Courtesy of Maureen Rubin.
- My husband and I were craving more space and amenities to fill our time with in our retirement.
- I hesitated to consider a retirement community, fearing dull, elderly neighbors.
- My new life is filled with vibrant, interesting people. I'm so glad I considered this lifestyle.
After being cooped up in our two-bedroom condominium for nearly two years during COVID, my husband and I craved space.
As retired professionals in our 70s, we considered moving to a retirement community with lots of amenities for us to enjoy. But we both feared it would be full of feeble, old, boring people.
We were so wrong.
We found a place worth checking out
In 2023, my husband of 45 years (48 now) and I were living in Los Angeles. We knew we wanted to stay in California, but craved a spot without the crowds and traffic. We hoped to be near a golf course and around interesting people and fun activities. Was that possible?
We Googled "retirement communities" and immediately rejected places too far north or too far south. We found a place on the Central Coast that fit our requirements. It was near San Luis Obispo, a college town with cool stores and restaurants. It was on a golf course, had a community center, and offered pickleball, tennis, quilting, Zumba, aqua aerobics, Pilates, mahjong, pottery, and yoga on a typical day. What more could we need?
Courtesy of Maureen Rubin.
We were told that evenings would be filled with happy hours with music, comedians, or lectures, and that they often hosted outdoor dances with live bands. There was also lots of wine tasting, since the community is so close to many wineries. We wanted to sample them all.
The community was lovely, but we were still hesitant
At the time, we were skeptical about our potential neighbors, but we decided to give it a try and signed a lease in 2023.
Luckily, our worries were short-lived. While the workers were still unloading boxes from the moving vans, Linda, a woman who lived on our block, knocked on our door and introduced herself. She invited us over for wine (I told you) and cheese, so we could meet her friends.
I lived next door to several people in Los Angeles for years and never even met them, but now I was meeting potential new friends on our first day in the neighborhood. This was unexpected.
Linda's meet-and-greet reminded us of our freshman year in college, where everyone is a little anxious to make new friends and try new things. My neighbors assured me that if I attended activities I enjoyed, I was sure to meet people with similar interests.
One of Linda's guests was a retired dentist who became a certified Zumba instructor after she stopped drilling teeth. Another invited me to join her book club, where I immediately bonded with other literature lovers. A different guest asked me if I wanted to join her gourmet cooking class. A fourth, who told us she used to be in the CIA, was starting a program to discuss current foreign policy issues each week and wanted to know if we would like to join.
We found out the community likes to give back
I was impressed by my new friends' commitment to giving back to their community, too. I found out that some neighbors tutored kids and gathered healthy food and clothes for low-income families. Others donated toys and prepared special meals for those in need. My husband and I pledged to help out where we could.
I started to realize that in our new home, we were surrounded by kind, friendly, like-minded people. We felt like we had won the retirement lottery. This community had not only what we were looking for, but was loaded with benefits we never even thought of.
I'm trying new things, and enjoying some of them
I was not successful at everything I tried in my new community. I took a pottery class, and my vase turned out lopsided and just plain ugly. After completing a beginner jewelry-making class, my fellow classmates headed to the intermediate—level class. The teacher suggested that I might want to repeat the beginner class. I declined.
Courtesy of Maureen Rubin.
I didn't like water aerobics because the water was freezing. And one pickleball game left me terrified of breaking an ankle or a hip. But there were so many other options, I didn't mind narrowing my scope.
All in all, I've learned that retirement communities can be a great, fun, and productive way to spend your senior years. I can't speak for all of them, but in mine, there are no toddering old bores. Instead, I'm surrounded by tons of vibrant, interesting, caring, and active people, and loads of things to do. I'm so glad I came around to this lifestyle.
We have been here three and a half years now, and we love it. We tell our LA friends and our kids about it, but most of them remain skeptical. That's their loss!