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Older people get real about what it's like to move into a retirement community

"Do your homework before taking the plunge."

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Old people discuss what moving into a retirement community is really like.

Moving into a retirement community is a big life transition for many senior citizens. Making the choice to downsize and move into a retirement home is not an easy one that can come with many unknowns.

In an Reddit forum, member @common_grounder posed the question: "Anyone who's downsized and moved into a retirement community, what's the adjustment been like for you?"

They continued, "Has it been hard giving up your former life and belongings? Is a more simplified existence comforting to you? Has being around lots of people who are also old been a net positive or net negative?"

Older people who have made the transition into a retirement community shared their real and honest experiences for those considering making the move. These are 16 of their most informative and impactful responses:

retirement home, retirement community, retirement living, assisted living, old people The Villages Dancing GIF by Magnolia Pictures Giphy

"I've been in an Independent Living Community for 2 years. I was having some health issues and I needed a place that had on duty staff. I downsized twice. My wife and I downsized from a 3 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom Apartment. My wife developed Vascular Dementia the year before the Pandemic. Eventually she went into hospice and after my 3rd hip surgery in 18 months I moved into Independent Living. My 1st year here my bride of 39 years past on from complications of the Vascular Dementia. When I first got here I participated with some of the outing and events. We get 2 meals a day and I used to do dinner with the same group daily. The Presidential election changed that. I loved the people I sat with. However I was crushed that so many of my older peers voted against their interests. I just turned 70 on D-Day. On the average I'm a "youngster" here. Before the election I constantly helped residents conquer their smartphones be it iphone or Android. Now I order lunch and dinner for me to pick up and eat alone in my apartment. I only venture out now for Dr's appointments and the occasional family outing . I guess more than any thing I miss my bride of 39 years, 44 together. I'm looking forward that my 29 year old son is getting married in August to a wonderful woman and their future looks bright. I'm grateful technology allows me to talk, text and facetime people I care about. At my age, I don't have many long time friends still on this plane of existence. Even when I downsized to this one bedroom Apartment I still have too much stuff including Heirloom China in my living room for my son that been here 2 years. Oh I almost forgot. We have a happy hour on Wednesday afternoon. I always go and get a vodka tonic and finger food. I was told by my parents to never drink alone. Do that one drink a week is me not drinking alone." —@sapotts61

"I live in a retirement community and I like it a lot. No exterior maintenance, lots of activities and amenities. Beautifully landscaped grounds and great views from my home. Being around similarly aged people is nice too. I really can’t think of a negative. But the quality of the communities vary. Do your homework before taking the plunge." —@Entire-Garage-1902

"My wife and I did it 11 years ago. We sold our 4 bedroom 3 bath 2 story house and moved into a 2 bedroom 2 bath single level house in a 55 and better community. It’s been terrific! We have a resort like pool next to the clubhouse and gym. There are tennis and pickle ball courts, gas grills, a big charcoal grill, sauna and spa. It’s a quiet, safe, well kept neighborhood with friendly neighbors." —@8amteetime

downsizing, retirement community, retirement home, moving out, downsize GIF by Stellify Media Giphy

"One month into assisted living. I think it’s going to be fine. Just another life transition like college, being on my own, getting married, having kids, building a career, moving into a bigger showplace house, etc. Just in reverse - everything getting smaller and simpler. Downsizing has been very challenging, getting rid of so many objects that still mean something to us, but won’t mean anything to our kids, and there’s not enough space in our 950 sq ft apartment. Having the staff do all the cooking - food has been quite good! - cleaning, and managing my medications, has certainly simplified our lives. And freed up time for my wife to do things she chooses, not just things she must. Moved to a different state where we knew no one, except our sons and their families, so we’re meeting a lot of new people. Haven’t really clicked with anyone yet, but have a half dozen people we can join for meals in the dining room. Yeah, adjustment is going fine." —@dnhs47

"I (64M) wasn’t ready for it and my wife and I are moving out. I miss seeing kids and families." —@MacDaddy654321

"It's a very difficult thing. It sounds simple, correct. But it's what you make of it in your new life. I used to do warranty work for brand new modular homes. Many are doing just that...downsizing. While working, you wind up chatting with many. The stories would run the whole gamut, from ecstatic to downright miserable. My takeaway if you can afford it was maybe try a couple of years' lease/rent before committing. Sit on any s to get a feel for it first. It was quite heart-wrenching at times. Should have, could have. There's mental factors to think of. Your circle of friends may change. Someone other than you could be in charge of your property. Suddenly, there's not a whole lot you can use those tools on anymore, etc. It's a tough thing to do." —@xgrader

elderly, senior, seniors, senior citizen, old woman Old Lady Fight GIF by BDHCollective Giphy

"We are UPSIZING when move to a retirement community." —@FootHikerUtah

"We upsized into a 55+ community. Sometimes I miss the age diversity with neighbors but my husband and I are 64, pretty active with previously established friendships, part time jobs, and our family. We like that there is a clubhouse with book clubs, game nights, community dinners and a lovely swimming pool. I feel like it’s a home where we can age in place for as long as possible." —@Competitive-Ice2956

"I am almost 70. I have downsized hugely. I lived in a retirement community for 4 years from 61 to 65 I hated it!" —@Direct_Ad2289

"We’ve been in an over 55 community 8 yrs. I love my little house, all on one floor, lots of storage. It’s a bit lonely when our snow bird neighbors go home for the summer, but the grocery store is less crowded. We’ve had several neighbors die recently, but that’s why they call this Gods waiting room. It’s also worrisome to see neighbors having physical or dementia like issues. We aren’t into the pool scene or golf, but we love the indoor walking track. The entertainment shows are a hassle, gotta get those tickets months in advance. We tried a few day long bus trips but their prices are way too high now. Our community is over 40 yrs old and pre 2020 we had thriving crafts, cards, wood, metal, auto, photo clubs….people in charge of those kind of drifted away during the lockdown and a lot of knowledge and organizational skills to run those programs were lost. It’s very quiet here, most neighbors keep their homes very tidy. I’m in a single family home, I have yearly membership dues but no HOA…those are running around $300 a month. We have a great Facebook page that helps us all stay connected and compare notes. All in all I have zero qualms about leaving my old life." —@Adrift715

"2/2 1400 sq ft villa. It was hard deciding what to keep and what to get rid of at first, but in the end, it was liberating. I love the fact that we can just lock the door and leave without having to worry about outside maintenance." —@RowdyRumRunner

over 55, over 55 community, retirement, retirement community, retirement home homer simpson episode 10 GIF Giphy

"I’m in a 55 and over community. It’s a very active community, dances at least 2 per month, bingo on Sunday, movies on Thursday, exercise classes at least 3 per day including yoga, karaoke, cards, swimming…I could go on but you get the drift. No obligation to attend any of the activities but they are available. No meals, this is independent living. I’m really happy here, best choice I made after selling my house. Downside for some is living with rules, some people don’t like picking up after their dogs or speed limits or whatever, my place isn’t super controlling but any rules are too much for some people." —@Kitchen-Fee-5114

"I like it, being on my own I didn’t want a house with all the maintenance. I have a small apartment so I had to get rid of a lot of stuff, that can be hard but I did it. Where I live there is a lot of activities if you are interested, but it’s independent living and some people like that and some don’t. I have made friends, play cards and always have something to do if I’m bored. One of the things you don’t think of is that you meet people and then they die. That is something that can be hard to deal with." —@Birdy304

aging, aging well, happy aging, getting old, old people Aging Golden Girls GIF by All Better Giphy

"I upsized when I moved to a retirement community - my Manhattan apartment was 440 square feet, and my car was in a garage two miles away. Here in Connecticut, I've got 1500 square feet plus a basement and garage. I've got more stuff than ever." —@vinyl1earthlink

"We downsized from our home we lived in for 35 years to a tiny home (399 sq ft) three years ago. While the community is not age restricted, 95% of the people are retired and at least 65. We live on a lake so I get to fish as much as I want. Wife enjoys a bunch of activities such as water aerobics, arts and crafts and dancing. We travel the park in a golf cart. It’s takes minutes to get from one activity to the next. Overall we love it." —@Dicedlr711vegas

This article originally appeared in June.

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Millennial who just hit middle age shares the absolute 'best' thing about being 42

It's the wisdom that only comes with age.

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A millennial woman holding her phone.

Remember when millennials (born between 1981 and 1996), once known as the participation trophy generation, ruined everything from cable TV to diamonds to department stores? Well, it’s 2025, and the first group of elder millennials is now entering middle age (gulp!), and the older generations are saying "join the club," as long as you don't mean nightclub. No one over 40 has any business in a nightclub.

While entering middle age may be a massive bummer to many millennials, Carly Box on TikTok is doing her best to kill the notion that aging is such a bad thing. In a new TikTok post, she’s celebrating the “best thing” about getting older: eating dinner with friends at 5 pm. If millennials were known for killing everything, they're starting middle age just like the older generations.

“I am 42 years old and I'm about to go out to dinner with one of my best friends. And here's what I reckon is one of the best things about being middle aged is that it's 4:40,” Carly revealed in a video with over 148,000 views. “It's 4:40. I'm about to drive down the road to meet her for dinner at five. We both agreed that five PM was an excellent time to have dinner and some drinks.”

@carly.box

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“Do you know why?” she asked her audience. “Cause it's sensible. Because then we get home at a sensible hour and then we're not too hungover and then we wake up in the morning relatively fresh cause we went at a sensible hour.”

A lot of Carly’s followers agreed with her embrace of early dining. “Also, restaurants are quieter when you go before 6 pm LOL you actually get to hear each other talk,” one viewer wrote. “Last time we went out, we moved to another section of the restaurant so we could hear better. I was like We are 800 years old, haha,” Carly responded. “My much younger friend messaged me at 8 pm to meet here for wine at 930.... girl, it's Wednesday and I'm cozy, absolutely not,” another added.

woman eating, early dinner, italian food, bruschetta, wine glasses, happy hour, dinnerWomen eating bruschetta. via Adrienn/Pexels

People are eating dinner earlier than before the pandemic

Given recent dining out trends, it appears millennials started embracing early dinner a while back. Since COVID-19, there has been a sea change in the times that Americans make restaurant reservations.

In 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported a considerable increase in people making reservations earlier in the day. According to Yelp data, restaurants currently seat 10% of diners between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. That number has doubled since 2019, when only 5% of people went to restaurants between those hours. People are also taking Uber rides to dinner earlier than before, with a 10% increase in rides that are being given between 4 pm and 5 p.m. and a 9% drop in rides after 8 p.m.


The Robb Report says that the primary reason for the change in people’s eating habits is that more people work from home and can get to a restaurant before the sun goes down. Plus, when you spend all day in the house, you want to get out and enjoy life as early as possible.

Ultimately, Carly doesn’t go out to eat early because she’s too—it’s just a more enjoyable experience. “Honestly, those of you that have eight pm dinner bookings, you're missing out,” she concludes her video. "Early dinner's where it's at.”

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Wise woman turning 70 shares her one 'big' piece of advice for millennials turning 30

She wishes she had learned this lesson 40 years ago.

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A woman turning 70 shares her wisdom.

If only there were a way for someone 30 years old to download the wisdom of a 70-year-old into their brains. What a joyous life they’d live being free from having to learn a lot of lessons the hard way. They'd also be able to make big decisions in life with a greater sense of perspective. The good news is that the wisdom is out there, and older folks are sharing it. The question is: Will you listen?

A TikTok user who will turn 70 this December and goes by Golden Years Guidance (@foxandfawnwhalley) is doing her best to improve the lives of younger people by sharing the wisdom she’s gained over the years. She recently shared the “biggest thing” she’s learned. The advice was so powerful that the video has been seen over 400,000 times.

"Hi, everyone. Planning my birthday party for December. I'll be 70. Don't know how that happened, but I was thinking about what I wish I had known earlier on in my life," the woman says in the video. "What I wish I'd known when I was 30, married with three children.”

The biggest life lesson: "I think the biggest thing is I'd wish I realized that people aren't thinking about you as much as you think they are."

"I used to stress over what people thought, what I wore, what I said, my accent, every little mistake," she continued. "But you know what? They're too busy thinking about themselves to worry about you." To illustrate her point, she asked viewers: "Think about it. Do you spend hours analyzing about someone else's awkward moment? No. Neither do they. So why waste time holding yourself back?"

The big takeaway from the woman’s lesson is to stop wasting your time worrying about other people and to be yourself. Wear the clothes that you like, do the activities you like, love the people you love, speak your mind, and be your authentic self. "Live your life for you, not for them," she said. "Doesn't matter what they think, no matter who they are … Don't be rude. Think before you speak. But speak your mind."

woman 30s, blonde woman, happy woman, woman listening, free woman, brown-eyed womanA woman standing on a golf course.via Canva/Photos

The post was just what many people in the comment section needed to hear. “I spent many, many years worrying about pleasing everyone else, about what people thought of me. I’m 41 now and these past few years I’ve realised that it’s insignificant!” one woman wrote. “Needed it, I’m 35 and I’ve spent way too long already worrying about this type of thing. Thank you for the advice,” another added.

The woman’s advice has resonated with many people, and it’s more than just one person’s realization. According to psychology, overestimating the amount of time people spend thinking about you is known as the spotlight effect.


“We estimate our own importance from our perspective, which is colored by the fact that we are all the center of our own universes—this is the famed ‘egocentric bias,’” Aditi Subramaniam, Ph.D., writes in Psychology Today. “A manifestation of this bias is the spotlight effect. That time you had a juice stain on your shirt or said something embarrassing in class—you most likely felt like there was a spotlight shining right at you with everyone’s eyes on you. While this might have technically been true in the classroom scenario, I’d guess that you might have greatly overestimated for how long people thought about that gaffe or how harshly they judged you for it.”

Ultimately, we all have the choice of whether we want to heed the advice of our elders or learn the same lessons on our own time. But it’s a lot easier to learn by listening than through trial and error. That’s why it’s terrific that @foxandfawnwhalley has dedicated her TikTok to improving people’s lives, one lesson at a time. The important thing is not just to listen to it, but to live it.

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The Yanny vs. Laurel debate is back and what you hear could reveal the 'age' of your ears

What you hear might depend on your age.

Photo by Anna Keibalo on Unsplash

What did you hear?

In 2015, many of us had our minds blown by the "Dress" debate. It started with a post and became an Internet sensation. Was the color of this random dress posted on social media black and blue, or white and gold? Arguments erupted. Scientists got involved. We looked at each other with suspicion. And for some, it was never truly resolved.

Fast forward three years, and the internet exploded again, this time with an auditory feud. A video started making the rounds with a simple recording of a word said over and over. Some heard "Laurel." Some heard "Yanny." None of it seemed to make sense. Two people could be sitting in the same room with the same speakers and hear two entirely different words.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Just as theorists came forward to explain the dress phenomenon, Reddit threads and YouTube channels exploded with explanations. Some thought it was the treble/bass settings that influenced what people heard in the recording. But that didn’t explain how people could listen from the same device and still hear different words.

Brad Story, a professor of Speech, Language, and Hearing at the University of Arizona, did a little digging. In the 2018 CNN article, "Yanny or Laurel: What Science Has to Say," writer Amanda Jackson notes that, "Story ran an acoustic analysis on the viral recording of the computerized voice. He also recorded himself saying 'Yanny' and 'Laurel' for comparison."

She shares that Story reported, "When I analyzed the recording of Laurel, that third resonance is very high for the L. It drops for the R and then rises again for the L. The interesting thing about the word 'Yanny' is that the second frequency that our vocal tract produces follows almost the same path, in terms of what it looks like spectrographically, as 'Laurel.'"

He also noted that if you alter the pitch of the recording, you might hear the other word. "Most likely, the original recording was ‘Laurel,’" Jackson adds. "If you heard 'Laurel,' you are the winner and have earned bragging rights for this round of the Internet debate."

yammy, laurel, gif, auditory understanding, man, mind blownDetroit Tigers GIFGiphy

But there's more to it. On the AsapSCIENCE YouTube channel, they reveal a few reasons for the divide. One is simply the power of suggestion. When the words are written on the screen, the mind might hear whichever word it sees first.

They also illustrate Professor Story's actual sound waves when saying the words "Laurel" and "Yanny," and explain that even though the waves are similar, what you hear might depend on your age. "The sounds of 'Yanny' play at a higher frequency than 'Laurel,' so if you're hearing 'Yanny,' you might have younger ears."

The video goes on to say that a Twitter (now X) user "posted audio of the pitch both brought down and up. When you listen to it brought down 30 percent, you will hear 'Yanny.' But when you listen to it brought up 30 percent, you'll likely hear 'Laurel.'"

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

On a blog post for the hearing aid company Miracle-Ear, they back up the theory. "The real mystery of Yanny vs. Laurel lies with sound frequency. The sound waves that allow us to hear 'Yanny' are at a higher frequency, whereas the sound waves that allow us to hear 'Laurel' are at a lower frequency. As we age, it’s common for us to start losing our ability to hear higher frequency sounds. It wouldn’t be surprising if someone younger hears 'Yanny' while someone older, listening through the same device, hears 'Laurel.'"

It’s all coming around again after the hosts from the Just The Nobodys Podcast revisited it on Instagram. One plays the sounds for the other, who hears "Yanny." He then exclaims, "Okay, since Yanny is a higher frequency, it requires younger and healthier ears to be able to hear it. But for older people, who don't have healthy ears, they're actually hearing Laurel."

The comment section was fired up as many of them argued with the premise.

"I'm 12, and I hear Laurel," said one.

Another claims they don't hear either: "I hear Yammy."

Amazingly, some hear both within two seconds:: "The first time I heard Laurel. The second, I heard Yanny."

And then, of course, there was this comment: "It's blue and black."

I guess we'll never truly know for sure.

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