I’m fine.  Really. 2

Tales of Retirement

By Anson Laytner
Interreligious Initiative Program Manager,
School of Theology & Ministry, Seattle University
Retired April 2015

I had retirement all figured out; my schedule was set:  Get up early at 5ish to read the paper.  Wake Richelle, my wife, at 6:15 and do yoga together.  Make breakfast, pack her lunch and push her out the door to catch the bus for work.  Go to my home office and write or do research until noon.  Eat lunch.  Take a nap.  Walk to the grocery store or somewhere else to get some exercise.  Come home and make dinner.   Spend the evening with Richelle, watching TV or going for a walk or exercising at the gym.  In bed by 11 pm at the latest – if I haven’t fallen asleep before then.

First some background:  The university at which I worked gave me the impetus to retire when major funding for my program ran out and new funding had not been found.  I was asked to switch to half-time.  Working half-time made me realize two things: first that I could survive on what I was earning, which was about the same as I’d receive in social security benefits; and second, that the part-time position was nowhere near as fulfilling as the full-time position had been.  I concluded that I might as well do what I really want to do so I took a leap of faith and retired.

What I hadn’t counted on was inertia, and guilt, and loneliness, and loss of status, and financial anxiety.  But other than this, I’m doing great.  Seriously.  Let me tell you why.

Finances

The evidence notwithstanding, I still have financial anxiety every time an unanticipated expense pops up.  But slowly I am realizing that as long as the economy is doing well, we’ll be fine too.  (And even if it tanks for a while, it will recover at some point and so will our finances.  And if an economic disaster were to happen it would put many other people in the same dire straits as us, so why worry.) In other words, my anxiety is manageable.

Status

In my working life, I was a major player in Seattle’s interfaith scene, and working at Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry put me at the center of much of it.  I was surprised at how quickly I became irrelevant when I retired!  What a blow to my ego—it was a revelation and an intimation of mortality too.  But it made me realize that if I want to continue to do interfaith work, it will be as a volunteer and whatever I accomplish or contribute will be on my own, without an institution’s prestige backing me up.

Loneliness

A cat is a good companion but a lousy conversationalist and I quickly realized that I had to look elsewhere to meet this need.  So, until Richelle retires and I can pester her 24/7, I make lunch or happy-hour dates with friends and colleagues.  Some days, however, I must admit to feeling lonely and missing the camaraderie of my office mates.

Guilt

This brings me to guilt.  I have retiree’s guilt.  I look younger than I am and I am in pretty good health, so I think I still ought to be working, especially when I see people who look older than I still working.  I feel I owe the world an explanation – except that I really don’t – and so I tell myself, repeatedly, to just get over it.  And that works, repeatedly.

Inertia

Inertia.  Probably my biggest issue.  “Inertia” – a property of matter in which it continues in a state of rest until acted upon by an external force.  As applied to retirement, it translates as self-motivation and the absence of deadlines.  I thought I had this covered.  To begin with, I had commitments to write several major academic articles and, when these are done, I have a manuscript just waiting to be finished and ideas for several more books just waiting to be researched.  Not to mention that I edit a website, publish a newsletter and have daily correspondence to attend to.  And enough chores to label me a househusband.

So what do I do?  When Richelle leaves for work, I wander around the house, or play with Cat, or surf the Internet, or play solitaire, generally doing everything I can to avoid and evade doing something constructive. I always thought I was self-motivated and now, to my surprise, I seem to have become a sluggard.  Sometimes it can take me up to several hours to settle down. Sometimes I never get down to it.  Is this okay? Am I really allowed to just do nothing?

The freedom to do nothing.  Is this what retirement is really about?  But if I do nothing, where do I find the meaning in my life?  Work used to take up so much time and energy but it did provide purpose.  It had meaning and I enjoyed it most of the time.  But now? Is what I do now of any value or am I just marking time until you-know-what happens.

Such questions!  Thank God I told Mariella that I would write this article and have a deadline to meet!  And now that it’s done, I’m off to lunch…