Senior Living Southeast Texas

Optimist Village Senior Apartments in Orange TX

Finding the ideal Golden Triangle senior housing can be a challenge.

Over our many years of marriage, my wife and I have lived in a number of wonderful homes. No mansions, but each had its own pros and cons.

We had a little wood frame house on over forty acres in the national forest near Crockett. On the plus side, we didn’t lock our doors, you could shoot a deer for the freezer from the back porch, both our sons caught their first fish in the ponds that dotted the property, and it was wonderful falling asleep to the sound of the rain pounding the metal roof. On the minus side, you couldn’t get to the property without driving down miles and miles of poorly maintained dirt roads wrecking your vehicle’s suspension, for my wife the sense of isolation could be emotionally crippling, and if a real “gully washer” came you could be stranded for days from all the washouts, flooded over bridges, and downed pine trees.

One summer was spent in an RV in a beautiful park just outside Austin. Benefits included a wonderful opportunity to see wildlife, swimming in clear beautiful water, making s’mores by campfire night after night, taking long walks amid stunning scenery and sunsets, and at one point I took the boys fishing 26 consecutive days. The primary debits were difficulty getting in and out of the park on holidays, minor bouts of claustrophobia in the RV on rainy days, and if you went to the bathroom everyone knew all about it!

Our current home is wonderful now. It’s nothing like the palaces you see going up these days, but it’s more space than we really need. Our home is up in Wildwood, a great retirement community. Lots of people moved out here when they retired from the plants in Beaumont, Orange, and Port Arthur- back in the days when you could still get a comfortable retirement.

It’s an older community, which is nice in a lot of ways. It’s one of the few places where you still don’t have to lock your door. The people are generally super friendly and neighborly. There’s a great 4^th of July fireworks celebration. On the downside, it’s a long drive when we want to meet up with friends to socialize in Beaumont, Vidor, or Bridge City. If we forget something at the grocery store, it’s a long hike to go back and get it. We’re also starting to see a number of friends and neighbors cope with losing their spouses and struggling to create a new life alone in a big, empty house.

My wife and I are still younger than many and in blessedly good health. Statistically, she’ll outlive me. You never know though. On both sides, we have ancestors in the 100+ club. It’s  almost certain that one day one of us will find ourselves alone in a house that will increasingly feel too big, too hard to keep up, and too lonely.

When it comes, each SETX senior will handle it in the way that is best for them. I think I’d probably be okay in the house for a few years, but I also think I could comfortably settle into one of the great Southeast Texas senior living facilities.

We’re blessed to have a number of wonderful retirement communities at all levels- from Southeast Texas senior apartment communities through our Golden Triangle skilled nursing facilities.  There are lots of facilities of very high quality. At one I was visiting a friend, and I heard a woman tell a friend that she felt they were “spoiled”. That is a pretty high compliment and definitely will stick in my mind if I’m looking for a place that is the right fit for me one day.

On another day, I was visiting some people at Optimist Village Senior Apartments in Orange. It has a very new and clean feel to it. It also has a very safe feel that would be super important to me. It may seem like a silly thing to notice, but all of the mailboxes are in the lobby of each building. I really like the idea of not having to go out in the brutal heat or driving Gulf Coast rain every time I want to check the mail. The common areas in each building were also superior to most I’ve seen. You could tell that all of the furniture and art were new and carefully chosen. They created great spaces to mingle with either other residents or visiting friends and family.

I hope I have many more years living with my wonderful life in our comfortable home together. It is nice to know that Southeast Texas has a large number of very comfortable, safe, and friendly retirement communities to consider if and when their current homes feel a little too big, a little too hard to keep up with, or a little too lonely.

If you’re looking for “right size” senior housing in Orange TX, take a tour of Optimist Village Senior Apartments in Orange.

Have you found the perfect Southeast Texas senior living community for your needs- or found a way to make living alone in your home more comfortable? Either way, we love to hear from our SETX seniors. Write our editor any time and he’ll post some or all of your story on SETXseniors.com.

Just e-mail setxseniors@gmail.com

*One of our SETX Seniors writers looks ahead to a day when it might be time to seriously evaluate moving out of his family home to one of our Southeast Texas senior living communities.

• Daryl Fant. Publisher SETXSeniors.com & SETX Senior Resource Guide. Host SETX Senior Expo Series.
• (512) 567-8068
• Email SETX Seniors: SETXSeniors@gmail.com