Never have I ever had a conversation about moving into a retirement home. When you are young there are plenty of future dreams and aspirations about all manner of things from starting a family to awesome vacations and even retirement, but never have I ever said to my wife, “someday we should move into an Old Folks Home”. But then you start getting older and realize you’ve lived your life and the best parts are over and it’s all downhill to the finish line.

For many folks of a certain age a decision like this is made for them. Health issues usually dictate such things. While my own health is something less than one-hundred percent it remains pretty darned good, so far as I know. I mean, had I known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself, but at the moment, I have no issues. On the other hand, the trajectory of my wife’s health is not nearly as good and it’s become a consideration for the future.

Our life plan has always been to raise a family and then grow old together, extracting as much enjoyment out of life as possible. That implied we would fashion a home and then, after the kids were all gone, we would enjoy what we had built while slowly easing into old age. But along this journey I’ve noticed that life used to give us a lot, especially when we were younger. As we’ve grown older, life seems to be taking more from us than it gives.

Anyway, this all came up when I was visiting a friend who is the same age as me and we were commiserating about life and he simply asked if I had ever considered moving into some sort of retirement place some day where things like meals might be optional. Truthfully, I had never once considered that option. Though the idea of meals being prepared by someone other than me, the grocery shopping being done by someone other than me, the lawn being mowed by someone other than me, the snow being shoveled by someone other than me, appliances being repaired by someone other than me, the drains being unclogged by someone other than me all sounds pretty good.

But what would become of my lifelong addiction to amateur radio in such a confined environment? I spent some time thinking about that too. Remote operation doesn’t appeal to me and I suppose my radio activity would of necessity become all portable. Carry it in the car and drive to different places to operate. I could probably be happy with that though it would be restricted to fair weather. In other words, ham radio would consume a much smaller slice of my life than it does right now and I don’t care much for the thought of that.

From what I have observed, the older you get, the less input you have in many of these kinds of decisions so I guess I am open to thinking about it a little more.