Whether someone admits it to themselves or others, declaring or affirming that they are aging in place – in the home where they are – is not a requirement or a prerequisite for making it a reality. A person is aging in place where they are whether they realize it, recognize it, affirm it, or tell others about it.
The concept of aging in place may not be something that they are keenly aware of or focusing upon. Nevertheless, this does not minimize the fact that it’s occurring. Everyone is aging in place. It’s a fact of life.
No one needs to fill out any papers and file them with any governmental body or insurance office to make their current home their aging in place or forever home. It just is because that’s how they are using it that this becomes their aging in place, long-term, permanent, or forever home..
Over time, someone either decides and declares that their present home is the home that they want to remain in that seems to meet all or most of their needs and provides a reasonable amount of satisfaction for them, or they recognize various shortcomings in their home but never decide to do anything to fix them and just remain living in that home indefinitely. Either way, this is an aging in place home that may not have required any specific acknowledgment on their part.
It’s fine when people recognize that they want to remain in their home and they tell their children neighbors friends and others that this is there forever, permanent, long-term, or aging in place home. This certainly is not required, but it’s not discouraged either.
sometimes the marketplace likes us to label things that we are using, such as designating our home as an aging in place of dwelling. for that to happen and satisfy those who would have us use labels, we have to identify that this is our forever home, add acknowledge it. However, for the scores of people who make no such acknowledgment or admission, their home is still their aging in place dwelling.
The point is that no one needs to call out their home as being anything special they just need to keep on enjoying it and using it as they have. they will know that this is the hung they want to remain in regardless of what they call it or label it. if they want to acknowledge it as their forever home, great. if they don’t, it doesn’t detract from it in any way.
Many times we keep things to ourselves – goals, beliefs, likes, dislikes, political positions, and other topics that we feel are personal. We may feel the same way about our dwelling and never formally acknowledge or declare that this is our aging in place home – certainly not to the point of telling others that this is the case. Maybe we haven’t even told ourselves in plain terms, yes we likely believe that this is the case.
Either way, however, whether we have told ourselves or those close to us that this is our forever home and that we’re going be remaining here the balance of our days are we have been totally silent on this subject, the home we have right now is our aging in place, forever, long-term, or permanent home. There are no rules that suggest we need to declare our home has been the one we want to remain in forever so we are free to do so without admitting it to ourselves or others. that is not a prerequisite for making our homes our aging in place dwellings.
By the same token, we may have identified many shortcomings or desired improvements in our home that we would like to make – whitening the hallway, changing the size or type of windows, switching out door and cabinet hardware, replacing light fixtures, redoing plumbing fixtures and faucets, or adding new flooring in some or all of this space, for instance. We May or may not make some or all of these modifications in our home, but having our home be our forever or long term home is not conditioned upon our making any of these improvements.
just as we may continue living in our homes without declaring or acknowledging to anyone including ourselves that they are our long term residents, we may continue using them just exactly as they are, with all the deficiencies and weaknesses that they have so long as they are not major safety concerns – and even there we often compensate for them and essentially ignore them.
aging in place in our current home is great, and it requires no outward expression, acknowledgment, or admission to anyone that we have found the home we want to remain in and that we have no intention of leaving it. we simply keep on living in it as we have – with or without any changes that might be feasible, desired, or recommended. Generally, those won’t lessen our ability to claim our home as our aging in place dwelling.