A few weeks ago I took a short trip to visit my favorite aunt. She just moved from her big house into a small bungalow called a ‘villa’ in a senior living facility. Her little house ajoins with another little house on a circular hill alongside fifty others. There are also apartments in the “towers” where the restaurants, gym, pool and other ammenities are housed.
On the afternoon I arrived we went went for a walk to see the grounds and then to an early dinner followed by a movie in the auditorium. At one of the two restaurants, we sat among a sea of white-haired people — some sitting alone, some in groups of two and still others at four-tops sharing a meal with friends or another couple.
A teenage boy named Kaleb took our orders — my aunt got the sol and I got a hamburger and, as she told me more about her first few weeks in her new home, she interrupted herself several times to smile and wave or say hello to someone walking by. A few older women stopped at our table and asked my aunt how she was settling in. My aunt beamed, “Great,” she said, “everyting is wonderful. This is my neice Laura.”
After dinner we went to a movie where we sat among fifty older people. The man behind us spoke loudly throughout the movie which was slightly irritating. My aunt turned around in silent warning a few times but he never stopped. My aunt and I smiled at each other. It was okay, just part of the milieu.
I found myself surprised at my easy aunt’s acceptance of her new environment. I grew up fearing the inevitabilty of aging. I’ve always understood that getting older leads to less productivity, efficiency and competence. And so, even though I don’t consider myself ageist, as I sat with my aunt at dinner, I knew I was agest because I could see so clearly that she wasn’t. I shamefully recognized that, for myself, in assigned a negative label to getting older, chosing to live in a ‘senior living facility’ would be an admission of some kind of defeat.
As we sat at dinner I wondered in my aunt felt embarrassed to be among all of these ‘old’ people. Though my aunt is nearly 80, I don’t think of her as old. She’s incredibly fit. She plays in a violin quartet. She kayaks, takes classes at the university and cooks. She has a long-distance boyfriend and travels all over the world. I wondered if she felt like she’d given up something to place herself in this environment intentionally, willingly.
Several years ago my friend Kate I started, Put Some Claws in Your Pause, a group to create activities, including a three-day retreat, for women in menopause. I recognized, as my body moved into menopause, that it would feel good to be around other women in the same situation. When Kate and I started the group, we got lots of honest feedback, “The last thing I want to spend my free time doing is being around a bunch of other middle-aged women talking about how our bodies are changing.”
People shared that being around a bunch of other ‘menopausal women’ would feel depressing and not empowering. I thought about this reaction as I listened to my aunt share the list of activities she was involved with and watched her delightfully greet her new friends. I had the same reaction to my aunt living in a senior community as many women had to going on a menopause retreat. I wondered if, at some point my aunt thought this transition would be depressing.
I asked my aunt how she felt being in this new community where everyone around her was old like her. “I love it,” she said, “the people here are wonderful. There’s always someone to go to dinner with or play Scrabble with. I joined group that knits hats for people who don’t have homes and I always have a friend.”
My aunt also shared that sometimes she eats alone in her house, that she always has the freedom to take a break from the community, but she’s very grateful that it’s there for the taking when she wants it.
A few days ago, I was talking to my daughter on the phone about a new boy she’s dating at college. “Mom, yesterday he told me the sweetest thing.” She continued on with admiration in her voice, “He’s really close to his grandma and during COVID he’d just walk around the neighborhood talking to older people, getting to know them and hearing their life stories. He really loves old people.”
I shared how sweet and kind I thought that was and checked some kind of invisible approval box on my mother-approval checklist. But what I was mostly struck by is how unusual it is to hear this about a young adult. What young adult loves old people?
In this culture, we make it very hard to love old people because in our Capitalistic myopia, all we can see is that being old means being ‘less-than’ — less fast-moving, less productive, less sharp, less attractive.
The two days I spent at my aunts senior villa were peaceful and calm and connecting. Everyone we saw smiled and waved. One woman said, “Everyday is like being on a cruise.” I know there must be residents who are unhappy, but the general vibe I got is that the people who choose that life are happy.
Every year when we do our menopause retreat, when we come together in community to share our stories with other older women, it is life-changing. Every year Kate and I say, “this is going to be our last year doing this retreat because it’s just too much work.” But when it’s over we sign on again. Being in community with other older women who also choose to be there is joyful, empowering and nurturing.
This is what I saw in my aunt. She chose to move to a community with other old people. She chose it because she doesn’t disdain it. She’s somehow liberated from that oppressive lens of ageism that pervades our society. What makes my aunt’s situation wonderful is that she loves herself as an old woman and so she loves all the other old women and men around her. She’s happy to be in their presence.
As I watched my aunt move gracefully into and through her new life, I made a note to myself to take a lesson from this.
Getting older is an inevitability and we get to chose how we do it. Trying to be young, keeping up with what used to be, is one way to do it. Intentionally creating a space for aging is another way.
The efficient villa will likely be my aunt’s last home. To prepare for her move she cleared out rooms and rooms of furniture and an entire attic of storage. She kept only the things she really wanted. Everything else went to her kids and grandkids, to people in need, or the Goodwill.
Now she lives in her simple villa free of trinkets and knick-knacks. She eats her meals sometimes with others and sometimes alone. She still travels and plays music and learns new things. She’s amazing. I don’t know if one day I’ll chose to live in a senior living community like my aunt. I’m not there yet.
What I understand now is that, as I get older and possibly need to transition to a new home someday, it won’t be the place that matters the most. It will be my perspective.
My weekend at the senior living facility was eye-opening. Like most Americans, I stereotype and dismiss older people. I am ageist. I imagined, before I visited my aunt that her new home would be depressing. In my mind, I put older people in a box marked ‘other’ so that I could avoid my eventual arrival at that destination.
But I am getting older. I’m one step behind my aunt. Right now I’m in menopause. My next phase is old age. I hope I can be like my aunt and love myself as much when I’m eighty as I’ve learned to love myself now.