It Could Happen to You

Will they share?

In these frightening economic times, I viewed retirement less as a goal and more like winning the lottery.  And yet, other people were braving it or at least planning (thank you, Carol).  I’d thought I’d be working until they unpried my fingers from the computer keys and canceled my paycheck, but – glory of glories – my husband announced HE would work until they pry HIS fingers off his inspection tools.  He carries this idea that there are only about six months between a man’s retirement and his rendezvous with the graveyard.  I wonder if a lot of people feel this way.

There are definite anxieties attached to the goal of retirement, besides the obvious ones:  will I be sharing the cats’ food within a year?  how will I manage without structure?  without deadlines?  without a specified time to get up? will I get depressed?  And, sadly, will I have any value in the eyes of the world at large if I am not earning an income?  And, more sadly, will I then be old beyond redemption, fit only for coupon cutting and recycling plastic bags?

One day you are laughing with your women friends, talking about future retirement as you did menopause –  as some distant crossroad event.  A few years later when the subject comes up, you state firmly that you are not planning to retire any time soon.  More time goes by.  You notice that topics like social security, Medicare, exhaustion and discouragement are slowly creeping into your conversations and your mail.  You make random calculations of your financial situation, apply for Medicare and find yourself actually reading the AARP Magazine from cover to cover. You plod on.

Then one day, all other life experiences aside, you realize you have been forcing yourself to get out of bed for a long time. Your zest for life is at an all time low. You wonder if you really are pulling your weight at work, or if they are just feeling stuck with you and tolerating your mistakes.  And, finally, you don’t care.  Before it’s too late, before you are sick or disabled by fear or make an embarrassing error on the job, you want out.  You feel the terrible wrench of leaving good friends and coworkers behind, but you smell the roses and they smell mighty fine. 

Let me make clear that I realize how lucky I was to even have had the choice to retire.  Retirement is less than ever a viable opportunity  in US economic culture.  As my husband reminds me, in Ireland you retire with a livable pension, subsidized housing and utilities, free medical care and even food assistance.  Here far too many of our seniors scramble for survival.  This country supports a shameful disregard for what it pretends is important:  education, healthcare, poverty, equality, and its veterans, children and elderly.  

At the time of my leaving, almost everyone seemed to ask the same question:  “What will you do now?” At first I felt like I was being asked to produce a five-year plan to justify my retirement;  then I realized how kind and wonderful it was that most felt there was a life after retirement.  A wonderful excitement flooded through me.  I thought – yes!   Another crossroad, another adventure, another story.

I’d love to hear how other people made this decision and did the deed –or if you find you cannot retire or will not retire, what your thoughts are on this subject.  And if it’s not you, but your mom or dad at this crossroad, what are you observing about them?  And if mom and/or dad are gone or too young or already long retired, how do YOU think about retirement?  With longing?  Or fear?