By Ann Burnside Love
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At a retirement community, someone else cleans my apartment regularly, changes my bed linen, and recycles my newspapers. (If this sounds wonderful, it is.) After certain breaks in health, I really can’t do many of these things. And I’m most grateful for their services because they allow me time to continue my professional career at the level I do.
• At Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and more holidays, our kitchen staff throws banquets for us so delicious that family members love to come. Thus I still have a turn in the family cycle for holiday entertaining.
• Vanessa, the cat, is happy here, has engraved all her habits, wishes and desires upon my brain, and she hasn’t yet climbed from my balcony to the roof, as others’ cats have.
• When my garbage disposal broke down, all I had to do was phone maintenance and it was fixed by the next day.
• Someone else clears my car of snow and ice before I go out.
• When the weather is bad, I just walk the inside corridors to see my friends, exercise, attend an event, or stop into the art room to decide what I’ll do next.
• Also, when the weather is bad or I don’t feel up to par, I have my routine for turning on lights and music, brewing a pot of green tea and settling in to write another blog or newspaper editorial page column.
• My apartment is light, bright, airy, comfortable, and looks out over the bocce ball court, walking paths and the woods beyond.
• When I don’t feel well, there’s always a nurse to come help, if necessary.
• I can bank right here in the building, and we may also have safety deposit boxes.
• The front desk takes care of all my incoming packages as well as my outgoing ones.
• There are three smaller libraries in my building, in addition to the main one. When I get off the elevator on my floor, there’s a library right there where the latest fiction and non-fiction books are always displayed.
• When I feel like driving, which is most of the time, I can help out friends who need help with errands.
• I have transportation to doctors and errands when I don’t feel like driving.
• In a storm, I’m safe and my children know it.
• In a power outage, the community I live in switches on the generators.
• I can sign up for the community bus trips to theaters, concerts, movies, eating out, touring and much more
• I can work out in the gym or swim indoors — and then cross the hall to have my hair done.
• There are dozens of ways to volunteer (and get to know people!) right here. Currently, I’m chairing the Food Committee.
•I can have food delivered right to my room—anything from the dining room menu.
Hurrah!— and warmest thanks to all the “someone elses” in my life, who tackle things I can’t or would much rather not. Together they make my life clean, tasty, healthy, safe, interesting, eventful and fun.
You, too, can fashion a rewarding life for yourself that meets both your physical and quality of life needs.
Carry on!
