Time for a lifestyle change?

Do you remember the younger days when old friends would come to visit and spend the night? Hamburgers on the grill with maybe a beer or wine together. The saying would be, “the more the merrier”!

Fast forward to retirement…first 5 years are about doing fun things again with friends. If one of you become disabled, the other spouse may think “the more the merrier” means now; "how about 2 or 3 couples over for happy hour".

This has been our adjustment. We have always enjoyed entertaining but now with new demands for each other we need to rethink how to celebrate with our friends.

Our street has had four new couples move into our neighborhood. The housing market is going crazy. Old Kathy would have said, “let’s invite the block over so everyone can get to know each other”. New Kathy came up with the idea…” Hamburger Night at the Golf Club sounds like a plan”. Curly and I delivered the flyer invite, along with our email address for RSVP and the responses have been pouring in, Thursday night will be a success!

Covid has helped us through this. Most people in Arizona would like to be outside. The golf club can accommodate that, they do separate checks and just think no running to the liquor store, grocery store and planning all the food.

Moving Forward to the next lifestyle change…we have enjoyed having overnight guests. Since Curly’s stroke we needed to curtail that as well. The unwritten rule has changed to be, “I am truly sorry; however, we can no longer accommodate overnight guests.” Our immediate family still come, and we enjoy Curly’s brother, my sister and of course our daughters and their families.

We came to this by realizing it may take us a week to get ready for them, a week of enjoying them and then a week to rest up afterwards. Their visits were fun, but the recovery time became too long.

We have not given up our friendships but have found that people like to explore the area and enjoy meeting us for lunch or dinner at various restaurants.

Except for the above-mentioned family group, we found that running to the airport and playing tour guide was too taxing on us. We would be happy to share information of places to go, things to do and people to see however, we do have therapy and other commitments that we need to attend to. For most, rental cars, and a shuttle service maybe a better idea.

We love and treasure our friendships we have built through the years, and we also follow these rules when visiting friends which makes Moving Forward with Disabilities in Retirement a breeze.