Fun Is Different Now

Fun Is Different Now

Even as senior citizens, you can probably remember being a child when the most important thing in the world was having fun. Well there are some remarkable similarities between your life as a senior citizen and those carefree days of childhood. For one thing, when you were a child, you didn't work for a living, you felt secure that you had what you need. Hopefully in your senior years, you too are able to retire with the knowledge that you did a good job preparing for retirement so you have some carefree days to enjoy now too.

Another similarity that your kids may have pointed out to you is that, like it was when you were a child, you occasionally do things that are not allowed to do. But now it seems to be our kids telling us what is ok for us to do or not do. But every so often, you have to throw caution to the wind and go ahead and party late into the night, go parasailing or go to a punk concert. And even though it isn't good for you and you will probably get a lecture for it in the morning, you had a great time taking the chance.

But fun is different now that you are a senior citizen than it was when you was a child. Now there is nothing better perhaps than spending a day trying to improve your golf game. A long rainy afternoon with a good book is just the thing for a senior citizen and it will be a day of fun you will remember for a long time because this is what it means to be retired. Some other ways to have fun as a senior citizen that are notably different from childhood or even when you was a working adult might include:

. A day sorting yarn for a big knitting project or laying out the fabric to make artistic quilts to sell for a charitable cause can also be a day of girl talk, giggling and gossip that seems almost like the sleepover scene from Grease as much as it is a gathering of mature women enjoying the afternoon together.
. Getting together with the boys and going out to help build a shed at your son's farm gives you the chance to play with tools, mess around with building materials and remember what great fun it is to just build something.
. A bus tour to Branson or some other exciting nearby attraction takes on a whole new sense of adventure when it's big day when they change the lunch menu at the cafeteria downstairs.
. Going to a high school football game used to seem like a nuisance when you had to attend to watch your boy play third string center or your daughter cheer and hope she doesn't break her collarbone. But now when you get to go, even if you don't know a soul on either team, being in that exciting setting is the kind of good clean fun you look forward to for weeks and think back on for months.


Just as the fun is different now as senior citizens, so are the toys. Now, enjoying an afternoon stuffing envelopes for the church is as much a fun as a game of playing checkers as long as you can do it with your friends and yak and share stores as you work. Now, going to a military base to look at their archives is more than just mildly interesting. It's a trip through your own past and if you can enjoy that with others who fought for their country as you did, each of those guns and pieces of equipment in those display cases bring with them treasured memories that will have you and your senior friends swapping war stories for days after.

Yes we have fun differently now than the young people do. But anyone who thinks for a minute that senior citizens never have fun are as far off from the truth as they can be. Because you have laid down the cares of career and raising children, you can really relax and let the fun of each day sneak up on you. By putting yourself in the mindset, that life is still a great adventure, just about anything you do can become a source of joy and fun. But even though fun is different now, life is still worth living because it is tremendously fun.