Written by Guest.
Welcome guest blogger, Whitney Hoffman. Whitney is a digital marketing strategist with Mingl Marketing in Philadelphia and Epic Marketing in Delaware.
Designing your Life means taking action, while you still have time and energy to make your best life possible. Watching people we love miss that opportunity is heart-wrenching, and it’s why I’ve made a commitment to myself and our family to do it differently.
Several years ago, my father-in law purchased the perfect piece of property to build their dream home for retirement. It was by the ocean, and the plan was to have a place where everyone could spend holidays together, the kids would go down for Spring Break, and it would be a true cornerstone for the entire family. But Tom kept putting off designing the home, thinking that if it was built, then he would actually have to retire. After a few years, Jane, his wife, got sick, and she said to us “I am never going to see that house” and she was right. She died without ever getting to experience that dream they had together, and the land still sits open, undeveloped, and a symbol of dreams that pass us by if we don’t take action.
Similarly, my mother in law, Nancy, always talked about living in an intentional community with friends, not unlike Kendal-Crosslands Communities, a continuing care retirement community I work with as a digital marketing consultant. However, Nancy put off the decision saying she wasn’t ready. Now she has started to develop memory issues, and she no longer qualifies for an independent living community. We helped her transition, unwillingly, into assisted care just before Thanksgiving, and we are still dealing with what happens to her home and the family heirlooms.
The common thread here is that by putting off dreams and by avoiding decisions, both of my in-laws are now living a life other than they planned. The wonderful third act of their lives is marred by regrets and struggles that could have been avoided if they had just done what they said they wanted to do. Now everything they had planned is up for grabs, and to be honest, some of the burden is falling on their kids to try to make it better and fix the problems created as a result.
My husband and I have decided we won’t do the same thing with our lives. That means taking advantage of opportunities to travel now, doing things like taking walking tours across beautiful countryside in Europe, or seeing Antelope Canyon in Arizona. We spend time on weekends trying new things and enjoying each other’s company, rather than waiting for all that free time we’re supposed to have after retirement.
We’ve decided that the experiences we have are much more important than the things in our lives, so we’re also slowly but surely, trying to downsize and minimize the stuff in our lives, to make room for what we really want. And what we want is the joy and experiences shared with those we love most. It can be as simple as sharing a home-cooked meal with one of our boys when they are home from break, or taking the time to knit a hat for a colleague who is expecting a newborn. It can be travel, or helping friends. And when we need to plan for our own long-term care, we’re likely to choose a continuing care retirement community, where we know our care will be taken care of, and not become a worry to our kids.
With a little planning and thought, we can have everything we want in our lives. The trick, of course, is to know what we want and what we don’t. The biggest gift our older relatives have given us is showing us what happens if you let your dreams pass you by without acting on them, with intentionality and purpose.
