to a small kitchen with room for a table. There are some studios, but some are even 2 BRs, so most are not like hotel rooms at all, and they brought their own furnishings. I'm pretty confident I'll have enough money not to need to live in a single small room.

 

[Moemg]

What would happen to me, I'm sure, is that I would I would be able to squelch myself just so long...and then I'd end up PNG at the tables and would have to eat by myself in my little room If my room was a great big house full of art, books, and cats, I would not mind a bit, but that dinky little room....I have visited in too many of those, lately. They are all the same. Like little motel rooms. The same bed, night table, multi-photo frames on the wall, "comfortable" chair, durable floor covering....

My Mom's apartment in an independent living facility was a nice size .Decent sized living Room, small kitchen , small dinette ,patio and a large bedroom and bath with lots of storage . She only went to the dining room for one meal . The rest she ate in her apartment or went out to eat with a friend . She loved to play cards and was quite the card shark at 98 .All the furniture was hers so it was really personalized.She read continuously .My sisters & I all visited her and slept on a pull out couch while she lived there .She was very happy and content .What was funny when a guy moved in it upset the delicate balance .It reminded me of dorm living .

 

[audreyh1]

I think loneliness is a major issue for the very elderly, and communal living is a great solution.

I guess I'm not too worried about conformity, as orneriness and eccentricity are generally accepted in elderly.

I also plan to move somewhere where the daily chores are taken care of.

It is very interesting reading about folks who had this intent, but dragged their feet. Definitely there is a point at which making this transition is overwhelming without a child doing it for you.

I hope we time it well.

 

[audreyh1]

It is a fear of change thing. I saw it with my grandmother and my mother and aunts complaining on how unreasonable gram was being in not moving into assisted living and that they were never going to be like that. Now they are all in their 80s and moving to assisted living isn't close to being on the radar... admittedly, they are all doing fairly well living on their own in the homes that they have had for years.

For me, when the time comes, I think that I will be fine with it other than perhaps moving into assisted living will be an implicit admission that I'm old.... but having a nice little apartment with a kitchenette and being able to go down to the dining room for meals doesn't sound terrible to me.

It sounds pretty good to me too. I don't want to hassle with that crap when I'm in my 80s.

From reading various threads it's clear to me that by age 80 I had better have picked out where I want to be. Sounds like many folks make that transition in their early 80s.

 

[foxfirev5]

Darn sure DW and I will fight "it as long as we can". Isn't that normal?

 

[audreyh1]

My Mom's apartment in an independent living facility was a nice size .Decent sized living Room, small kitchen , small dinette ,patio and a large bedroom and bath with lots of storage . She only went to the dining room for one meal . The rest she ate in her apartment or went out to eat with a friend . She loved to play cards and was quite the card shark at 98 .All the furniture was hers so it was really personalized.She read continuously .My sisters & I all visited her and slept on a pull out couch while she lived there .She was very happy and content .What was funny when a guy moved in it upset the delicate balance. It reminded me of dorm living .

That sounds great, and like I'd hope it to be. And wow - active until 98!

At Dad's assisted living it's smaller bedrooms and bath, no kitchenette. But he was 86 when he moved in and had stopped cooking for himself, and had just stopped driving. He's been quite content. He enjoys joining others for meals, but also enjoys the privacy of his own room, and feels pampered by the cleaning and laundry. And we brought in and bought furniture for his room as well as using a couple of pieces they had available. He was delighted with the "nest" created for him.

That small home (16 rooms) has often been only women, so he was the first man for a while. But now there are a couple of other men, including a one of a married couple sharing a room.

 

[audreyh1]

Darn sure DW and I will fight "it as long as we can". Isn't that normal?

I think it's common. Most folks were shocked when my Dad announced that he wasn't going to drive anymore, so we needed to move him someplace and would tell us how lucky we were that he initiated the change. Us kids weren't particularly shocked, but we had to scramble.

 

[audreyh1]

Upon ER my parents had a very sound plan for their retirement including to investigate CCRC options throughout Germany; my parents both live there. Their plan was to sell their house and move into a CCRC facility in their 70s.

One issue may have been 70s is still a bit young to move into such a place unless you have some health problems limiting you. Very late 70s to 80s is more common.

But obviously you need to have done the research and picked out the place before then. I hope to get serious about research and planning at 75, but not expect to transition until 80, although that might be pushing it for DH - we'll have to see.

 

[audreyh1]

What would happen to me, I'm sure, is that I would I would be able to squelch myself just so long...and then I'd end up PNG at the tables and would have to eat by myself in my little room If my room was a great big house full of art, books, and cats, I would not mind a bit, but that dinky little room....I have visited in too many of those, lately. They are all the same. Like little motel rooms. The same bed, night table, multi-photo frames on the wall, "comfortable" chair, durable floor covering....

I think you imagine things are worse than they have to be. There are a wide variety of facilities available, including independent houses. Things can be very nice. The more $$ you have to spend, the nicer they can be.