Who Is Rightsizing? : Part 3

Rightsizing Your Life: Simplifying Your Surroundings While Keeping What Matters Most
by Ciji Ware

(Page 3 of 5)

Some studies show that the number of households without children will increase dramatically as the boomers' kids fly the coop. Meanwhile the National Directory of Lifestyle Communities database claims six times as many new active-adult community building projects - where children need not apply - went up for sale in 2004 compared with a decade earlier. And the CEO of Pulte Homes, America's largest builder of active-adult housing for people fifty-five and over, says, "We don't see any end to the active-adult boom in sight."

For most of us the transition to new housing will mean scaling back to a simpler, more streamlined lifestyle, but for those fifty-plus the research predicts their future plans do not include checking into the "foyer-to-the-tomb" type retirement facilities populated by their parents and grandparents. Not if they can help it, that is.

Take Cris and Linda Hammond, a couple in their late fifties who made a well-deliberated decision to sell their hyperinflated "trophy house" on a hill overlooking San Francisco Bay, move into a 950-square-foot rental cottage they owned, and purchase a 55-foot canal barge, on which they spend several months a year cruising around France.

Linda continues to work as a real-estate agent and a national sales manager for an artisan Bay Area bakery, while Captain Cris, having abandoned the executive world, has gone back to painting landscapes full time, the fruits of which he sells to his American clients when he returns from his adventures abroad. We'll hear more about the Hammonds later in this book. How do they feel after making such a radical change in housing and lifestyle? "Magnifique!"

Another example of the late-life moving trend are Amos and Sylvia Spady, now in their seventies. When Amos was fifty-five, he and his wife, Sylvia, sold their 3,000-square-foot family home in Yorktown, Virginia, banked most of the money, moved to an 1,800-square-foot condo in Newport News, and took up serious ballroom dancing three or four nights a week - a hobby they've pursued with enthusiasm ever since.

It should be noted that not everybody scales down when rightsizing. A couple I once visited outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, added on to their log cabin vacation home that had become their permanent residence in retirement, a common occurrence among the more affluent, second-home boomer brigade. Their idea of rightsized bliss was a "playroom/bunk room" 400-square-foot extension with six pull-down Murphy beds to lure their adult children and young grandchildren for frequent visits.

And then there is the single professional woman in her late fifties who bought a derelict "landed ark," a one-hundred-year-old house built on stilts over Richardson Bay, near my home in Marin County, California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. She bailed out of her corporate PR job and carved out a studio rental unit within the existing layout to help pay her mortgage. Then, within the remaining square footage, she created a charming two-bedroom home for herself that was elegant enough to merit a color spread in Coastal Living magazine. When she wants a change of scene, she rents out the "big house" and heads for San Miguel d'Allende, Mexico.

As I mentioned earlier, to rightsizers it's more about "right" than "size" when it comes to fashioning surroundings that make sense for one's age, stage, and situation in later life. And it's probably clear by now that merely knowing the number of rings on someone's tree doesn't tell you very much about them these days. According to boomer marketing guru Matt Thornhill, people born around the middle of the twentieth century are tending to "reinvent themselves every three to five years" in ways that are both surprising and inspiring.

Exhibit A: In May 1998, when Rob Gomersall and Wendy Catlin were in their late fifties, they departed Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia, to begin a four-year world sailing cruise on their forty-foot sloop, Sea Fever. "We love our new home," says Wendy. "We decided to just take off'til we stopped ... meaning if we ran out of money, our health wasn't good, or it wasn't fun anymore." Seven years later they are still heading for new harbors. They love "the challenge and adventure of sea travel" while living aboard their boat.

The downside? Admits Wendy, "I don't like being so distant from my family." But thanks to e-mail and international cell phones, they stay in touch, and a grandchild recently sailed one leg of their journey with them.

And then there are the homebodies like my widowed sister Joy, who declares her traveling days are at an end, though she walks a good mile and a half each day in her town of five thousand. A retired schoolteacher in her late sixties, she returned to the coastal village of her youth, Carmel-by-the-Sea. She'd sold her family home before the California real-estate market went insane in the late 1990s and missed the home-equity bonanza that so many of her friends have enjoyed. She now lives "on a very fixed income" in a 420-square-foot rental cottage, writing for pleasure, knitting professionally in the evenings, and serving as a part-time, paid companion for a woman fifteen years her senior.

"I have never been happier! My cottage is so cozy, everyone I know wants to come by for tea at four. I can walk to the beach, walk to town, church, the grocery store, and the post office! What else would I need?"

What's the secret of these contented people living such a variety of lifestyles after turning fifty?

Regardless of their income level or tastes for adventure, they "rightsized" their lives in the strong belief that they still had years of good living left. They had figured out their "core passion," as author and cultural observer Gail Sheehy recently described it to me, and have found exciting interests to pursue and new reasons to get up every morning.

Copyright © 2007 by Ciji Ware

About the Author

Ciji Ware has been a print and broadcast journalist for twenty-five years, best known as a health and lifestyle commentator for ABC in Los Angeles. She is the author of Sharing Parenthood After Divorce and more recently, five historical novels.