smile, what a topic! I think loneliness is a huge problem for the elderly. They need people to be with them and they need to be touched.

This might be a good place to share this. I am a people person. Gotta have lots of people in my life. I was raised in a family of seven. There were 5 kids and Mom and Dad. Our house was like Grand Central Station. The door was always open for our friends. People were either coming to the door or ringing on the phone. Great fun.

As an adult I love to get together with family and friends. It jazzes me. I am usually the one to phone a friend and ask them to do something.

Some people might not reach out to others because they figure others don't reach out to them. I say who cares...as long as we get
together. I'll be the pest. I don't mind.

And usually when I plan something, people come and we have fun. It's just everyone being together that makes it special.

One of the main reasons behind my project was that I didn't want to be alone later in life. The past stages of my life have been very busy and I was afraid of the empty nest.

I have three teens and hope I've raised them to be independent. So I picture them all living on their own some day and me being here thinking, where is everybody? I pray Ross is here to live out the golden years with me, but he is a Diabetic (shorter life span? and a male) and I don't want to be alone. God knows I want him to out live me.

But, thanks to God... now I have all of you! We have each other. And we will meet one day! I feel certain. I feel blessed!

Now I could be struck dead tomorrow, Ross could live forever, and the kids may never leave home, but I have a passion given to me by the Lord and I'm grateful. I no longer have the fear of being alone.

We have to face our fears and do something to change them. Just my ten cents worth...too long! I guess I could have put this in Toni's post too.

I see a lot of fear of the 'empty nest' in the posts here. It has helped me realize some things I had never faced before.
Though I had taught growth and development and knew it would happen, the empty nest hit me with unexpected force. I had my kids young and they left home for college when I was barely forty. I was married at the time, but had raised my kids alone and we were very close. They helped me finish a couple of extra degrees and start the business. They were my inspiration and my motivation. I had a mission.
When the last one left home, I was just lost. I closed a very profitable business, stopped submitting my writing, and wound up divorced.
I have never totally regained the enthusiasm that I had for raising those girls. My recent marriage has added passion and given me joy, but it's not the same in that he is not depending on me. I am not driven to succeed for him as I was with my girls.
I think on some level, we have children and marry as a sort of insurance against loneliness and when our children leave home or our marriage ends, either in divorce or death, that insurance is cancelled and we are left to face a whole new form of loneliness.
smile
Dotsie,
P.S. Dotsie, Don't worry. You'll never be alone. You've got US. Whether you want us or not, you're stuck with us.

[ May 27, 2004, 10:57 AM: Message edited by: smilinize ]

Dotsie I heartily agree with Smilinize that you'll always have us and many years from now when we are no longer the age of BOOMERS, we can hobble up to the computer on our canes and write as BLOOMERS he he!!

Chatty, What an image. All us as little old ladies hobbling to our computers to post on the BLOOMER site.
That oughtta' warm your heart.
Or scare the daylights out of you.
smile

I think my writing expresses it best, and I've written about loneliness a lot. I'm going to post two pieces SEPARATELY so I'm not clogging up space in this post, as they're both rather long. (And if I can't cut and paste, I'll come back here and say OOPS, sorry.) The first is an essay called "Loneliness," written when I was 21. The second is called "The Dream" and was written a few years ago.

Be back...