Procrastination, overthinking, whatever you want to call it, is what I typically do. I recognize I overthink, in fact, I overthink about overthinking.
It’s time to make a decision! I have decided that I will stay where I am and will visit that decision on an annual basis. So, I am calling this place “Home”. It is where I will live now and for the foreseeable future. But, I can’t discount the possibility that I will discover the perfect place that will change everything. Continuing to live here is not a lack of action. In some ways, it is the epitome of action. It took a lot of thought and hard work to make this decision. Sometimes, it is just hard for me to admit that I got it right the first time. That’s part of overthinking too, I guess.
Over the past few months I have been finding ways to ameliorate the problems I think I have here in my present retirement community. Is it perfect? Of course, not but I am becoming a little happier here as each day passes.
The problems with the dining situation, which were a major part of my decision to look elsewhere, has at least partially been resolved. I have been working with the dining room manager and chef to make is easier for me to comfortably get my meals. I still want at least one other option for dining besides the sit down social-hour version but, that will wait on that for now. I hope that, sometime in the future when all this pandemic stuff is behind us and the dining room staffing problem is a thing of the past, to see a second option more compatible to my Aspie needs.
I have come to realize that most of my other life challenges have nothing to do with “where” I live. They are mainly things I have lived with for most of my life, or at least since my wife passed almost a year ago. I will continue to work on them individually to make my search for happiness a successful journey. It’s not over until it is over.
Now that all this drama is settled, I hope to get back to doing a more normal “My View Of The World” posts instead of “My View Of My World”. I hope I haven’t driven off too many of you who visit my blog regularly. I know all this stuff of the last few months has been pretty personal in nature, and I expect you are as tired of it as I am. So, starting tomorrow, you will hear more from me, instead of about me. I got a huge queue of ideas lying in my Evernote app RJC folder to talk about. I am also starting out on a couple of creativity projects that I think you will enjoy. And this certainly won’t be the end of the RetComLife series as that is “lessons learned” for many of us. I suspect RetComLife will continue as long as I do. 🤪
I would welcome anything you have to say about where we might go from here…
RJ's Corner 
As for me, I have enjoyed and benefited from your posts dwelling on your decisions and the reasons behind them. I foresee my husband and I making some of these decisions in the future, and I’m learning to think about what I want or don’t want and need and don’t need. I know the meals will be a problem for me, too, but for a different reason that yours. I’m 100% vegan., but that doesn’t mean I’m okay on salads for every meal.
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Thanks, for your thoughts, Linda. I think you would have to be in a pretty big community to have vegan menus daily. Thanks to some commentor’s here, I am finding a community called Friendship Village, which is very upscale and is in many parts of the country. I will be looking into that more and will let you know what I find in future posts. Just because I have chosen to stay where I am, doesn’t mean that I will quit investigating other possibilities. Keep and eye on the RetComLife category here for more about that
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Congratulations are in order. You traveled 6,000 miles, spent untold hours thinking through your options, analyzed what strengths and weaknesses each choice presented, and ultimately picked what is best for you at this point in time.
No decision is permanent, but being satified for now allows you to focus on all the other parts of your life that bring you joy and a sense of accomplishment.
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Yes, Bob, no decision is permanent, but like you say my decision allows me to put the focus on other parts of my life. The “where I live” is not out of mind. It is just on the back burner, but it is still on a burner. Part of that “other things” for me will be getting much more familiar with the small college town where I currently life. There is so much here I have yet to see. I will be putting out posts as to why most of the “best retirement places”, according to the “experts” are in college towns. There is a reason for that, and I will be explaining it further in the coming months.
Thanks for your help and encouragement in getting through this decision process.
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Hey, its not overthinking — it is the engineering mind at work 🙂
Research suggests many engineers exhibit some level of Aspie traits. It is what drives the intense focus, along with the ability to think deeply and make tradeoffs. Embrace it as a gift.
You annual review is great. I learned to do that when making big life changes (like jobs.). Rather than obsessing over the decision, I gave myself permission to revisit in a year or two. In the meantime I would forge ahead – no longer worrying about it. Worked for me.
So enjoy your decision for now. Bloom where you are planted…
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Yeah, Daryl, I think you are right, it is the analytical mind, common in the engineering types, that overthinking things. But to us, it isn’t overthinking.
Aspie traits are an asset in so many fields of life. Our focus and attention to detail is getting more recognition as the years go by. They say that most of the big tech companies have a very high population of Aspies in the employ.
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Actually choosing a CCRC is pretty much a permanent decision, RJ. There’s a buy-in of several 100,000 dollars up front, some of which may be refundable but not all.
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Thanks for the thoughts, Denise. Actually, not all CCRC require a big up-front buy-in. My community only required a $1,000 fee up front. I rent on a month-to-month basis that is higher than most others with big front-end payments. But, it means that I can leave almost whenever I want.
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I definitely think you have done a stellar job of thinking through your options for now. I’ve always had moving in the back of my mind, probably because I’ve moved a fair amount as an adult. We moved to a condo community two years ago, and while we like our new home, I always seem to be looking at options. Partly because my DH is older than I am, and I assume at some point I’ll be left to figure out what’s next (not sure I’d stay here alone), and partly because the women in my family live into their mid-90’s so far. My mom has been widowed three times (a story for another day), so I am always aware I could end up alone. That said, I doubt I would move far from my current location. For now. 😊
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Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Laurel. I had been trying to get my wife to move to a smaller place for several years before she died last year. She died last July and I sold our 21-year homestead in October. That old house was just too big for me alone. I am settled to the idea that I will be here at my retirement home for another year and will then revisit that decision next Spring. But, that could change, depending on circumstances. I expected and am glad that she died before I did as I don’t think she could have managed the finances and such on her own.
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