I gave up driving several years ago, for a LOT of reasons. Mr VOW handles all the driving, and since we’re retired, it’s not too bad.
–I’m on Pain Management, and we don’t need another stoned driver on the road.
–I started having panic attacks when I would get behind the wheel.
–I’m damned near deaf, and lately cops have been shooting deaf drivers because they seemingly don’t comply.
It’s not easy to give up the freedom of driving. But sometimes it’s simply the smart thing to do.
~VOW
Glad to hear the car sale went well. Let us know how the period of adjustment goes!
I have relatives south of Seattle, and their favorite thing to do is to take a bus “into town” for the day. And now, I think they can bus to Sea-Tac and catch the new light rail/monorail into downtown!
Or a train! If you’re near the I-5 Corridor, Amtrak runs a couple of trains daily. If you can get to Longview or Centralia, both the Coast Starlight and the Amtrak Cascades trains will take you to downtown Seattle.
We have a neighbor who retired and has spent most days since then riding the El around Chicago, getting off and exploring, then back on and home in time for dinner. I’m about to retire, and in preparation for being an Olde Coote, I’m trying out public transit/Uber/etc just so I won’t feel helpless when I stop driving (before I have to! I swear!)
It’s odd looking out the window and not seeing my car out there. It probably sounds odd, but I got attached. My car was a little like a pet–feed it now and then, take it out for a walk( or drive), wash it as needed–except I didn’t have to vacuum fur off the couch. 
Trains and I are old friends. I’ve loved 'em since I was a kid. I’ve taken Amtrak into Seattle often, and I took it to Chicago a couple of years ago. I also checked out public transportation when I moved here. I wish Amtrak had more stops between here and Seattle, as it’s more complicated to get to my son’s house in a town south of Seattle. The Sounder doesn’t come this far south. But when I lived in Wyoming, there was zero public transportation. If you couldn’t drive, you were SOL. I made sure there was public transportation before I moved here, as I was having another major eye surgery soon after. And I chose an apartment complex within a mile or so of grocery stores, pharmacies, a mall, etc.
I know I can handle this. It’s just…odd not to have a car. Adjusting to not having one is another step in accepting my vision isn’t going to improve.
VOW, sorry about the reasons you had to give up driving, but I agree it’s the smart thing to do, in your case because it was making your life harder and more dangerous, and in mine because I could so easily have hurt someone else.
This is not great advice. Uber and lyft drivers will hate you and downrate you for this. They make their money being on the move and despise waiting unless you make arrangements to pay them extra for doing so. Eventually your rating will drop to the point of nobody accepting your pickup requests for any reason.
doordash does walmart deliveries.
Just a thought, but do you still see well enough to ride a horse? Or drive a horse-drawn cart? Because either might give you back some of your freedom.
Well, that’s a novel idea. I’d have to find a place to stable said horse, as I live in an apartment complex. The nearest place is 5 miles from me. There are no buses that run to that stable. And even if it’s legal to ride a horse on my small city’s streets–and I don’t know if it is–what would I do with the horse while I’m in a business? It’d take me about 10 hours to ride a horse to my son’s house IF I could safely and legally ride it on the freeway, which I can’t. I’d be endangering the horse, myself, and other drivers.
I can’t see street signs, addresses, store signs (unless I’m very close), etc. I can’t read road signs. The horse would have to figure all that out. Too bad Mr. Ed is long gone.
There are some serious retirement communities in Florida that are self contained. They run around in golf carts. might have something similar in your area.
I think that’s a no, then.