It has been well over a month since my last post and since we moved into our new digs at Collington.  A lot has happened during this time. Trump has shown his cards as to who he really is and what he wants. He is an obsessed, egotistical nutcase, who is well on the road to becoming a dictator, upsetting world economies and the post-World War II world order, and making life for so many people miserable. But you already know this, and this post is not about Trump.

I am BAAACK! And this post is about our move.

 What is Collington like for us? What about our experience so far?

Here are some first impressions:

1. The moving experience takes a toll. Moving is hard at any age but especially for old folks. In our case Collington required us—and I suspect everyone–to use a moving manager, which made all the difference. There is no way we could have pulled this off without the help of a firm that managed the entire process—Town and Country in our case—and they did a terrific job including hanging all our photographs and artwork. I think one of the factors which keeps people our age from moving is the challenge of downsizing—especially if the move is from a single family home. We had already downsized about ten years ago when we moved from our Cleveland Park, single family home to the Kennedy-Warren Apartments a few blocks away, but we still had to get rid of a bunch of stuff, and the experience wore us out. This is another reason for people our age to make the decision to move before the challenge becomes too great.  My main excuse for not blogging is that the moving experience has been exhausting and stressful and has taken a toll, but finally I am  recovered enough to get the blogging going again. When I talk to other residents about the stress of moving, most say something like, “Welcome to the club….”

2. The campus is gorgeous. There is no senior living community in the Washington metro area that comes close to the bucolic feel of Collington. It did not hurt that we moved in during the early spring with cherry blossoms and dogwoods in full bloom. But still where else in the Washington area–or practically anywhere else–will you find a community surrounded by towering trees, with meadows, landscaped courtyards, a small lake and three miles of walking and hiking trails—and still close to the downtown of a major metro area? (The Metro station is about a mile and a half away, and the trip to Metro Center takes about 30 minutes.) You won’t, and that is one of the main reasons we chose Collington. We have not been disappointed. I look out my home office window onto a large meadow surrounded by cottages linked by covered walkways. The cottages all have space for small gardens, most of which are beautiful. On the other side of the meadow are more cottages, most with patios and some with screened porches and sunrooms. Behind them is the perimeter road which surrounds the development on the campus and provides access to the community center with a large dining area, auditorium, library, bistro, bar, and meeting rooms. The apartments, the health care center, indoor swimming/lap pool and fitness center are adjacent. A small lake, home to a flock of Canada Geese, is behind the community building and apartments. On the other side of the perimeter road is the forest. There is no hint of any other development that is beyond the dense trees, so you have the feeling you are in some kind of Garden of Eden. Embry and I are city people, having lived some 50 plus years in a wonderful urban neighborhood near the zoo, so this is a change for us. Embry says she never envisioned living in a suburban neighborhood, but this feels like something different—a kind of fairy land. Of course, suburban neighborhoods are close by even though you can’t see them from the Collington campus. These neighborhoods are beautifully designed, high end neighborhoods with expensive homes. The residents are almost all African Americans, which in my view is a good thing, but I still bemoan the fact that so many of our neighborhoods in the U.S. remain segregated by race.

3. We love our cottage. Our cottage is perfect for us— about 1,400 sf and just a tad smaller than our Washington apartment—two bedrooms, two bathrooms, smallish kitchen, living room, den, sunroom, and outdoor patio looking out onto a large open area across from other cottages and a view of the surrounding woods. Our front door opens onto a beautifully landscaped grassy courtyard surrounded by other cottages in our cluster of 14 units. A covered walkway connects the cottages and provides covered access to the community center, about a five-minute walk away. In 1981 when I did the market analysis and feasibility study for the property, the concept of continuing care retirement communities was still in its infancy with not many CCRC’s on the East Coast. Since most of these communities were in the Philadelphia metro area, I spent a good bit of time visiting the CCRCs in Philadelphia, and I recommended that the design should be similar to that of Kendal at Longwood, a continuing care retirement community in the Philadelphia suburbs. The community which got built looks a lot like Kendal at Longwood. In the early 2000s Collington affiliated with the Kendal Corporation, an offshoot of the original Kendal community in the Philadelphia area. Full circle, as they say.
4. You feel a bit like a freshman entering college. Can you remember your first few weeks in college when you did not know anyone and all those who were in higher grades seemed well adjusted and you felt lost? The saving grace for college freshman is that since all the other freshmen classmates are just as lost as you are, you usually find other confused and lost people to bond with. And before too long you begin to make friends with those who are older and wiser and settle in. The main difference is that when you are a newbie at a senior living community, you probably are the only one moving in at the same time you are. So, yes, you feel a bit lost. For Embry and me the confusion and feeling of being lost has been softened by the friendliness of residents at Collington. Everyone nods and smiles and says hello. No exceptions as far as I can tell, at least not yet, and this makes a huge difference. And Collington has a system in place for easing the adjustment. We were assigned an “ambassador,” a very kind couple a tad older than us who have lived in our “cluster” of cottages for many years and whose job as an ambassador is to make us feel at home and welcomed. They have hosted us to dinner in the Collington dining room and introduced us to many of their friends. The week we arrived and after we got settled, our “cottage cluster” had one of its monthly pre-dinner socializing events, and we volunteered to host the group, which enabled us to meet most of the people living around us and show off our new home. That was a fun event though remembering names and keeping people straight will continue to be a challenge for a while. There will be a dinner next week for new residents, which happens on a regular basis depending on the number of move ins. That every resident has gone through the same experience we are going through I think makes people more understanding and supportive of newbies like us.
5. There are two generations of old folks living on the campus. Because of the large number of cottages (around 200, including a few even larger “villa” units), Collington has tended to appeal to a slightly younger population than most CCRCs. Average age for new residents is a little over 75 instead of the early 80s as is the case nationally, and there are more couples, around a third of all households. So, the age mix begins in the 70s and extends well up into the nineties, many of whom have lived here for well over a decade. That means you have “younger” seniors mixing with people who are old enough to be their parents. That also means you also see people using canes or walkers and some using electric wheelchairs. Before we moved, I remember being asked by some friends my age why I would consider moving into a community with a bunch of old folks. My reply was that at age 83 I am now an “old folk” (and like many here at Collington have started using a walking stick myself on longer walks). We old folks living here at Collington and other senior living communities are the survivors. But the experience of living with other people, some older and frailer than us, is also a reminder that we humans on the planet Earth do not live forever and the final checking out process is often messy and hard to navigate. That is the main reason cited by most of people I have talked to when I ask the question of why they chose a CCRC –the availability of health care and supportive services when that time comes.

But make no mistake: Collington is not a place where people come to die but rather to live life to the fullest, given the limitations associated with aging. Squeezing the last few drops out of the lemon, as I often say.

Stay tuned. More to come…