I hadn’t really noticed it creeping up on me until it jumped on my head and had me firmly in its grasp.

Depression is like that sometimes… it’s always easier to look back and see it sneaking up, but hard to see before it hits. Things have been going really well… one of the most enjoyable and professionally stimulating times of my career. Yet late in the afternoon yesterday I went to bed to take a nap feeling drained and down. As I lay there I thought about the past several days… everything was going so well.

But there were emotions brewing that I didn’t notice… and all at once I saw them and knew why… I had a terrible sense of loss. Loss isn’t just something you deal with a single time in a retirement community; it’s a way of life. People here have embraced it more than I ever knew, and can talk about it and share it in the most candid of ways. For many days I had been marinating in the loss of people’s spouse’s, family members, physical and mental abilities… and it slowly broke through the professional research suit I wear every day.

The hardest for me is listening to the stories of physical and mental loss… I know it’s coming for me too, but their personal stories impact me. From the hearty marine who wept in his wheelchair as he told me about the life he had before and after his stroke six-months ago to the woman who asked me three times in the span of 5 minutes my name and why I was here again. I want to talk to some of the staff here about this. I have to believe that a new staff member faces the same impact. Even new residents to some extent would be impacted by moving from a neighborhood with a few older adults to being surrounded by the losses they each have suffered. I got out of bed and felt better… I now knew why, but I also had hope. For the most part these people have embraced the loss and accept it. They are living vital and wonderful lives and not dwelling on the loss. As one woman told me… “What alternative do you have?” I agree with her…it certainly beats laying in bed.