r/over60

Just want to thank everyone who posts here. Its been life-affirming to see I'm not alone in the things I feel and believe. May we all find comfort here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware this is real.

I'm of the opinion that everyone is on the spectrum. They just don't realize it.

It manifests it's way, in many forms.

In my case with my printed work schedule. Even when I know I'm not scheduled to work, I'll look to at least once to confirm it

I'm not posting this to be political. Instead to have a discussion about when should we determine someone is too old to drive.

The ability to drive in the US has so many implications. The foremost is freedom. I'd say the second historically is the expectation that you should be legally able to do so.

I grew up in California and the expectation that you should be legally able to drive was important enough it was offered as a course, during school hours, at my High School. You earned credit for enrollment and the credit earned counted toward graduation.

It was a Semester course divided into two halves. Driver education and Driver training. Driver education gave you the book learning that allowed you to get your learner's permit. Having gotten your learner's permit, you were actually taught how to drive.

In real cars, on real streets.

And not just with a fleet of old school board hoopties. Nope these were late model cars "loaned" by a local dealer who understood that today's fledgling drivers would become tomorrow's used and new car buyers. It was an investment.

Oh, yes. We were also taught how to drive a manual transmission. That training included hill starts and hill stops and how to properly use the clutch when upshifting and down shifting.

That was in 1977.

Back to my initial question.

When should we determine someone is to old to drive? I admit that I dodged that bullet when one day my eldery mother declared she didn't want to drive anymore, and handed over her keys. My siblings and I had already become concerned she might be a danger to herself and others, but were relieved that we didn't have to fight her over it.

That led to the second problem, we'd all now need to drive her to and from any destination she wanted or needed to go. I'm introducing that as the third problem.

If you are fortunate enough to still have elderly parents, I'd like to hear how you addressed this.

If you are like me and think, well I'm fine for now but how do I prepare for the day that I will need to surrender my keys, I'd like to hear your plan.

We have had one child late 30s and now would be 40 with out next. Id like to hear from older people who had one ot two children. Would you chose to only have one? Or two is good for siblings and was that worth it in your experience?

Im concerned about worrying about them later in life because of how hard it is to buy a house even now. Id hate for them to not be able to get a roof over their heads or be stuck with us forever (as much as I am happy to support them, we arent super well off ourselves). TIA for a different perspective.

Part of me wants another, I loved the baby stage, but part of me is concerned for the bigger problems in later years. Im aware of the saying small children small problems big children big problems. I agree with it.

I just had three nights of weird dreams. I'm not on Ambien, alcohol, or anything. Does this happen to everyone?

60F Seems like there are never any other people in my age group in any of these redditt groups...Would love to find someone my age that is wanting someone to chat with

I had this idea about setting up a video chat group. I have a zoom license that I can use for this and wanted to find anyone who is interested. I find its more fun to actually talk when you can see who you are talking to. One issue is to be able to coordinate time zones. I am in AZ, so half of the year we are PST, the rest MST. If you are interested in giving this a try, DM me.

It is my hope that we can keep politics out of the conversations and just have a good general chat. I am always up to talk about tech.

Married couple both 65. We’re not retired yet and earn a good living but it’s getting to the point where I am worried about retiring on a fixed income because we are already having to cut things out of our budget just to pay bills and not touch savings. Dining out is just gone. We used to go out twice a month. Can’t even stand to go because it’s like $100 for an appetizer and two entrees with water at most decent places. Cereal was never healthy but at $7 a box, we aren’t even buying it for an occasional option. Forget Starbucks at $6 a cup. Red meat? Forget it. One steak is $20+. We eat chicken, some frozen fish and lots of veggies. Then there are various kinds of insurance now taking almost $700 a month. And don’t get me started on taxes. All of this is making billionaires richer and richer but who do they think is going to buy their stuff when we can’t afford to live?

I'm 61 and born last month of boomers, so I relate to to a lot of Gen X too. I've always been a rocker type and always see people talking about pop music and never harder rock, for example, Judas Priest, UFO, Iron Maiden, AC/DC etc.....I always joke around and say I will be the 1st person in a Nursing home blasting metal in my room. I do like other more popish music too like Journey type songs and progressive like RUSH....Let me hear from you that are still rockers?!

I don’t usually do a lot for the 4th, as I’m not a fan of crowds and getting out of a big parking lot. But I wanted to do something with my kids for the big 250th! I graduated from high school in 1976, and the bicentennial was such a big deal. So we’ve got a hotel at the beach for the 4th. We’ll be able to see fireworks from several cities from the beach. Hopefully the ocean breeze, ocean and pool will help keep us cool.

Happy Independence Day, everyone! Freedom!

I’m 66M. I have a lot of chronic pain and I don’t know how much I can work any longer. Im a writer and it hurts to sit at a desk. I have bad neck pain from spinal stenosis. I have tailbone pain from a broken coccyx 43 years ago. I have depression. I’m really struggling and absolutely broke. I haven’t had a haircut in three years and my shoes are seven years old and don’t support my arthritic feet. I don’t know how I’m going to live much longer. But I applied for disability, but couldn’t reply in 60 days because they wanted so much information about doctors and therapists from states I left a long time ago. I didn’t see any possible way to reply to them so I let it go. Now it seems like I am fucked forever because I didn’t reply in 60 days. But I can’t work much longer. I’m in too much pain. It seems like the government wants me to become homeless. I don’t think I would survive very long if I was homeless. I could live in my car for a couple of weeks, but that’s about it honestly. I don’t want to live that much to put up with all that. My Social Security only pays 99% of my rent and that will drop further when my rent goes up again in a month or any day now. I am just losing the ability to get by on a very basic level. Like electricity and water and Internet and the like. My car is pretty much shot, 26 years old, more problems every month, at some point soon it will be undrivable, the brakes have been scraping for 24 months now, and I can’t afford to get them fixed, or even looked at. And there is a strong smell of gasoline when I first start the car first thing for the day.

What I’m trying to say is I am losing the ability to survive in the US. I never expected this before because I was always a gifted student and I got a PhD in physics. I never used it and now it’s too late of course. Now I’m old and none of that matters. I have a lot of depression and mental illness and I’m alone and have nobody to depend on. I don’t know how to make friends so please don’t go there. It wouldn’t matter anyway. I’m too ashamed of myself to make friends. And it’s too late.

How is an American supposed to survive at this point? I thought of moving to a cheaper country, but I can’t afford that either and I would be completely alone and so I would be depressed.

I wish I was Trump and could cheat my way into a fortune .

There was a guy on here while we were talking about losing muscle mass in old age. He said he and his wife started practicing standing on 1 foot while brushing their teeth. It was a wonderful lively discussion. Where are those discussions now? Isn’t anybody doing anything to prevent further deterioration who wants to talk about it anymore? Please bring humor back to this sub!!

Ok guys and gals. Just because the rest of the world thinks we're past it, old people. The typical things. They smell old. They don't understand the world today. Well let me tell you young folks, us old people made the world today what it is, good or bad. We worked our asses off, played and partied hard. We lived without social media, yeah really we had to go out and meet people. Just imagine that, having to talk to people face to face.

Alone and lonely. Really needing a conversation. So very tired. Maybe there's somebody out there who would enjoy a conversation.

I've lived a lot of life, maybe I have something interesting to say. IDK. I just want someone to talk to.

I like music. I have tattoos. Did you know that there are levels of depression? Just like alcoholism. There's a thing called "Functional depression"?

I wanted to be a chef. Food is good. Lol.

I should have embraced my "Inner Nerd," but in my day, being a Nerd was a death sentence. I think "Nerd" is the new sexy.

I keep losing count of the words to be able to post this. Truth be told, I may have had a "Few" "Old Fashioneds" lol.

Dusty Springfield, right!? She's amazing!

I just want to cook an amazing dinner for someone and we enjoy a bottle of wine.

My job made me travel a lot. I like to shop. I like good food and good wine.

I don't like mean people. I'm tired of cruelty. I like the winter. I like the night. I'm tired of being a man. I'm tired of living up to those expectations. Occasionally, I try to write poetry.

I’ve worn contact lenses for about 45 years, and lately I’ve started wondering if I’m just tired of the daily routine of putting them in and taking them out. I know it only takes a minute, but after all these years it still gets old.
I also miss being able to rub my eyes whenever I want. I’ve learned how to do it carefully with contacts in, but it’s just not the same.
For those reasons, and a few others, I’m thinking about switching to wearing glasses full-time (except maybe on weekends). The funny thing is, I’ve never really been a glasses wearer. I’ve only worn them in the evenings after taking my contacts out before bed.
Has anyone else reached this point after wearing contacts for decades? If so, did you make the switch to glasses, and are you glad you did?

This group used to be a bunch of old people giving advice, providing humor, it was wonderful. Now it’s just a bunch of old people who are depressed or lonely. How do you get lonely in your 60s? All of my friends died 5 years ago and I’m still not lonely. How do you get to the point of being lonely? I’m not even sure I will be lonely when I’m in my 80s or 90s. Without humor and decency, people are just not worth it. 67F