Growing older is tricky.

Bill and I have been hard workers throughout our lives and more generous than most with our resources.  So, why do I feel self-indulgent spending a month in Florida and walking on the beach daily in my “retirement”….which isn’t even total retirement?

I love being here and being near one of my daughters and her family.  I have not been unproductive here.  I have made drapes for their new house, recovered a chair for one of the girls’ bedrooms, had them over for dinner, worked on the short stories I have been writing, colored eggs with the granddaughters, made peanut butter eggs with them, shown them how to do a craft with beads, helped with their costumes for “Night at the Museum” and dabbled in miscellaneous other things.

But, I have been here three weeks and I am starting to feel like I have withdrawn from my “normal” life and abdicated from some of my usual responsibilities.  I have toyed with the idea of spending more than a month here, but I’m beginning to wonder how I would handle that.  I apparently do not have the correct mental attitude to be a “snow bird.”

Over the years, I have observed people in retirement years seemingly enjoying being less active and less connected in their lifelong community and establishing a peripheral presence in both that community and one in a more favorable climate.  I must not be suited to peripheral involvement.  When I go to church here and learn of a need, I think to myself, “I could help with that!  Oh, wait a minute, I’m only here for 2 more weeks!”

Of course, there is also the issue that I have had a sense recently from some younger people, that I am “old” and my ideas dated and not worth considering.  Not that anyone has said that in so many words, but a couple of months ago, I made an attempt at a give and take conversation with a younger person and felt like everything I said was dismissed.   Come on!  I’m in my seventies, but my hair isn’t even gray yet!  My brain has not withered up inside my skull.

So, what am I looking at down the road?  Will I be able to remain active and involved and have the blessing of dropping dead in my tracks?  I really don’t want to sit in a rocker in the nursing home lounge staring out the window.  Can I content myself with something in the middle…such as reading writing, and daily walks on the beach?

This growing older thing is tricky!