Retirement, an empty old life?

Honora is a retired professional, aged 68, who has lived independently in a city apartment block for most of her life and expected to see out her days there – until being home alone all day made her realize how lonely she was. Everyone else in the block was half her age and still working, and when an old friend offered her a share in a group home she was forced to do some hard thinking.

“Never before in my life had I experienced loneliness, and I when it hit me I thought it was depression or Alzheimer’s,” confided Honora. “It never occurred to me, being a self-sufficient independent woman all of my life that this aching in my soul, this mindlessness, this questioning my reason for living, was due to loneliness.”

“Loneliness is something none of us ever think about while we are working,” says Honora. “It just doesn’t enter our minds because if anything we are so overloaded by people all day that we just can’t wait to get back to the peace and quiet of our solitary homes, and as result of this people overload we limit our time with friends, too.”

“Retirement, for me, meant more time for myself and a little more time to spend with my friends doing things together,” says Honora, “but as things turned out it became increasingly difficult to make plans with friends, some of whom were still working, and I ended up being totally alone and isolated, speaking to nobody other than store clerks, for months on end.”

“Finally, I got together with a girlfriend I hadn’t seen for many years and discovered that she was experiencing the same feelings as I was,” says Honora. “It was a relief to know that I wasn’t going mad – I was just lonely – and when she suggested that we sell our small apartments and buy a big house to accommodate other lonely old ladies, I was both excited at her idea, but terrified, too.”

“It’s been six months now since she first proposed buying a group home together and I still haven’t made up my mind,” says Honora. “In that time, we’ve been out looking at suitable houses and while she gushes at every place we visit, picturing how wonderful it will be to live with other old ladies and how much money we are going to have to throw around, I see only potential problems.”

“Finally, I put all my misgivings down on a spreadsheet, the pros and cons of each place we visited, and it only made sense when I included my own place in the mix,” says Honora. “My own place was miles ahead of the others in all respects except for two – company and money.”

“We have looked at 39 houses, half of which were clearly unsuitable, but I included them in the spreadsheet to give a clearer picture of what suited us.”

“Financially and socially, what my friend proposes makes a lot of sense,” says Honora, “but being reasonably financially secure right now, and not being particularly materialistic, having a load of money to throw around does not appeal to me as a good enough reason to sell up.”

“Actually, taking all things into consideration, the only good reason for me to sell up would be to ease my loneliness, but in doing so I would incur a whole lot of ‘cons’ that I don’t have now – such as distance from all of the wonderful amenities that are now just a short walk away from my doorstep (shops, parks, theatres, medical centers, etc).”

“Also, spending so much time with my friend has been pleasant but it has also been a bit exhausting,” laughs Honora. “She is a lot more positive than I am, and that is good for our friendship, but I really have misgivings about actually living with her and the other old ladies she is rustling up to go into the venture with us.”

“She assures me that a group home of about five old ladies living together would halve our burdens and double our joys, and maybe she is right,” says Honora. “Not having any health problems I haven’t really thought about old age, and while I can appreciate her argument about it being better that we look after each other rather than ending up in one of those commercial retirement places, it defeats the purpose of the venture if we have to move as far out of town as those places to do so.”

“The independent streak in me has now become a bit of a curse because although realizing that it leads to depressive loneliness in old age, I am probably going to choose this as a lesser evil over the many problems inherent in the scenario my friend has in mind.”

“If bowing out of the scheme means the end of our friendship, then I’ll suffer more depressive loneliness than ever,” sighs Honora, “but knowing the nature of my problem, having insight, means that I can take steps to help myself – maybe do volunteer work, join a club or something, anything to bring people and meaning into what has become, unfortunately, my empty old life.”