ER Eddie
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2013
- Messages
- 1,794
Social support has been the concern for me, since I moved to Vermont only two+ years ago to live with my sweetie. In my two months of retirement, I've had some great experiences. One, we met a woman when we bought a wood stove from her. She retired a year ago, early, and we are close in age. We had made a lowball offer on the stove and she accepted, but we couldn't live with ourselves, since it was worth 40% more and she was such a great person. I went back to her house and gave her 20% more, and we kept in touch. Now that I've retired, we've gotten together a couple of times. She has been in Vermont for years, but moved to this town to be close to her grandson, whom she cares for a couple days a week.
My other happy social experience was learning of a women's group in town that meets to organize for progress around some local issues. A current concern is the town center village, which is close to the river, and isn't served by either a water or sewer system. Grant-writing for water testing ensues. We also did a political postcard-writing campaign, and are helping behind the scenes to get Old Home Days revived in our tiny town (pop. 666). A group of women, many close to my age, with similar values, getting together for potlucks. Perfect!
I'm also going to get a mid-week pass to ski at Okemo, where most of my ski friends ski, in addition to the pass DH and I have to Killington.
So, a big surprise in the first two months for me was developing some new relationships isn't going to be that hard! I'm also working on reviving an old hobby, singing in groups that do shape-note singing (early American liturgical music). I was interrupted by the bad surprise, described below.
A non-surprise was that I would love working in the gardens (two huge flower gardens and three raised-bed vegetable gardens). The bad surprise was that, as idyllic as our place looks, if you let down your guard on tick precautions, you might end up in the hospital with sepsis from anaplasmosis, one of the less well-known tick-borne diseases. I'm still weak but doing better, thanks.
DH, who is younger and not quite in a position to retire yet, is jealous. But we seem to be working it out. All it took was for him to take a week off here and there to work on our house and barn, instead of someone else's. Now if I can get him to take a week off for an actual vacation . . .
ETA: Eddie, I wanted to say, it's been fun trailing along behind you on these threads. I appreciate your self-reflection and it prompts me to put my own into words.
Thanks.
I like that you're getting involved in your small town. Someone should have a baby, so we can get that population number of 666 shifted, though, lol.
I wanted to let you know I saw a study recently that showed that retirees who live in less populous areas (e.g., smaller cities and rural areas) are happier than those who live in larger cities. That's presumably because of the sense of community that can develop in smaller cities, the sense of ease and friendliness, relative lack of stress/traffic/crowds, and having some distance from the lunacy that infects larger cities.
I've found that to be true in my own life, and it's one reason I'm staying put in my own little city. I think it's a great idea, to find a small city you like and plant yourself there. Sounds like you've found one.
I have also found socializing a lot easier than I expected. I'm actually feeling pretty introverted right now because over the past week or so, I've been doing a lot of social stuff (a lot for me, that is). I need to hide and recharge for a while, heh...
Last edited: