Would love to just chat!

Hi Bess and everyone!

My name is Dana, still working in the family business. I support my special needs nephew/son with some help from my parents. He has been living with me since 2010 and it is rough. 

Let's see, I am a locksmith by trade and have worked in many areas of the industry. I currently am the business manager and the front desk tech for the business, yes, I wear many hats around here!!! I also work from home as a customer service rep for Carnival!! LOL

Never married and have never had children. I love to travel. LOVE being in the mountains. Dog lover. My life is pretty boring at the moment but it's all good.

This is a start for me, just looking for a support group. Since I am a caregiver in my home as well as being there for my parents. I figured this might be a great place for me to start??!!

Hi Rebecca,

I'm semi "retired" and have had to deal with the realities of having less day-to-day contact with others.  One positive step I have taken was to start a "men's group" comprised of five guys that I knew throughout my career.  There are five of us and we talk every other week for about 1 1/2 hrs.  The guidelines are simply that we don't discuss religion or politics.  Other than that we give ourselves homework assignments which basically entail answering questions about our lives, concerns, challenges and ideas for thriving in this stage of our lives.  We all live in different parts of the country.  Perhaps starting a group of virtual friends can be helpful for you...

Dear Rebecca

I just retired about 3 weeks ago after losing my husband this fall so I know how you feel-not sure what to do with this time. If you want to to chat or write please contact me-I do have friends but they are from work so hey are busy during the day. If you are a reader wecan talk about books. I hope to hear from you.

Sydney

do you have any hobbies? what are you good at? Do you ever take walks in your neighborhood or is there a park nearby? Sometimes you can meet other walkers with similar interests. Try it or get yourself a bicycle. You'd be surprised at who your neighbors are. Have you considered a home based business? There are so many that are good for retirees and anybody, plus you meet new people, even virtually. Im working on one right now if you're interested. Are we allowed to trade emails or numbers?

Hello Everyone:

• Any birthdays this month?
• Where are you located? Me, Virginia USA.
• Any pet owners? I have a Doggie Friend Athena 🙂
• Any grandkids? Me, not yet. I have one child, a daughter.
• Are you retired? I did July 2021.
• Any hobbies? Me, reading and gardening.
• If you are still working, what do you do?
• I am very active in several AARP community forums. Joined AARP in 2019. How about you?
• Let us share and support each other. I read several posts and look forward to us moving forward with chatting amongst ourselves 🙂 🙂 🙂

@GaPeach72 , Volunteering is a great transition from retirement.  Great way to meet new people. Also, taking classes on things that interest you, finding new hobbies, or rediscovering old ones. There are so many people that could use your help.  Congratulations on your retirement, best of luck with this new faze of life. Christine

Loneliness and retirement.....the best way to overcome them is to keep busy.

Hi, Rebecca. I am so happy to have met you here. Today is my 2nd week anniversary for leaving my job and moving towards retirement. Before I pulled the trigger on leaving my job I thought that my major challenges would be 1) money and 2) filling the void, like waking up and seeing a big, dark tunnel of nothing. But what I didn’t anticipate was what you mentioned, “retirement loneliness.” 

Quite honestly, I’d never been very good at keeping friends or making them. But now I am reaching out and a lot of people I thought would respond are not. So I have a rejiggered the 2nd challenge to be filling the timing productively with people.  I figure that would be hard for me in normal circumstances but of course Covid is making this worse. I’d love to keep talking to you, Rebecca and anyone else who has these feelings or has any advice. Thanks, Tony

Rebecca,
I too would just love to chat, I am also retired, and after being housebound due to Covid for a year I ended up detaching my darn Achilles Tendon and having surgery,  so now my rear end is stuck in this chair for months.  Where are you located?  Maybe we can keep each other from going nutty

Carol

Hi, Bess, I'd love to chat and this couldn't come at a better time for me. My mood goes up and down as I travel through this. The metaphor of having to fill an empty canvas every week and every day, even every hour, has come to me. You spoke about no luck in getting a part-time job. I can't even figure out to do volunteer stuff. 

How do we make this a regular thing? Could we bring people together on Zoom? 

Thanks, Tony