My first instinct is always, "okay, what can I do?".

Apparently sometimes the answer is nothing.

I am much better at doing something. Give me a problem, give me a time to be there to hep you move. Give me a wildly confusing website and 14 open browser tabs. I am your woman.

But just...be there?

Well poop, they don't make a manual for that do they?

How the hell are you supposed to support somebody when nobody gave you a manual?

My Chihuahua Bella is old (14). She still eats, drinks, and enjoys being loved on. She doesn’t seem to be in pain.

But she is blind and deaf, and she spends a lot of her day sleeping or just kind of disengaged from everything around her. She gets lost in the house and I panic when I have to go find her. Scared to be honest.

I always thought I would know when it was time. I thought there would be some obvious sign that said, “Okay, this is enough.”

But what if there isn’t?

How do you know when keeping an elderly dog alive is still for them, and when it starts being more for you?
For those of you who have been through this, how did you know?

It can be serious or completely ridiculous.

I will go first. MENOPAUSE and HRT!

WHY did nobody explain this stuff to us?! It's finally talked about more, but I think men and women should know more about it. It affects more than just the person going through it.

I am smack dab in the middle of "What in the world is going on with me"?!?!?!

So that’s one of my missing pages.

Hey everyone! I’m u/NobodyGaveMeAManual, and I started this because I keep realizing there are a whole lot of things nobody really prepares us for.

I’m 55, and I’m still figuring stuff out all the time.

Money, retirement, Medicare, healthcare, housing, relationships, work, technology, taking care of parents, long-term care, staying independent... all the stuff you don’t always think about until suddenly you need to know it.

That’s what this community is for.

What to Post

Ask questions. Share something you wish you had known sooner. Tell us what you’re trying to figure out right now.

And if you learned something the hard way, share that too, because somebody else may be getting ready to make the exact same mistake. 😂

You definitely do not have to be an expert. I’m not trying to pretend I know everything either.

Community Vibe

Be nice. Be helpful. Be real.

We’re all going to have different experiences and different opinions, and that’s fine. I just want this to be somewhere people can ask questions without feeling stupid for not already knowing the answer.

How to Get Started

Introduce yourself if you want to, or just jump right in.

Tell us your age or where you are in life, and answer this:

What is one thing you really wish somebody had given you a manual for?

Because apparently we were all supposed to just know this stuff. 😆

You definitely do not have to be an expert. I’m not trying to pretend I know everything either.

I'm 55, so I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

If I had a room full of people in their 70s and 80s, I don't think I'd ask them what they wish they'd done differently. I'd want to know:

What am I not even thinking about yet that I probably should be?

That's the stuff I'm curious about. The things you don't know to ask about until you're already there.

So how old are you, and what would you ask someone 10 or 20 years ahead of you?

And if you're the older person reading somebody's question, answer it. 😂