Today is Saturday, I love Saturday since kindergarten it has been my day off. My day to do what I would like to do but that is not true. In my mind I think it is my day but in reality I have to shop for groceries, pick-up the dry cleaning and run a million other errands.
However today was a day I did something I wanted to do. It was ladies day out for me and two of my friends. This is one very important maybe the most important key to successful aging; socialization. You must maintain very strong social networks. A lot of us do this through work, church, clubs and even hobbies. After retirement we often loose a very large part of our social network. It is something we must maintain. I think I would give my self an average or below average score on social network. A person should have many freinds of varing ages so you don't loose all of your friends to death. If all of our friends are our age we face an ever shrinking social network which is bad for our succesful aging. Most of my friends are in my generation.
Mitsy and Bitsy (not there real names) are in my generation. Today we were celebrating Mitsy's birthday she is now 61. Her birthday was in June and it was today before we could all get together. Mitsy has been my friend for over forty years. Bitsy I met through my work.
All of us are married and our husbands are living and are in good health. Bitsy has been married before and so have I. This is another phenom of Boomer life, multiple families. Mitsy has been married to the same person for over thirty years. Mitsy has one son, Bitsy has a son and a daughter from her previous marriage. All of their chidren are adults and living on their own. I don't have any children. Bitsy parents are living; my parents and Mitsy's parents are deceased.
Today we went to a local resort to tour the gardens and have lunch. When we purchased tickets for the garden tour the clerk asked if we would like the senior discount? How old do you have to be to receive the senior discount? Fifty-five said the clerk. Wow just when I was convinced fifty-five was the new thiry-five. Mitsy and I took the discount. I don't think Bitsy will be the new thirty-five until August.