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.
It never has occurred to me that doing nothing would ever be a problem for me. When we had our few years of retirement we found (esp. Linn) that we were perfectly content when we were traveling in our camper. But when we got back to base camp in Merida things would get pretty boring. Well, I found sewing to fill my time, at first clothes and then quilting. Linn, on the other hand, had no hobby. He basically repeated his old work schedule only not calling on customers and making sales but "calling" on stores (ie, grocery, hardware, whatnot) and make purchases. Well, in Mexico that can keep one rather busy as you just can't really get everything in one store. Then he discovered Spanish and began learning the language and that really occupied his time and he got great enjoyment from it. I guess what I'm taking a lifetime to express is that you need a good pass time that you love to really enjoy retirement. Linn is much happier now that he has returned to work....me.....not so much, but it was very necessary.
ReplyDelete"Puzzlements"? I haven't had any about my own retirement, but I'm sure that my spouse, family and un-retired friends may have had some "puzzlements" about me and what I do in my retirement. It's probably more like "jealously" on their part, but that's no reason to tone-down my enthusiastic comments when someone asks me how my retirement is going. My feeling about others having "puzzlements" (is that really a word? - Where is an English teacher when you need her?) about my retirement is "it's indescribably great!" Let them ponder what retirement is like until they reach their own. In the mean time, let's make them even more jealous!
ReplyDeleteThank you for letting me see the world through a retiree's lens. I am excited to see how your process goes...
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of retirement, those "stages" you mentioned come to mind. Death comes to mind, too. Not in the literal sense, but in the sense that the previous you no longer exists. I wonder if it is similar to that "empty nest" feeling parents experience? Or, is it something quite different. Does some sort of renewed, self-discovery process emerge from this freedom?