Although most of my clients have a positive attitude about their upcoming move, nearly every week I am faced with one who is either uncertain, angry, or downright scared. This letter is for them.
“Dear ________.
I noticed while walking through your home with you today that you are still somewhat uncertain about your upcoming move. The happy memories that you made while living in your house understandably make you sad to leave it. Try to remember that when you move, you’ll be able to take those memories with you, but you won’t have to take the high utility bills, the worn carpet, or the overgrown shrubbery. If you can remember that your ‘house’ is not your ‘life’, moving can be a way to keep the best parts and leave the rest behind.
You mentioned that you wonder if you are ‘making the right decision’ by moving to a retirement community. Although it’s often hard to know if a decision is the ‘right’ one, none of my clients have ever told me that they wished they had not moved. Many of them have told me that they wished that they had done it sooner, when they were more physically able, but none have ever said that they regretted it.
Of course, there will be adjustments–some major ones and some minor. One client was distressed at first to find that the dining room in her community did not offer her brand of sweetener for coffee. She solved the problem by taking her own packets to dinner. Another client found it unacceptable to share a smaller bathroom with her husband after moving from a house with a large master bath. We helped her set up a vanity area of her own, to give her some personal space. It isn’t as luxurious as her former space, but it works.
Sometimes it may seem as if moving to a place where you are living in a community setting instead of in a private home is a lot like the first day of school–you wonder what the people will be like, and if you will have any friends. You wonder if you will like the new apartment, and if it will ever seem like ‘home’. You wonder if you will be ‘happy’ there.
The best way to ensure that you can answer ‘yes’ to those questions is to go into the new lifestyle with a positive attitude and give it your best shot. I have found that the people who adjust to their new living arrangements the best are the ones who dive right in–the ones who participate in the activities that are offered, who get out and meet their new neighbors, and who look upon the new lifestyle as a different and interesting phase in their lives. The ones who sit in their new apartment and wonder why no one knocks on their door or calls them to ‘come out and play’ are destined to be unhappy. The ones who insist on hanging onto their old lifestyle and brooding over ‘what was’ are certain to be depressed. (and a side note, here–changing communities won’t solve this problem)
Another thing that I have discovered is that people are about as happy or content as they make up their minds to be. I have worked with people who had few obvious reasons to be happy–they had lost a spouse and/or child, had dire health problems, had financial worries–or in some cases, all of those. Oddly enough, these were often the ones most determined to be happy about what they had left. I have also worked with clients who had a loving family, plenty of money, and good health–and were also angry and bitter about being ‘forced’ into moving to a deluxe retirement community. While I understand that much of their anger stemmed from the perceived loss of control over their lives, I also know from experience that such an attitude only makes things worse in the long run.
Anyway. I just wanted to tell you that many of the things that you are uncertain about–the moving process itself, leaving your old place, and living in your new place–are the same things that others before you have feared . They have come through the process intact, and for the most part happily relieved at what they found. You can do it too.
Pamela
