Carlene Jenkins is 89 and lives down the hall from people she’s known since high school. More than 50 of them, actually. She moved into a senior living community and found it packed with former classmates, which turned the whole place into a standing reunion. Breakfast, hallways, the common room. Familiar faces everywhere.
She told Business Insider that aging alongside old friends has cut the loneliness people warn you about. The daily grind of being 89 gets a lot lighter when the person next to you remembers who you were at 17. Not a bad way to run out the clock.
Loneliness isn’t a soft problem. It carries roughly the same mortality risk as smoking, and about a third of adults over 65 report feeling isolated. What Jenkins figured out costs nothing to copy: pick where you age around people you already know, not just the place with the nicest lobby. If you’re helping a parent shop for senior living now, ask about the social setup before the square footage.
Sources: businessinsider.com
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