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Active Adult Living Del Webb Communities Retirement

Miss Being Active

Even in retirement, it is quite a different lifestyle for us active retirees in this stay at home and social distancing environment.

Having lived in an active adult community for four years, my wife Mary Ann and I are used to having our schedules full. A day with an empty calendar was rare.

Now in the three months of stay at home, we have developed a slower routine, probably a lot like we would have been living if we had not moved to an Active Adult Community. But having experienced that active lifestyle, you can really appreciate it when it is removed.

Sure we still take our morning walks and talk with friends on the phone, but gone are the scheduled events, the activities we enjoyed like bocce, walking for fitness with friends, card games, having friends over to our house, going out to lunch and, of course, travel.

Instead after taking our walks, we read or listen to audio books, garden, nap, listen to music and maybe even talk a little more. I look forward to the evening meal with a large glass of red wine while watching our latest episode on Amazon Prime or Hulu. We are currently watching New Tricks and Shakespeare and Hathaway.

Now this is not a bad lifestyle and we are getting used to it. It seemed a little boring at first, then you kind of get used to it.

No one knows how long stay at home and social distancing will be needed so we may be at this for a while longer, but will this change us in the future?

It may be that we don’t fill our schedules so full that it’s almost like work to keep going full speed. Maybe it is time to slow down a little more.

The biggest thing we now miss is getting together with friends. We haven’t tried Zoom or Facetime yet, but that doesn’t sound like something that would appeal to us.

We also miss the travel. We usually take a three week trip every Summer and have canceled a scheduled July trip this year to Canada where I was going to race walk in the World Masters, then we had booked a tour of Quebec.

There is still plenty of advantages of living in an Active Adult Community even in this time of stay at home. We pass many friends walking on the streets in our community and our gated community feels like an oasis with our green spaces and lush landscaping.

Being in our 70’s, it’s best to make the most of each day and enjoy living while you can.

By Robert Fowler

Robert Fowler is President of Retirement Media Inc. and publisher of 55CommunityGuide.com. Robert and his wife Mary Ann live at Village at Deaton Creek, a Del Webb Community in North Georgia. Robert has visited many 55+ Active Adult Communities and blogs about Active Adult Community Living.