A good idea. Just not for this golden girl.

When my mother was 80, she moved into congregate living.

We would kid her, telling her that she now had her first "single gal" apartment. (She lived with her parents until she was married.) 

Mostly, we were all - my mother and her kids - relieved that we no longer had to worry about her getting shoveled out, getting the leaves raked, making her way up and down the steep cellar steps to do the laundry, etc.

Her set up was great. She had a very nice one-bedroom apartment, with plenty of storage, a small but full kitchen, and a balcony overlooking a pond. She had friends there, and it was just across the street from her parish church, where she went to Mass everyday and was involved in all sorts of activities. Her congregate living place

provided breakfast and dinner, changed her sheets, did the heavy laundry (sheets and towels), and did the cleaning. There was always something going on - movie night, a sing-along, a day trip, an event for families. 

Sure, there was a bit of bittersweet hanging over everything. Moving to congregate living meant that my mother was leaving the home where she'd spent her married life, where she'd raised her kids. Where she had all the stuff she'd accumulated. We all knew - my mother included - that this might well be the last stop. But we all loved it - my mother included. 

Sadly, less than a year later, my mother died. We all so wished she'd had more time in her 'single gal' apartment.

Well before she'd moved into congregate, once the last of her kids had moved out and my long-widowed mother was an empty nester, she experimented with sharing her home with a roommate.

She wasn't looking for extra income. Mostly, although she was still working and very active, with a lot of friends, my mother didn't like rattling around the house by herself. 

The house I grew up in wasn't all the big. But, in its prime, it was full and bustling. Even after its fully-loaded prime, until the last kid left for college, there was always someone around.

My mother was a secretary at Clark University, and her first roommate was a grad student - a young, very pleasant woman from Iran. My mother loved her, and we thought she was great. As was the fact that my mother had company.

Her second (and final) roommate was less of a winner. Michael, who was South African, was also a grad student at Clark. But he was something of an oddball. 

Maybe it was because he was a man, maybe it was just the weirdo vibe, or the South African accent, but Michael made my mother uncomfortable. 

So my mother, who was one of the most honest people I've ever known, told Michael that one of my brothers was moving back in, so she needed the "boys' bedroom" back.

We were all relieved when he moved on.

After that, my mother pretty much flew solo. Until she moved into her congregate living apartment.

I'm sure that there were times she was lonely, and when it woruld have been helpful to have someone around to take out the trash or shovel the walk. But mostly she did fine. She had a lot of friends, traveled, took classes, volunteered, and lived a full and active life. 

When she was considering congregate living, we talked about her moving to the Boston area to be closer to her children, but she had too much of a life going in Worcester and wasn't interested in uprooting.

I'm still a few years - probably a decade or so - away from having to think about my next living arrangement.

I love my condo, but there may come a point when I need to upstakes and move to a place where there's some level of assistance - breakfast and dinner, doing the sheets and towels - and some level of company. 

I'm pretty much a loner, so I'm good for now. But if there comes a point where I can't get out for my daily walks or my volunteer work, when I want to be around people.

But I don't believe that, even if I had a bigger place, I'd want to share my digs with someone else.

Which is not to say that it doesn't make perfect sense for someone who wants to stay in their home, wants/needs someone to help defray costs, and maybe just wants someone to be there to share a cup of tea, to - like my mother - welcome a roommate in. 

Which was the subject of a recent Washington Post article that highlighted some Baby Boomers who are going the Golden Girls route and finding roomies.

Sometimes, it's a matter of financial necesssity. Jodi Raffa has a large - 3 bedroom, 2 bath - home in Florida. Which became a lot less affordable when her husband died and her income plummeted. Jodi wants to stay in her home, so at 76 she's looking for a job. And a roommate. Or as they've now been dubbed, a boommate. 

“With the boomers aging, you see higher and higher numbers in shared housing,” said Rodney Harrell, vice president of family, home and community at AARP, pointing out that boomers are more open than previous generations to trying alternative solutions to the traditional aging trajectory.

The article found anecdotal evidence that the biggest driver for boom-mating is economic. 

As boomers live longer and retire without the financial safety net of employer-sponsored pensions, covering the rising costs of food, housing and insurance become major considerations. 

Debbi Campbell and Loretta Halter share Campbell's "rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village." They're not a couple. They were brought together by Halter's economic necessity, and Campbell's loneliness. (Her partner of 20 years had recently died.) Campbell had, thanks to the pandemic, retired a couple of years earlier than she'd planned on, so the extra money comes in handy. But mostly she was lonely. 

Before the pandemic, the two lived somewhat separate lives. Campbell lived mostly in the bedroom and Halter lived mostly in the living room. But when the city shut down, they developed a strong friendship.

“First, we started with the crossword and the jigsaw puzzles, and the TV, and it turned out well,” Campbell said. The ease of the later-in-life roommate-as-friend experience surprised her. “I mean, I’m one of those people who’s spent a good time of my life in therapy, mostly complaining about people I knew.”

..."I had not been desperate over money, but having a pandemic come, suddenly you have company where you wouldn’t have. And suddenly there is extra money for you from home sharing, which I wouldn’t have had. It was just a bonanza. I feel like the luckiest person of the pandemic,” she said.

Good on them, but I can't imagine sharing a 1 BR with anyone I wasn't sharing a bed with. Even then, I like a little elbow room. (I live by myself with two bedrooms - ones a den - and two bathrooms.) With a boommate, I would feel like a prisoner in my own home - because I'm pretty sure I would have kept hanging out in my bedroom. 

Most folks are open to the idea of sharing space:

In 2021, 70 percent of adults over 50 reported being open to sharing their home with a family member who was not a spouse, 51 percent said they would be willing to share with a friend and 6 percent would share a home with a stranger, according to a survey from AARP. Of those who reported they would not share their home at all, 23 percent said they would change their mind if they needed extra income.

To support all this, services are popping up to matchmake boomers - mostly with age peers, but sometimes with younger folks. 

Never say never. I can imagine sharing a home with one of my siblings - but we'd need to have our own bedrooms. Bonus points for own bath. I have a few friends I can imagine living with. Ditto for bedroom and bath. 

But the mode I'd prefer would be a separate apartment in the same facility. Like what my mother had with congregate living. 

As for sharing with a stranger? Ugh, no! Maybe you luck out and get a Mina. Maybe you don't luck out and get a Michael. NFW.

Still, I think boommating is a good idea. Just not for this golden girl. Maybe I'm just not golden enough. Yet.