Reading the recent letters on retirement living can I suggest that there is ‘retirement’ and ‘future retirement’.
The first relates to leaving your job and enjoying life without work but staying in your own home. The second relates to the rest of your life; what you don’t want, what you do want!
What I don’t want is to:-
- lose control of my life by giving it to Social Services or even my family
- put my worries on to my children and become a burden
- to end up in a care home or nursing home – if possible
What I want is quite a long list and of course it would vary from person to person. But basically I can sum up my list as follows:-
- a home for life, help increasing as need increases, no white coats, neighbourliness, security and your own front door for the private times.
As always, nirvana is the ‘will of a wisp’ which is hard to grasp but I don’t want to sleep walk into a care home or nursing home, however nice they may look.
I feel that being part of a community based in the community, where the retirement complex attracts and facilitates the meeting of the age groups would contribute to successful ageing and the enhancement of a longer life.
The Humanitas ‘Apartments for Life’ complexes in Holland are an example of such schemes but how do you find or set up something like that?
Your June ‘letter of the month’ shows that retirees are wanting to take control of their retirement and that is what we should do – it’s our life!
Ian R Hooper
Barry
