I knew it when it was time for me to retire. I'd had enough and it was time to go. Now that I'm around home more, I feel, with almost the same certainty, that I need to clean. Not the ordinary kind of cleaning - vacuuming, dusting, mopping kind of cleaning. But cleaning out, clearing out, making space in my house.
And why not? Retirement has made space in my life that I've never had before. I now have time to spread out into. Time to spend on things I like to do. Just time to be.
I need space in my house, too. Not that I'm a hoarder or anything like that. We've lived in our house for over 25 years, and we have accumulated a normal amount of stuff. Some of it we accumulated deliberately. Some of it we accumulated because we didn't have time or the energy to get rid of it. That's what junk drawers are for, right? "Temporary storage" that never is really temporary.
I don't really want to do the cleaning myself. I'm not good at getting rid of things if I'm left to do it alone. I spend too much time mulling over possible uses for whatever, and saving things I don't need to save. That's how those junk drawers got filled in the first place.
So, just like I picked a date and retired, I guess I'll have to pick a closet and get started. I know it's time.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Lightening Up - Part I
We've lived in our current home for over 25 years. We are not hoarders - or I never thought we were. Until I retired and starting spending more time at home.
We have, despite our best efforts, packed away quite a bit of stuff. The other day, I opened one of the 5 or 6 junk drawers in the house and found 5 key rings, 2 new watch batteries separated from their packaging (the packaging was there, too), 10 rubber bands, a pad of golf ball markers with my husband's name on them, some note cards I intended to give away for a gift someday, 3 dead pens, a Skipbo game, and numerous rusty paper clips. Stuff. I can only guess what's lurking in the cupboard over the closets.
The house feels as heavy to me as my working life felt. I long for empty drawers and bare closet floors. We have another house in North Carolina that isn't laden with stuff. Part of the sense of lightness I feel when I'm there is because of the emptiness of the place. We have empty shelves, empty closets, and only one junk drawer in the whole place. I want this house to be like that house.
But I don't really want to do the cleaning out myself. I'm very bad at throwing things of sentimental or potential value away when I'm on my own. If I have to go through things, I keep more than I throw away...even when I've steeled myself to the task. Can't I just hire someone to come in with a big dumpster, open my closets (and those junk drawers) and toss everything out? Without asking me to look things over? Or better yet, when I'm not even here?
Retirement has brought time and space to my life. The stress that wore me down at work is gone; the angst about saving enough money to retire is gone; the responsibilities I have are easier to handle with more time to handle them in. I have time and space now. I want that same space in my house.
Perhaps, just like I picked at date to retire and then retired; I just need to pick a closet and start dumping. Yeah, it will be as easy as that!
We have, despite our best efforts, packed away quite a bit of stuff. The other day, I opened one of the 5 or 6 junk drawers in the house and found 5 key rings, 2 new watch batteries separated from their packaging (the packaging was there, too), 10 rubber bands, a pad of golf ball markers with my husband's name on them, some note cards I intended to give away for a gift someday, 3 dead pens, a Skipbo game, and numerous rusty paper clips. Stuff. I can only guess what's lurking in the cupboard over the closets.
The house feels as heavy to me as my working life felt. I long for empty drawers and bare closet floors. We have another house in North Carolina that isn't laden with stuff. Part of the sense of lightness I feel when I'm there is because of the emptiness of the place. We have empty shelves, empty closets, and only one junk drawer in the whole place. I want this house to be like that house.
But I don't really want to do the cleaning out myself. I'm very bad at throwing things of sentimental or potential value away when I'm on my own. If I have to go through things, I keep more than I throw away...even when I've steeled myself to the task. Can't I just hire someone to come in with a big dumpster, open my closets (and those junk drawers) and toss everything out? Without asking me to look things over? Or better yet, when I'm not even here?
Retirement has brought time and space to my life. The stress that wore me down at work is gone; the angst about saving enough money to retire is gone; the responsibilities I have are easier to handle with more time to handle them in. I have time and space now. I want that same space in my house.
Perhaps, just like I picked at date to retire and then retired; I just need to pick a closet and start dumping. Yeah, it will be as easy as that!
Questions
I decided to retire quite quickly. I had worked in my field (education) for over 35 years; and one day, I just realized that I was finished with it. Done. Over. I'd heard before that I'd know when it was time. One day, I realized that I had become one of those curmudgeons who sit in the back of the room muttering, "We did the same thing 20 years ago, and it didn't work then."Clearly, it was time.
So, over one weekend, I decided to retire at the end of the school year. I picked the date and started pondering how I'd spend my retirement. I'd had a job once that gave me lots of free time. I found that at that time, I didn't thrive in the work-at-home world. I needed an office, classroom, or some place with people around me. My main question about retiring was: Will I have the same stay-at-home experience? Would I find myself looking for an office after not too long? Or worse, going back to work?
Like the good student I always was, I began to do research on how to prepare for retirement and what to expect from it. Most of what I found concerned money: how much to have, how to make more, how to manage what you had. I didn't want to know that. We have financial advisers who tell us what to do; and besides, we had pretty much saved all the money we were going to save for our retirement. We didn't have time left to amass another $100,000 or so.
I found lots of web sites on retirees' health issues: How to prepare your house for assisted living, how to deal with Social Security - which has a massive web site of its own; how to keep your health into the golden years. Again, I didn't really want to know this. I do exercise, try to eat right, and the other things doctors tell us to do to maintain our health. Besides, I'm a bit of a fatalist on this issue. Something will get me in the end, no matter what I do, right? After all, nature bats last.
What I didn't find were sites that talked about what retirement was like; what to expect when you've retired and most of your friends (and spouse) haven't; what stages will there be in adaptation to retirement. Or will there even be stages? Retirement is, after all, a big life change; one of those major life events that can derail you. How was I going to handle the changes that would come? What would those changes be? That's what I needed to know. I didn't find it.
I'm learning as I go. So far, so good. In future posts, I'll talk about what I'm learning about retirement. Maybe you have some tips you'd like to add or questions you'd like to ask. Go ahead. We'll find answers together.
So, over one weekend, I decided to retire at the end of the school year. I picked the date and started pondering how I'd spend my retirement. I'd had a job once that gave me lots of free time. I found that at that time, I didn't thrive in the work-at-home world. I needed an office, classroom, or some place with people around me. My main question about retiring was: Will I have the same stay-at-home experience? Would I find myself looking for an office after not too long? Or worse, going back to work?
Like the good student I always was, I began to do research on how to prepare for retirement and what to expect from it. Most of what I found concerned money: how much to have, how to make more, how to manage what you had. I didn't want to know that. We have financial advisers who tell us what to do; and besides, we had pretty much saved all the money we were going to save for our retirement. We didn't have time left to amass another $100,000 or so.
I found lots of web sites on retirees' health issues: How to prepare your house for assisted living, how to deal with Social Security - which has a massive web site of its own; how to keep your health into the golden years. Again, I didn't really want to know this. I do exercise, try to eat right, and the other things doctors tell us to do to maintain our health. Besides, I'm a bit of a fatalist on this issue. Something will get me in the end, no matter what I do, right? After all, nature bats last.
What I didn't find were sites that talked about what retirement was like; what to expect when you've retired and most of your friends (and spouse) haven't; what stages will there be in adaptation to retirement. Or will there even be stages? Retirement is, after all, a big life change; one of those major life events that can derail you. How was I going to handle the changes that would come? What would those changes be? That's what I needed to know. I didn't find it.
I'm learning as I go. So far, so good. In future posts, I'll talk about what I'm learning about retirement. Maybe you have some tips you'd like to add or questions you'd like to ask. Go ahead. We'll find answers together.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Seems corny to begin with "Hello!" But, in the absence of any more clever greeting...Hello! I'm a recently retired person who is learning to adapt to the retired life. I hope to use this blog to talk about the puzzlements that come with retirement, along with other topics of every day life. I'm a seeker and a wonderer. Some days I have more things to wonder about than I'll ever be able to find answers to. But, to paraphrase what the Queen told Alice in Alice in Wonderland, "sometimes I've wondered as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
I sincerely hope my thoughts and musings and wonderments will strike some chords in some readers. I plan to write frequently, since I write every day anyway. I hope you'll tune in and join in the conversations.
I sincerely hope my thoughts and musings and wonderments will strike some chords in some readers. I plan to write frequently, since I write every day anyway. I hope you'll tune in and join in the conversations.
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