How has COVID stress impacted your retired life and family? (spouse, states)

[Serious Conversation]

COVID and the related stress have hit everyone hard - with that said, at least in my social circle, the worst of it has been with the older family members.

My grandmother and aunt, grandmother especially, have been basically self-isolating since March. Grandmother has become tired of it over the last month or two and has been wanting to go out to eat, shopping, etc. They've been out to eat at off-hours a few times.

Aunt finally took her to Sunday school and preaching Sunday, where grandmother took off her mask along with the rest of the crowd, shook hands, etc. Aunt was irritated by the masklessness, and called me yesterday to complain about it. Mom is mad at aunt for even taking grandma to a known maskless church to begin with, so they got into on the phone today apparently. Aunt is mad at mom for staying at home all the time and not chipping in with the caregiving.

Mom is retired, and says she "can't go anywhere," yet anytime I suggest something, she shoots it down except maybe a meal out occasionally. She says my dad "doesn't want to go anywhere," but he is 63 and still 45-50 hours a week in a physical job. She won't go anywhere on her own. When I suggest, "you have a car - go somewhere," she just huffs and puffs.

I know older people are wanting to stay at home and self-isolate more, but I think the self-isolation is sometimes a pressure cooker! As an older person, presumably staying at home more, how are the relations between you and your family?

[Teacher Terry]

We are in our 60’s and stayed home from March through May. Then we gradually resumed seeing family and friends but not in large groups. We go out to eat twice a week but go at non busy times. We also shop as needed. We wear masks and visit outside if we can. My oldest son and his wife get everything delivered and only go to outside places. Everyone’s comfort level is different.

[MarisaAnna]

We are fortunate in that the virus is pretty much under control here yet it certainly affects us. Some friends are more cautious than others and there is one I have not seen all year as she is totally self-isolating still.

Quite a lot of the activities that retired people enjoy are having difficulty restarting. The libraries are not allowing groups to meet in their facilities so for me that has meant bookclub is still on Zoom (however we meet informally at a coffee shop) and my language group is stuck without a venue. The council pools are open but they are not yet doing aqua classes.

A lot of our internal borders are still closed (more for political reasons than health reasons but that is another story) So at this time we cannot go overseas and only to South Australia, NT or ACT. We cannot go to Queensland where we have an apartment. So no use planning trips out of our state.

One positive outcome has been the almost total absence of flu this winter.

[Vision67]

We're remaining isolated. We've been this way since March 14. We hate it.

But the risk of getting the virus and surviving with permanently impaired brain function keeps me vigilant.

Unfortunately, one daughter who lives 1200 miles away keeps trying to guilt us into going there for a visit. I don't think she perceives the risk the same as me.

I'd rather be dead than demented.

[Submariner]

We are in our 60s, our parents and grand-parents are all dead. In my family, I am the old person now. Out of 5 siblings, 3 of us remain.

Covid-19 'impact' other than wearing a face shield in stores, I am not sure if I have experienced any 'impact'.

One of my tenants, was a tattoo parlor of three artists. In 2019 they were full up all the time with clients. Three artists working fulltime, they had a six month backlog of work to be completed as we went into last winter. This Spring they were forced to shutdown by the Martial Law of our state governor, then months later they were allowed to reopen, but only one artist at a time, and only one client can be in the building at a time. This Summer - Fall they were working through the scheduled backlog of clients, but were not taking any new clients. That business owner has been strongly impacted. He has had to close his business entirely. I with met him Friday to get his key back and to return his security deposit. So I am down one tenant. On Saturday we hosted a event for a political party, and one of the attendees asked to sign a lease starting in November. So overall we will only be missing rental income for one month.

[jim9251]

No stress, nothing much has changed except for wearing a stupid mask when in the store.

[Llep]

Where I live the number of infections are higher than they have ever been and the new daily totals are frightening. Things had been improving dramatically until about a month ago. I’m a bit of a homebody anyway so self isolating now isn’t that much different than pre COVID. But I’m a lot more fearful when I have to go out and be around strangers. My ToDo list for today has 3 very mundane things on it (early vote, flu shot, haircut) and I’m on the fence about doing those because of the perceived danger.

[msgsing]

Schools here have been closed since March. Our grand daughter has been with us almost every weekday. Just recently our school system started online classes. When this situation will resolve and kids get back to school no one knows. Don’t know how married couples with kids and no support system cope.

[fluffythewondercat]

Here in the Phoenix metro we have drive-thru flu shots at the fairgrounds. I'm thinking about it. I'm also thinking next month I will be getting health care anyway and perhaps I should wait until then to get the shot. I'm isolated from everyone, including my spouse, so I think my odds of getting the flu right now are pretty long.

Do I like being isolated? Of course not. I hate it. Some days are better than others but I'm at the point where the spouse asked last night if he could do anything for me and I said, "I'd like a hot fudge sundae from Culver's." He just looked at me. We're in the sixth month of summer here with 100 degree temps and no end in sight. He knows as well as I do a sundae would be a puddle of goo before he got it home.

Every day I have to fight the urge to load up the van with food and water and just leave. Yes, it would be a bit scary. But even though we have a nice place here, the view never changes.

[Normashirley]

We are 72 & 73. Nothing much has changed, except we don’t go out to eat as much.

Not that we didn’t try a couple of restaurants but the food didn’t seem as high quality as usual, so we gave up on a couple of restaurants and DH gets carry out, on his way home from work, from the other couple of restaurants we like, whose food quality has not been affected.

And actually my favorite take out food is a Sonic strawberry milkshake and their cheese sticks. I’ve eaten cheese sticks in a lot of tawdry & upscale places, in several states, and nobody can beat Sonic Cheesesticks

I like my animals better than people anyway, so I pretty much don’t miss anything, lollol. If I have to run an errand, I still come down off this hill and do that

My family lives 11 hours away. My niece is struggling thru her sophomore college year, totally on line; I thought she would enjoy on-line classes but she does not. My nephew is working full time at a great job, even thru Covid19.

While this is the year my brother, et.al. would be coming down for Thanksgiving, it is not happening this year thanks to Covid19. That’s my one upset in all of this SARS fracas, otherwise, I’m not suffering lockdown stress. I’ve said before, I am very thankful to be on 25 acres with my critters and all the wildlife that passes thru each day