[JMintzer]

Originally Posted by Laker14

Years ago, when I was reading the book "Leisureville" which was (sort of) about The Villages, I came to a realization about retirement life. The book was partly responsible for the epiphany, but I was more receptive to it because I was watching my dad in his later years of life. He'd been retired 20 years. My mother had already passed. I will share my epiphany with you.

Retirement isn't "one thing" or "one stage" of life. Depending upon how old and healthy we are when we retire, or when we die, it will be several stages. The first stage, if we are lucky, is one when we are still active. We can play pickleball, golf, swim, play water volleyball, drive ourselves around. But that stage, unless we die young and healthy, or with a quick decline, as my mother did, passes, to a second stage, where we can still be socially active, and still drive. We play cards, shuffleboard, billiards, sing in the choir. But we are forced away from some of the more physically demanding activities.

If we live long enough we can no longer drive ourselves around, and we need more and more "care", or levels of assistance, and if we live really long, eventually we need "24 hour care and assistance". Eventually we die.

How long we are in each stage varies of course, but here's the take-home point:The Villages isn't designed, built, nor marketed as a place appropriate for all stages. If you need public transportation, it's not for you. Rather than constantly be unhappy about the fact that it doesn't have that, you should find a place more suitable. Those places exist. It is not here.

When we bought in TV, we came here fully aware that if we live long enough, we will outlive TV's usefulness to us. We'll have to find some other place, designed and built for those last stages of life.

I've never been a fan of those who argued that if there was something about the culture of the USA I didn't like I should "move to Norway"...or some similarly stupid idea. For one thing, Norway doesn't want me. However, there is no such restriction on where you live in the USA, other than what your finances limit you to.

You want a gated community so you feel safer? Find one, move there. Don't make yourself miserable over the fact that TV isn't one.
You want a smaller community, with less traffic? Find one, move there.
You want more pickleball?, Less pickleball? No pickleball at all because it's too loud? Find the place and move there.

We may be able to change slightly, some small aspects of life in TV, but the big picture is the big picture, and for every person who wishes it were different, there are 10,000 who wouldn't change it in that direction, and wouldn't have come here if looked like your vision. So, rather than trying to move the mountain, relocate yourself to a place that looks more like your vision. You aren't going to change this place into what you say you think it should be.