We older people really do not need a cruise director to run our lives. We really don’t. This idea seems to run counter to every idea currently in vogue with those building institutions for the over 55 set. The advertisements for these places are filled with spritely looking older people, strolling down beaches holding hands. The women are all willowy and slender, and the men, although graying, have full heads of hair gently blowing in the wind. They will soon return to their condo/cottage/apartment where they will immediately be met with a determined staff of much younger people who will urge them unrelentingly to join the mahjong club, the choral group, the square dance club, or the pottery making group. Then there will be a happy hour at the bar followed by dinner where the smallest table will be a table for four. You don’t want to eat alone with your spouse, do you? Certainly not. Depression, lassitude and death will certainly follow if you do that.
There are certainly people for whom this list of activities is extremely inviting, and I am happy that they can take all the painting classes they want. But for those of us who were always content with a more introspective life, it seems as if old age has forced a level of jollity on us that was never part of our lives. I always preferred dinner with one other couple over a party with lots of people. Now that I am approaching eighty, it does not mean that I suddenly long to play balloon volley ball in a barren rec room with a 30-year-old cheering on my pathetic efforts.
I hope that I am left to live a full active life for as long as I can. But I want to be able to define what that life looks like for myself. In my case it does not involve anyone with a metaphorical clipboard and whistle telling me how to do it.
