Hello

[AsOldAsIFeel]

I found this forum all on my own. Okay, Google helped me, but I took that for granted. After all, I presume that Google works for top dogs, pariahs and everybody in between...

I'll be 70 later this year, and I was wondering if others are here who are well beyond the first flush of youth?

I was married once, but not since 1988. Have been estranged from only daughter since 2008. Have tried various things but no joy. No idea what to do next. Am I the only one?

 

[constant stranger]

No, you're not the only one. I'll be 70 next year, my family is gone, I do various things but none bring any joy and I have not yet identified the next steps for my journey in this life.

 

[Finished]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Minus]

Welcome to the forums

 

[AsOldAsIFeel]

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landside,
No escape from reality…

Luckily, this is just a song; life is nothing like this...

No, you're not the only one. I'll be 70 next year, my family is gone, I do various things but none bring any joy and I have not yet identified the next steps for my journey in this life.

Are you trying to make a new life for yourself with new people where approaches to them
just don't get anywhere? I'm probably my own worst enemy, but if people want to know you, they get back to you, whereas especially these days (it's an age thing) if people don't want to know, they say nothing, but you don't hear from them again. Or have I got it wrong yet again? I'm confused!
I think these things are easiest up to around age 30, then get harder, But perhaps I'm doing it wrong, but I haven't figured that out yet.

That's why I'm here. To learn and do better. Failing at this is something I find really hard.

 

[constant stranger]

Not a new life but a renewed purpose for the continuation of the live I've been living.

 

[AsOldAsIFeel]

Well, at least you have a plan. I hope it goes well for you. I don’t yet have a plan. Thank you for replying, I hope we both get what we need in order to get out of the doldrums

ACS

 

[constant stranger]

Well, at least you have a plan. I hope it goes well for you. I don’t yet have a plan. Thank you for replying, I hope we both get what we need in order to get out of the doldrums

ACS

The operative word I'm seeing there is "..yet..". Meaningfulness and purpose are important. HM set a pretty good example of a life well lived.

 

[AsOldAsIFeel]

Agreed, though we each have to cut our cloth according to our individual situations, Let's hope for a satisfactory outcome for each of us. I agree that meaningfulness matters, As does recognising that as humans, we're social animals, and social isolation can be damaging. I guess that's why we're here...

 

[Butterfly 2]

Hi and welcome to the forum! I am a few years under 70, but I can identify with a bit of what you were saying. I very recently lost my soulmate of nearly 50 years and I am struggling trying to find my way in life. And of course, my family is gone and I am thankful that part of my brother's family is still here or I would be pretty lost. We are also estranged from a child for about 20 years now and it wasn't our decision and it's a relief to be away, but losing our grandchildren with it just broke our hearts.

I have a few good neighbors and a few good friends, and my brother's family has been very supporting, as has been our church, but I still feel pretty much left alone in this world. Thank God for my free pets!

 

[constant stranger]

Agreed, though we each have to cut our cloth according to our individual situations, Let's hope for a satisfactory outcome for each of us. I agree that meaningfulness matters, As does recognising that as humans, we're social animals, and social isolation can be damaging. I guess that's why we're here...

Yes, humans are social animals like most of our primate cousins and I agree that isolation is damaging, especially early in our formative years when the damage might never be fully recovered from.
But we're a couple of old guys .......making friends and forming up into cliques used to be so easy when we were younger.
I don't know how to satisfactorily form relationships now either. The only solution that I've arrived at is to attach myself to structured, basically artificial social enterprises like volunteer organizations........it hasn't been completely successful. For ten years I was in the friendship zone with a lady I came to know, an intimate friendship zone.......but (there always seems to be a but........) there was a primary boyfriend in another US state and the two of them are now living there together.
I still volunteer and there's a weekly event between June and October that brings me some social contact as well as a bit of money in a sweet little side hustle kind of way, but essentially I'm alone, alone.......typing away and posting in a lonely persons forum.

But my journey isn't over, I'm muddling my way through and I have a few things to be grateful for, so it isn't all bad. Not all the way bad anyway.

 

[AsOldAsIFeel]

Thank you for your message. Clearly, loneliness is not just an English disease...

I've remembered the old saying that reminds you to count the fingers pointing back at one when one points at someone else. On reflection, I've not generally taken my fair share of the credit for the mess I'm in now.

I blotted my copybook in a voluntary role by disobeying the organisation's instruction to preserve anonimity, and my association with them was terminated accordingly. Now, feeling ashamed of myself, I wish I hadn't been a rebel (but I have been, my whole life) because volunteering is a way of meeting people that I hesitate to try to do again, although there are informal ways of getting started. But t least in the UK, we can always talk about the weather. And I do...

I'm sad to read that a potential partner went elsewhere.
I'm not sure that I've disclosed my gender, and I'd prefer not to, though that doesn't matter hugely.

Building new networks gets harder with age, doesn't it?

 

[AsOldAsIFeel]

Hi and welcome to the forum! I am a few years under 70, but I can identify with a bit of what you were saying. I very recently lost my soulmate of nearly 50 years and I am struggling trying to find my way in life. And of course, my family is gone and I am thankful that part of my brother's family is still here or I would be pretty lost. We are also estranged from a child for about 20 years now and it wasn't our decision and it's a relief to be away, but losing our grandchildren with it just broke our hearts.

I have a few good neighbors and a few good friends, and my brother's family has been very supporting, as has been our church, but I still feel pretty much left alone in this world. Thank God for my free pets!

Thank you for your message. I'm sorry for your loss. A former partner died earlier this year; I wasn't expecting to feel anything, but it's a reminder of your own mortality, if nothing else.

We must all cherish the contacts we have, don't you think?

 

[AsOldAsIFeel]

Yes, humans are social animals like most of our primate cousins and I agree that isolation is damaging, especially early in our formative years when the damage might never be fully recovered from.
But we're a couple of old guys .......making friends and forming up into cliques used to be so easy when we were younger.
I don't know how to satisfactorily form relationships now either. The only solution that I've arrived at is to attach myself to structured, basically artificial social enterprises like volunteer organizations........it hasn't been completely successful. For ten years I was in the friendship zone with a lady I came to know, an intimate friendship zone.......but (there always seems to be a but........) there was a primary boyfriend in another US state and the two of them are now living there together.
I still volunteer and there's a weekly event between June and October that brings me some social contact as well as a bit of money in a sweet little side hustle kind of way, but essentially I'm alone, alone.......typing away and posting in a lonely persons forum.

But my journey isn't over, I'm muddling my way through and I have a few things to be grateful for, so it isn't all bad. Not all the way bad anyway.

I owe you an apology. Only now have I realised that unless I click on 'Reply', the person I wanted to reply to won't know who I'm addressing. I replied to your message apparently randomly a few minutes ago.

I am not a forum frequent flyer!

 

[Forgottendanfan]

Hi there. I'm probably a bit younger than the age group you have in mind, but allow me to extend a warm welcome to the forum anyway.

 

[KimP]

Welcome to the forum

 

[constant stranger]

I owe you an apology. Only now have I realised that unless I click on 'Reply', the person I wanted to reply to won't know who I'm addressing. I replied to your message apparently randomly a few minutes ago.

I am not a forum frequent flyer!

No worries, AOAIF. I thought that you might have been addressing your comment to my previous post.
And you're not going to disclose your gender eh? How mysterious.........very well, you're entitled to your privacy.
Bent the rules on anonymity did you? Bad idea. I volunteer at our local hospital and they stress the patients privacy pretty seriously. That's a rule I'll gladly obey.......I might be a patient there myself sometime.

 

[AsOldAsIFeel]

No worries, AOAIF. I thought that you might have been addressing your comment to my previous post.
And you're not going to disclose your gender eh? How mysterious.........very well, you're entitled to your privacy.
Bent the rules on anonymity did you? Bad idea. I volunteer at our local hospital and they stress the patients privacy pretty seriously. That's a rule I'll gladly obey.......I might be a patient there myself sometime.

The voluntary work I was doing provided a home shopping service for housebound people. A woman who used the service rang one day in floods of tears as her mother had died a short while before we spoke, and I really felt for her, thus I knowingly broke the rules and gave her my phone number so that we could speak about that. She told the service manager what had happened. Turns out she’d done that before with somebody else. Which was yet another thing I hadn’t thought of. When confronted, I apologised and admitted what I’d done. Long story short, that was the end of that.

Admittedly I had been suckered, but I had suffered a bereavement (my mother) a short while before this happened, and instead of seeing a bereavement counsellor and suggesting that she did the same, I got involved and exposed a weakness I’d never prepared myself for. My bad. I’d handle this differently today, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but that’s what happened… The worst was that she’d done something like this before with another volunteer who was dismissed…

You live and learn, I guess…

 

[AsOldAsIFeel]

The voluntary work I was doing provided a home shopping service for housebound people. A woman who used the service rang one day in floods of tears as her mother had died a short while before we spoke, and I really felt for her, thus I knowingly broke the rules and gave her my phone number so that we could speak about that. She told the service manager what had happened. Turns out she’d done that before with somebody else. Which was yet another thing I hadn’t thought of. When confronted, I apologised and admitted what I’d done. Long story short, that was the end of that.

Admittedly I had been suckered, but I had suffered a bereavement (my mother) a short while before this happened, and instead of seeing a bereavement counsellor and suggesting that she did the same, I got involved and exposed a weakness I’d never prepared myself for. My bad. I’d handle this differently today, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but that’s what happened… The worst was that she’d done something like this before with another volunteer who was dismissed…

You live and learn, I guess…

PS I tried Googling AIA

Welcome to the forum

New here, and if your welcome was directed to someone else, I hope they thanked you for that, just as I am doing

 

[constant stranger]

The voluntary work I was doing provided a home shopping service for housebound people. A woman who used the service rang one day in floods of tears as her mother had died a short while before we spoke, and I really felt for her, thus I knowingly broke the rules and gave her my phone number so that we could speak about that. She told the service manager what had happened. Turns out she’d done that before with somebody else. Which was yet another thing I hadn’t thought of. When confronted, I apologised and admitted what I’d done. Long story short, that was the end of that.

Admittedly I had been suckered, but I had suffered a bereavement (my mother) a short while before this happened, and instead of seeing a bereavement counsellor and suggesting that she did the same, I got involved and exposed a weakness I’d never prepared myself for. My bad. I’d handle this differently today, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but that’s what happened… The worst was that she’d done something like this before with another volunteer who was dismissed…

You live and learn, I guess…

Yes we live and learn and then move on knowing better.
Moving on requires letting go of past mistakes and I think that's what constitutes self forgiveness.
I'm not very good at that but I'm getting better at it.