Dear LPG

I have been retired now for quite some time and, although I live alone and can’t get out as much as I used to, I don’t see that much of my family, I think I have mastered the art of how to be lonely but not alone. 

It is the lack of communication with other people and involving ourselves in finding solutions to the predicaments that they tell us about, that often gives us the time to really find ourselves drowning in a sea of depressing thought about our own circumstances, and only having one subject to speculate on the future of can be the most depressing aspect of over thinking.   My friends are the reason that I have managed all these years, because I think that the really lonely times are those when there is no one or nothing in your life that you feel you can rely on or involve yourself in.

Many so-called lonely older people are virtually house bound and feel reluctant to let people in to visit the homes that are no longer as ordered as they would like, and consequently their lives. 

Communicating has always been the most important aspect of living for human beings and in my opinion we are the luckiest generation of pensioners so far in some respects and the unluckiest in others.

Friends and family have a habit of moving so far away and getting caught up in their own lives to the point where the geographical distance, and lack of time to really have a ‘catch-up’ chat provokes feelings of virtual loss if we are not careful.

Even though I have lost some of my friends over the years we are still living longer so there are still many people, and potential new friends, out there that I can connect with and we have so many more communication tools at our disposal.

I think that, with a little mastery of the technology, we are so lucky to be able to see who we are talking to as well as to hear them; no matter how far away those friends are.

I look forward to a time when some manufacturing company makes us a video phone that is as easy to operate as the really simple purpose built ones that are available for audio calls these days and I hope that we oldies will persevere with the ones we have until then.

We, the senior generation, are slowly catching up and the business of focussing on learning how to deal with these new communication tools will serve as another reason to keep our minds busy enough that we have less time to engage in worrying about our circumstances.

IA, Crofton Park