Fifty years ago, Room Draw over, we were thinking about where we would be living in the fall. We had conspired with friends to get the “best” room in the “best” dorm, with the people whose choices of music, room decor, and sleep schedules we found most amenable to our ideas of success. We could finally picture where we would spend our senior year.
Today many of us are thinking about where we will be spending our “senior years.” We may be finding our big houses too quiet, our stairs too hard to climb, our gardens too labor intensive, or our roofs in need of replacement—again! We ask ourselves, “What’s next? What kind of living arrangement meets my needs? What will help me make this next chapter of my life vibrant, meaningful, and fulfilling?”
As members of the Reunion Program Committee, Becca Brackett, Bill Lyons, and I have been pondering these questions and we wonder what others are thinking. What alternatives — from retirement communities that offer graduated levels of assistance to village cooperatives, multigenerational co-housing, or walkable city center condos to expatriation to distant places or other ideas — are people looking for? This fall, at our November virtual event, the Outreach Committee will host a conversation to begin exploring this topic. Start thinking about insights you can share and questions that you may have. Let us know, too, if you have ideas or know of resources we should throw into the mix (email wm.lyons@comcast.net). We look forward to fruitful conversations.
