Tales of Retirement
By Rose Morley
Elementary School Teacher
Retired June 2013
“Every morning / the world is created” ~ Mary Oliver
Here is the noble, romantic, idealistic view: each day of your retirement is a fresh, clean page upon which you can make your mark, any sort of mark. It is the idea that kept you going while you were longing for retirement. You would catch yourself at any moment of the workday, lived a thousand times before. Ah, here it is, the freedom and unfettered nature of your day. Countless possibilities for what it will look like: a cool drink in the middle of a warm, sunny afternoon with a book on your lap; a clear crisp morning standing on a train platform in a country you have never been before; the freshness of the morning dew, coffee mug in hand and no watch on your wrist.
The gift (and torment) of the blank page
To regard the days of one’s retirement as clean, new sheets of paper is so necessary in order to create the rest of your life. The release of energy that has had to be spent elsewhere is now yours to choose where it is to be expended. Money may be short but there is the currency of time now, loads of it. And the choices are not only endless but they are yours to make. And yet… Discombobulation. Disorientation. Distraction.
Creating some sense of routine
I realized rather early in my journey in retirement that I had to have some sense of routine if I was going to “do this right.” I listened ever so carefully to the stories of those who had retired ahead of me. I tried to imagine their daily lives. What did a normal day for them look like, sound like, feel like? Was there a sigh of contentment at least every other hour? Or a rush of relief when noticing the hurried lives of those still working? Or niggling guilt while reading in the middle of the day on a couch? Or walking at 2 pm through a pleasant copse? If you aren’t on a grand trip but noodling around at home, what exactly are you doing? Years of working and multi-tasking have seared these accounting habits into me and, I am sure, many others. Some people find their routine in activities that take them necessarily out of the house: classes, fitness clubs, organizations requiring meetings. To be somewhere at a certain time and place – like a bit of work. I dutifully signed up for six-week art classes, three-month Tai Chi, cello lessons and a semester of community choir but found myself resenting slightly the need to be at a certain place at a certain time. What?! I wanted these things (presumably) so why was I silently protesting?
Puzzling it out
Alas, I can’t offer any solutions because I am still working it out and, for some retirees, it will take longer to adjust to the riches of a new life (yes, it is possible to almost curse one’s liberation from the work world). You think of all the hours you spent at work, perhaps taking work home and thinking and dreaming work. Suddenly it is up to you to fill these hours and do so productively, profitably, happily—a daunting task when your mindset during the great majority of your waking hours has been so long established. Even more puzzling, you have been seeking this out and dreaming about it for a considerably long time, so what is the problem? Why does retirement not feel like nirvana?
Balancing routine and the delicious lapse into flow
My strategy is to think of what makes a successful day—a lot of moments of gratitude, joy, anticipation, even the full brunt of sadness—and consider the responsibility I have in creating it. The accounting of time must be left behind and if I can’t help myself and notice that I “wasted” an entire day, I am given another chance tomorrow, a whole new clean page. Success is defined differently from how I have known it for the past number of years. I may have spent two hours writing a letter which will make hardly any difference to but one individual in the world but its work brought me a visit with a friend. Cello practice often done in a swirl of blue air with teeth clenched is brought to its knees when I listen to the sound I am making and try without too much self-immolation to create the sound I want. The euphoria of getting lost in what I am doing lifts me out of that working self which was always on alert. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life, suggests that discovering the activity and mindset which allows one to be absorbed in a task or pastime is key to having what he calls excellence in life. I know this: removing the lists from my life is hard because, like nearly everyone else in this world, I have intentions and goals and dreams. Figuring out the balance between necessary routines and the delicious lapse into flow is my job – at least for now.