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For one, I'm amazed at how quickly I got to this age and retired ... yet, how young I still feel - Somehow, I thought it would take longer and that I would feel really old (like my grandparents, when they were my age). I also thought that I would "have all the answers... by perhaps 48 or 55 and certainly by 62!
What things in your life are/were different than you expected them to be?
For one, I'm amazed at how quickly I got to this age and retired ... yet, how young I still feel - Somehow, I thought it would take longer and that I would feel really old (like my grandparents, when they were my age). I also thought that I would "have all the answers... by perhaps 48 or 55 and certainly by 62!
What things in your life are/were different than you expected them to be?
When I started taking care of myself in my 20s, after being ill all the time in my teens, I started into whole foods, less and then no meds, yoga, etc. I thought that this would all protect me forever, or at least into old age. Little did I suspect that a catastrophic event with the birth of one of my children would incapacitate me later in life. While I wasn't ever athletic, I wasn't used to physical limitations of any kind and always prided myself on my body (not to excess, just was proud that i always looked and felt much younger than many my age). It has been a shock to have my condition from that birth deteriorate so much. I still am very, very careful of what I eat (not fanatic, but I avoid the usual terrible food stuffs and eat a mostly vegetarian, whole foods diet) but i must now accept the condition that will never improve, only get tougher with age. I feel lucky to have survived that birth, and lucky that the child grew up to be healthy and strong though, so I have no regrets. Just has brought me to a place I didn't imagine in youth.
The few expectations I had years before retirement are fading memories, mostly unattainable now because at age 72 I just don't have the stamina, the physical or mental energy, or the desire to seek adventure in travel. Even attempting to make new friends in a new city seems like an effort and a chore I guess past expectations CHANGE over time.
My reality is contentment living in a small town environment where the stress level is very low ~ so I take pleasure in local activities letting go of past expectations !
Biggest surprise is that my financial assets are five to ten times more than I ever thought I would have when I was young an living paycheck to paycheck.
Just the other day a friend of mine who is 70 and female(I am 61 and male), posted a picture of one of her girl friends on facebook. She seemed to have a pretty good figure, and had aged pretty well. I said to my wife that I thought she was pretty cute.
AND SUDDENLY, LIKE A BOLT OF LIGHTNING, I REALIZED.... I had come pretty far along the line to senility when I was thinking that some 70 year old woman was CUTE!!
I still think she is cute, btw, and my wife at 59, is the prettiest 59 year old I know. But, while I don't feel 61 most of the time, and I think that I'm thinking like 32, I know that in a very basic way that I must have changed a lot when I'm finding that women near 60 and in their 70's are cute.
I know what I owuld have thought when I was 30!!
I'm in pretty good shape and if I had all my hair and it wasn't mostly white, I might be even be a "hunk" or whatever they call good looking guys now.
Whew!
Z
P.S.: no offense to any of the rest of you cute gals who just happen to also be in your 60's and 70's.
My wife and I bought a small (1200 sq ft) house with pool in an "Active Adult" community. I didn't know what my retirement income would be but off we went. Within months my son moved in with no income and a bankruptcy looming. After buying a larger house we realized Phoenix was too hot and we got out at the top of the market. My income was a lot more than I had thought it would be and my son got settled. He still lives with us but I cleaned up $100K selling the larger house.
We never used the "amenities" at the active adult community and the HOA was a bunch of old snoops who worried about how many flour pots were on your lawn.
The surprise is how fast time starts to go. I always heard old people say it, but never believed it until I got old myself. A year can seem like a week, a day can seem like 5 minutes. Very scary sometimes. I try to appreciate life more than I used to, seeing how fast it starts to fly by.
DH and I dreamed of living in FL "one day" for the past 40 years. Now that we're here I HATE it. And, when I was younger I never dreamed I would live in a cookie cutter, gated community with idiot rules and old bitties (men and women) enforcing them!!! I never dreamed, as a beach loving sun worshiper, that I'd have to avoid the sun at all times now, that Mr. Sun would become my enemy, because of an illness I have and the medications I have to take for it. I never dreamed that our youngest sweet and sensitive child would become a drug addict nor that my trouble maker oldest child would become a cop! I could go on, but let's just say that A LOT of things about my life are not what I expected them to be when I got to this age.
But then, when I was 22, the month before I married my husband, I was told by the medical profession I would be dead within 16 years due to the hereditary kidney condition I had. At 62 I'm still here. AND BEING HERE NOW IS WHAT I LEAST EXPECTED!!! Praise God!
DH and I dreamed of living in FL "one day" for the past 40 years. Now that we're here I HATE it. And, when I was younger I never dreamed I would live in a cookie cutter, gated community with idiot rules and old bitties (men and women) enforcing them!!! I never dreamed, as a beach loving sun worshiper, that I'd have to avoid the sun at all times now, that Mr. Sun would become my enemy, because of an illness I have and the medications I have to take for it. I never dreamed that our youngest sweet and sensitive child would become a drug addict nor that my trouble maker oldest child would become a cop! I could go on, but let's just say that A LOT of things about my life are not what I expected them to be when I got to this age.
But then, when I was 22, the month before I married my husband, I was told by the medical profession I would be dead within 16 years due to the hereditary kidney condition I had. At 62 I'm still here. AND BEING HERE NOW IS WHAT I LEAST EXPECTED!!! Praise God!
Life sure throws us some curve balls, some that we actually catch!
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Expectations lead to frustration ~
because at age 72 I just don't have the stamina, the physical or mental energy, or the desire to seek adventure in travel. Even attempting to make new friends in a new city seems like an effort and a chore 
I guess past expectations CHANGE over time.
Praise God!
