Tales of Retirement
Jean Murphy
French Immersion Kindergarten Teacher
‘Retired’ 2007
After many years of ‘passion and purpose’ teaching French Immersion Kindergarten, I was forced to retire a year early. That is, one year before I had reached my ‘X’ factor for optimal monthly pension payouts, and a year before my marriage was counting on it. A vocation that had once brought me much, much joy, and for which I was highly respected by administrators, colleagues, students, and parents alike, had by this point turned me into nothing more than a conveyor belt, dumping out numeracy and literacy statistics, rather than nurturing the whole child. I had given my ALL to each student, to the point that, after each parent-teacher interview, and every set of report cards, I felt as though I had just given birth. A brief bout of situational depression eight years prior to my eventual retirement date (which at the time had seemed like a blip on the radar, a “What the hell was THAT all about?” moment) had not prepared me for the debilitating illness that, characterized by ongoing insomnia, general lack of will, and fear of the classroom, sidelined me completely.
Madame fell and bumped her head
Of course, initially, there was grief at having to leave two alternate, all-day classes of wonderful little people without much warning. (“Madame fell and bumped her head.”) Not to mention the shame I felt at not being up to the task of changing with the times, keeping up with the unrealistic expectations that had become educational trends by then. I am a concrete sequential, Type ‘A’ person, a person who gets things done efficiently and effectively, so what was the problem? I couldn’t have known that it was to take many months of tinkering with meds, rest, counselling, and the loving support of my family to bring me back to the cheerful, confident, fully functional person I once was, and am again today.
Be prepared to sell the prize collection of comics
Teachers in Ontario, if they are fiscally savvy, should not have too many money worries in retirement. We had two cars on the road, no mortgage, and our health. We had attended a couple of retirement workshops, provided by our union, but the biggest takeaway I recall from those sessions was that we might need to be prepared to sell “the prize collection of comics”, for example, to make up the difference between our usual take-home pay, and the pension cheque. The word ‘gap’ was used a lot. Unfortunately, as I was struggling to stay afloat at work, my household had committed to a kitchen renovation that was to go way, WAY beyond the estimated cost. My small retirement gratuity was eaten up by that renovation, leaving me feeling trapped in a house I was beginning to feel we could no longer afford. Additionally, we had built up many wonderful gardens which, at the time, I had no interest in keeping up. Add guilt to the above list of emotions.
In our very sketchy retirement plans, my husband was to retire a year before me. (I had had the good fortune to be at home with our young children, so he had accumulated more years of experience than I.) Instead, we retired at the same time. I very much regret that, after an equally challenging teaching career, he did not have that time to take up new hobbies or throw himself into his current ones, read more books, listen to his music (loudly), watch sci-fi and post-apocalyptic movies, and just be still. Instead, he was forced to become a big part of my recovery.
Fast forward
Fast forward nine years. Our two children are grown, and have happy, meaningful lives of their own. Our daughter is currently teaching French Immersion Kindergarten in a public school in Ontario. I have much respect for what she does, and does well, but part of me still worries about the rigours of the job. More and more, early childhood educators are being required to not just dispense information, but to parent. Our son and his young family are on a three-year posting to Beijing, so if I had had my sights set on being a big part of my grandkids’ lives, those plans are currently on hold. Not to mention my worry about the hardships and dangers associated with life in a very polluted, communist country.
So, what does retirement now look like, and is there much to recommend it? Yes, yes, and more yesses. Some new retirees have to learn to say ‘No’ to the barrage of requests for their time and talent, but that has not been an issue for me, perhaps because of my inauspicious start. Since sleep has often been elusive, and because for my entire career I chose to be at work by 8:00, I now stay in bed unless there is some need to be somewhere at a specific time. What a treat, then, to be able to stay up to watch the news, like a real adult! My general health is good, apart from, thanks to genetics, osteoarthritis. It is hard to explain to a sound person just how much modification can be required for arthritics. Gardening, for example, becomes more and more painful, less and less enjoyable. I am learning to pick and choose my tasks, and the times at which I will do them. Also, my husband has taken on much more of the heavy going, and we are choosing to downsize the area under cultivation.
Music has always been very important to me. During my years at home with children, I took up piano lessons. While I am a terrible sight reader, I love to accompany myself using a basic play-mostly-by-ear approach. Christmas music particularly speaks to me – so what if I begin playing it in October, and don’t put it away until May? The desire to play children’s songs is a very big impetus now. (I’m currently working on the Bob the Builder theme song…) Some of my closest friendships have been forged through music, particularly in choirs and barbershop quartets. Indeed, one of my best friends passed away recently. Not only do I miss her person, but the song that originally brought us together. During my Kindergarten years, particularly since it was Second Language learning, I used music and song every day, all day, for instructional purposes and community-building. An accomplishment of which I am still proud is the compiling of more than 100 little French songs, many original, in a recording for each child on ‘graduation’ day.
Moving to music has been hugely important to me in retirement. Obviously, as the arthritis progresses, it is essential to keep moving. I have learned so much, and grown so much since adopting Nia eight years ago on the insistence of other retirees ‘of a certain age’. It is a dance practice which incorporates yoga and martial arts, but has a very heavy emphasis on spiritual, mental and emotional well-being.
While I was teaching full-time I did not have, take, or make the time for fitness. Just getting to 3:30 on a Friday consumed all my energy (mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual), and a typical Friday evening saw me fast asleep in front of the TV after supper and a couple glasses of wine. Not much fun for my husband… One of the greatest, more recent joys of my retirement has been joining the YMCA. We are very lucky in our community to have an amazing, new, well-run facility. It must be stated that my main reason for undertaking a more active lifestyle was and is to get myself, specifically my back, in the best shape I can for a flight to and from Beijing in a few months. To my surprise, as I am a person who doesn’t usually even like to get her hair wet except while shampooing, the pool has been the most soothing, yet effective therapy. Even though I’m not a swimmer, I look forward to pain-free splashing about with the little ones.
Thunderstorms and fireflies
While there was no retirement party for me, no sunset dinner cruise on the Chi-Cheemaun ferry in my honour, I did receive many cards and meaningful messages from my closest workmates, family and friends. One card suggested that the most difficult part about retiring would be knowing when to have your coffee break. This lack of structure posed little problem for me, apart from my not always knowing what day of the week it was. It must now be said, Fridays in the staff room, with special snacks and good-natured bantering, were one of the things I came to miss most when I retired.
I realize today that retirement truly started working for me when I began to look for the small happinesses first: an unusual sunset, the magic and might of a thunderstorm, fireflies where I had never seen them before, the return of the orioles, a brief conversation with someone who needed a walker to approach the pool, but swims like a fish because she was a medallist in synchronized swimming. No need to look for BIG meaning in retirement when, with eyes and heart wide open, the world is out there to help us sort things out.
Perhaps I should get another job, briefly, something like a greeter at Wal-Mart, so I can retire again, properly, as the Hallmark cards say I should…