Today I went to my uncle's funeral. I didn't know him very well, but I went because I wanted to pay my respects. My father's side of the family is much closer than my mother's, and I learned that my uncle was very popular. The small funeral home was packed with people. He served in the military for a couple of decades, then retired and started working in school administration. He was a good man, and he will be missed.
At the funeral, I realized that I don't have many close relationships. I'm not close to my father's side of the family, and I don't talk to anyone on my mother's side. I'm worried that if I don't figure things out now, I'll be isolated and alone during my golden years.
I'm not sure what advice to give myself, but I'm going to try to make more of an effort to connect with people. My 35th birthday is coming soon. I'm starting to think about what kind of life I want to have, and I know that I don't want to be alone.
I'm sorry for your loss. My condolences.
I'm only about 6 months to a year older than you and I'm in the same boat.
It's all I ever think about. It's all I've thought about for, well, probably since I was in my teens, now that I actually think about it. I have a rather obsessive and perhaps morbid fascination with a relationship with death in particular. It highlights the preciousness of life for me, I believe.
But yeah, our generation of people is very divided. we hardly have any close friends and our familial bonds are no less dysfunctional than they were half our lifetime ago. I completely understand.
I have a younger sister I try to take care of. We do fight a lot, all siblings do, but I don't hate her. Sometimes I wonder if I'm too harsh on her though. But, she's also very spoiled, and I'm the one person in the family that she can't easily push over. In some essence she's rightfully afraid of me because I'm admittedly afraid of myself beyond a certain threshold. But I truly love her no less. I just want her to have a better life than what she seems to keep choosing for herself.
Sometimes it can be difficult to try to explain to a person that following your heart is not always the most intelligent idea. The quest for happiness does not lie in the world outside us and around us, it's an inward journey. She's starting to realize that, thankfully.
In this honeysuckle life, we are given very little time. It's why the connectivity of people matters. And as we grow older that begins to manifest from a whisper into a scream that we cannot deny.
It ties into part of the problem with American society, wherein pleasantries are often superficial whence they really probably shouldn't be.
The vast majority of my customers and of my local area are within the retirement age and, something I've noticed is that very often even though these people have their differences that divide them that their age bracket is part of what helps build a community that brings them closer together regardless of their differences.
That's why they meet up for local events. Why things like educational seminars at the library are popular places for them, or how there are local small pubs and lounges, or even local breakfast diners as 3rd Places for them. There's a local breakfast diner that's near my former job. It's been there my whole life. When I showed up to open my store in the morning there are always people outside waiting for them to open. Over earshot one day I heard an old man say to another old man: "I've been coming here since 1976!" And how there's a locally owned record store that's been in continual business for over 40 years, things like that.
Because our generation of people are so communally cut off from one another, such kinds of places are struggling to stay open. That's why local businesses are losing out to corporate businesses at such massive scales. I truly wonder and worry if we will have something like that in the next...well, double our lifetime as it is.
It's why even though I hated growing up in this mostly small countryside retirement town why I eventually ended up moving back here. I moved back here for two reasons: 1.) Familiarity. If I ever do end up homeless, I'd rather end up homeless in my hometown. It's just easier to navigate. 2.) The place is already mostly a retirement community as it is though not formally a retirement community. So what better area to grow older in? I mean it's not like a city is ever going to cater to that. Cities are quite a bit more business cutthroat. If you really pushed yourself in your 20s and early 30s and made big enough strides, than yeah, you can probably manage to pull off living in a city practically in your older age, but most of the time it's the countryside that tends to be a little more forgiving. More boring, yes, but also more forgiving.
I went and had my adventures in life in my 20s. These days I have a tendency to just be in preparation for as I get older. There's a certain almost restlessness to it. That restlessness I think is why people like Peggy, my neighbor, who at the age of 78 and formally retired, still walks around the block 2 or 3 times every morning. It keeps her active, keeps her healthy, keeps her engaged in the passing with the neighbors.
When I was 22, I spent 9 months in my first apartment before a hurricane hit and knocked the power out for the whole complex. It's a college city, so everyone was in their early 20s. It was hot, so we all hung out outside when inside became too hot. So for 9 months, I didn't know my neighbors, we never spoke to each other until that day. And that's becoming and/or is, normal. THAT'S what concerns me about the future. There's a certain mindfulness that comes with recognition of something like that. You see and hear all the time lectures about screen time and media addiction, and only in those such moments do you actually realize it's a much bigger issue.
