Yesterday we passed a milestone in that we have been in our new apartment for three weeks. It doesn’t seem that long, but time passes when you’re having fun. The hectic part of downsizing is over, and we’ve survived. The stress and wear and tear of all the preparations is now comfortably in the past, and we’ve survived to tell the tale to our descendants. Now it’s Merlot time, time to kick back and relax in the confines of our new home. It’s Miller Time.

Having said that, there is what has to be the final chapter in downsizing, though it may not seem on the surface it fits under that rubric. But, bear with me on this.

Barbara and I are classic and inveterate introverts, and we value our life-style, alone time, and our space. It isn’t that we dislike humanity, or people, or don’t have friends, it’s just that when It comes to socializing and mixing with people, we prefer to engage in our own time, under our own reasoning, and with circumstances of our choosing.

When we first came to Eugene from California in 2007, we knew this was a new community and it would take time to make inroads and meet people. And, it did just that over time. I have to say, we anticipated a similar situation with meeting people here at this Continuing Care Retirement Community, finding encounters over time, and making new friendships. You would think so, right? With the Covid-19 pandemic we thought the social distancing and isolating would contribute to a slower pace in encounters, that there would be fewer contacts among the local residents. Well, that has not been the case, not by a long shot.

We moved in on Friday April 2^nd, three weeks ago, and literally within a day we had several invitations for dinner and for wine. The first week we had a couple of invitations for dinner and one for coffee. While we meet few people in the corridors because of the pandemic, those we encounter are very friendly, as in very, very friendly. It is clear there is some kind of network of communication that appears to be working extremely well, because in these greetings some of the people already knew us by name, and we’d been here only two days.

On one occasion we had just returned from running an errand and had just parked our car, and on our way to our apartment passed a couple and they stopped us because they recognized us as newbies and we talked for 20 minutes. Did I say people are very friendly?

Our entire experience in downsizing was an exercise in change, dealing with release of things as well as history, and preparing the psyche for shifting priorities and choices, in moving physically to new digs as home, and emotionally to new inner space to accompany the physical move. As introverts we should have known the latter was going to be difficult, a grand challenge once we were here. Compared to our first encounters in Eugene 14 years ago, our meetings here have been frequent, friendly, and most warmly welcoming. It’s as though these people we are encountering and we have been fast friends for 40 years. Absolutely daunting for introverts.