Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: Questions re senior cohousing

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Mar 18, 2005, at 4:07 PM, <normangauss [at] charter.net> wrote:

> The scenario painted of all seniors aging and becoming more dependent
> simultaneously is not realistic.  There are younger seniors and there 
> are
> older seniors.
> Some seniors are vigorous and others are not.  Sometimes, an older 
> senior
> can help another older senior if one is more able to render assistance.

And the younger people also have a ton of chronic illnesses and 
inabilities. Really, with new baby care, chronic fatigue syndrome, 
allergies, career collapses, dyslexic children, torn ligaments, and 
studying for the bar or whatever, the younger residents have far more 
"black-out" periods than the older. The appearance of youth is 
deceiving.

I think one of the misperceptions may come from older people looking 
older -- the infirmity shows or appears to be much greater than it is. 
We move slower. We have scars or weirdly moving parts. But these 
actually don't mean anything in terms of care needed or inability to do 
what needs to be done. We may not be climbing ladders but who many 
people do you need to climb ladders?

Life gets simpler as you get older. You learn how to do it with less 
sturm and drang. There is less downtime, not more. I recently realized 
that I rarely take day off. Without a five day week, set weekend times, 
or children who demand a trip to the zoo, I work everyday. I love it. 
But I don't say that to the young people -- they think that is weird.

While I think infirmities and illnesses and life complications are 
things a community has to think seriously about, I don't think it is 
preponderantly related to any specific age. Each age has different 
problems.

Sharon
-----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org