Gems from year one 2

Favourite Quotations from this Newsletter
August 2014 to July 2015

To celebrate the first year of this newsletter, I spent days rereading all the articles submitted from August 2014 to July 2015 from our contributing writers. I pulled out the best bits of wisdom, humour and experience. Members of the editing team then chose their favourite quotations, and I then compiled a list of the 12 top gems, ones that stand out as universal truths. We couldn’t bear to discard the others, so you’ll find them below. If you want to see who wrote these little gems or if you wish to link to their article, see the footnote for that quotation.

Enjoy!     Mariella.

Top 12 gems

• Retirement, I’d argue, feels better when it is chosen.[1]

• I can just hear the colour commentator in the booth chattering: “I can’t see why he’s quitting the game when he’s at the peak of his career!”[2]

• Rather than analyzing life, I’m trying to be there. Rather than being afraid of what is next, I am flinging myself forward into the fray with no particular goal in mind.[3]

• I’m still searching out the balance between overcommitment and aimlessness, still inching towards a new, less driven freedom.[4]

• When I’m about to ‘shuffle off my mortal coil’ I want to feel at peace with my life, with few, if any, regrets. I’m not quite sure how to achieve this goal, but I’m positive that it doesn’t include words like ‘must’, ‘should ’ and ‘need ’.[5]

• Clearing out my office did feel painfully like presiding over my own wake. Alone.[6]

• I’ve got the gift of time. Unfortunately there is an expiry date to this gift, so I want to spend it wisely.[7]

• Since I stopped work, experiences have taught me to let go of fears, to discover more deeply the power of love, to trust others, make friends, and feel the strength there is in community. I am more able to see and accept my blind spots with compassion and to make changes. I can let go of some notions I held onto way past their expiry date. I am learning to follow my heart.[8]

• Like a drunken matador, facing the bull with staggering bravery… take a stab at it…[9]

• Why, eighteen months later, do I find myself taking a stress management course at the local university? What do I have to be stressed about? I’m retired, for God’s sake![10]

• You have to know you have done something with your day and washing your face doesn’t count. … After you are fed, watered and warmed, it’s all on you.[11]

• Where there are toasted tomato sandwiches, there is hope.[12]

More gems from year one…

• On December 19, 2014, our family received devastating news. Gerald was diagnosed with stage 4, metastatic, pancreatic cancer. He was 67 years old. He died 35 days later. Now, nine months later, I am a 63-year-old widow trying to develop Retirement Plan B… the plan in which I continue on without him.[13]

• Should I be using my time to ensure a lasting legacy? What does leaving a legacy really mean? If I don’t leave a legacy, does it mean that I’ve squandered my time? Do I care? My head hurts.[14]

• If you want to retire only at the end of your working life, know your cracking point.[15]

• The pit pony had been released from the mines, and danced skittishly, blinking in the light. Suddenly I had about fifty extra hours in my week to do whatever I wanted to do.[16]

• I hope I have the wisdom to move slowly through the hurtling world around me.[17]

• Am I going to be in her way, thumping around the house? [18]

• I was reluctant to take the plunge for the concerns that most people have. Reduced finances. Loss of contact with colleagues. Loss of identity. No reason to get going in the morning. Little intellectual stimulation. Low feelings of self-worth. And it goes on.[19]

• The biggest challenge was to find the passions that enabled me to keep moving forward along the tightrope and, even though I sometimes felt a bit shaky, I made it safely to the other side.[20]

• Money could be my Achilles heel (and all this time I thought it was food). When I wake up at night, it is often money that is on my mind (although our children run a close second). I don’t like losing sleep worrying about money (or about children for that matter). Sometimes I worry about money that is needed to help our children, a double whammy.[21]

• On leave, I finally started acting on my growing realization that no embodiment of the institution was ultimately going to compensate me for the sacrifice of my life. I became the ultimate arbiter of my choices, setting aside external expectation as much as possible.[22]

• If you have been in the habit of operating reasonably well within a set of parameters, you sometimes get very used to working within the box. Suddenly the sides of the box are flattened and it is all up to you.[23]

• When competence is the hallmark of one’s identity, mental illness feels stigmatizing. Hell, it feels stigmatizing under any circumstances.[24]

• However, unless you truly love your work, this comes at the price of less time to enjoy life and the increasing odds that your money will outlive you.[25]

• As for me, my grief journey continues. I liken grief to the waves in the ocean. Some days, I am hit by tsunami after tsunami; other days it may be a single tidal wave; some days it’s a riptide that pulls me under; some days I am simply drowning; and some days I am hit by every kind of wave. Occasionally now, there are a few hours when I am floating on gentle waves. I am learning to swim in the ocean. This gives me hope![26]

• The big revelation in my life is the pure joy that comes upon finding and feeling a sense of purpose, in knowing my place in the larger picture, knowing where my “deep gladness intersects with the needs of the world.”.[27]

• Despite feeling ebullient about leaving work behind, I was feeling a bit like a turtle out of its shell. I no longer had my cloak of status, my shield of twice-monthly paycheques, and my trusty electronics that served me so well in battling never-ending tasks. I was alone with myself and was feeling uneasy staring myself in the eyes. [28]

• Because I was able to get out of bed and didn’t feel the absolute evacuation of life’s colour described by some depressives, I felt fraudulent about my diagnosis. But I was seriously incapacitated.[29]

• When we involve ourselves in activities that increase our challenges while developing our skills, we grow, whereas if we sit around as idle spectators, sipping pina coladas and watching television, we might experience pleasure, but no growth. Flow fosters growth.[30]

• While I am currently smugly content with my retirement to-date, I can’t help feeling that with some mental and physical stretching it could be so much more enjoyable and rewarding.[31]

• Retirement was teaching me the same lesson as had my work life – the necessity to leave room around the margins for the unanticipated. OR I was able to develop more resilience and to control the timing of my retirement, when I learned to create a life margin around my work.[32]

• ….I had a colleague who stood on his desk and belted out the Soviet Internationale for the last class he would ever teach. The conclusion of my professional life felt a little tattered, unresolved.[33]

• As I tossed away the records of many years, I stripped off paper clips and saved good folders. In fact, having just weighed them, I can report that I salvaged over two pounds of paper clips alone.[34]

• 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… Why does retirement not feel like nirvana?[35]

• It’s natural to be confused and it’s okay to stumble and guess. Humility is in order in this vast, largely uncharted territory.[36]

[1] Helen, https://crabapple.ca/2015/02/06/my-almost-involuntary-early-retirement/

[2] Frank, https://crabapple.ca/2014/08/12/hanging-up-the-skates-flip-flopping-towards-retirement/

[3] Fiona McConachie-Anderson, https://crabapple.ca/2015/05/14/an-examination-of-my-fear-of-spiders/

[4] Helen, https://crabapple.ca/2015/07/21/am-i-really-retired/

[5] Frank, https://crabapple.ca/2015/06/07/the-most-precious-gift/

[6] Helen, https://crabapple.ca/2015/06/22/clearing-out-my-office-and-my-life/

[7] Frank, https://crabapple.ca/2015/06/07/the-most-precious-gift/

[8] Martin, When work ended abruptly, I was catapulted into serious soul searching

[9] Christine Warltier, https://crabapple.ca/2014/12/15/retire-like-a-drunken-matador/

[10] Rose Morley, https://crabapple.ca/2015/02/15/in-search-of-the-meaning-of-life-still/

[11] Rose Morley, https://crabapple.ca/2015/02/15/in-search-of-the-meaning-of-life-still/

[12] Brad Morley, https://crabapple.ca/2014/08/14/where-there-are-toasted-tomato-sandwiches-there-is-hope/

[13] Judy Callahan, https://crabapple.ca/2014/11/14/one-widows-retirement-story/

[14] Frank, https://crabapple.ca/2015/06/07/the-most-precious-gift/

[15] Helen, https://crabapple.ca/2015/03/07/staving-off-involuntary-early-retirement-the-emotional-side/

[16] Pauline Hodge, https://crabapple.ca/2015/04/14/freedom-sixty-one/

[17] Brad Morley, https://crabapple.ca/2015/03/14/the-healing-tea-of-retirement/

[18] James A. Dixon, https://crabapple.ca/2015/01/14/then-a-miracle-occurred/

[19] Peter Follett, https://crabapple.ca/2014/10/15/1082/

[20] Don Kellett, https://crabapple.ca/2015/06/14/the-view-from-the-far-side/

[21] Frank, https://crabapple.ca/2015/05/07/mind-games/

[22] Helen, https://crabapple.ca/2015/04/21/staving-off-involuntary-early-retirement-the-work-side/

[23] Rose Morley, https://crabapple.ca/2015/02/15/in-search-of-the-meaning-of-life-still/

[24] Helen, https://crabapple.ca/2015/02/06/my-almost-involuntary-early-retirement/

[25] Frank, https://crabapple.ca/2014/11/07/money-money-money-reprise/

[26] Judy Callahan, https://crabapple.ca/2014/11/14/one-widows-retirement-story/

[27] Mariella Vigneux, https://crabapple.ca/2014/02/07/creating-purpose-and-passion-in-your-retirement-just-mushy-words/

[28] Frank, https://crabapple.ca/2015/01/06/a-very-long-weekend/

[29] Helen, https://crabapple.ca/2015/02/06/my-almost-involuntary-early-retirement/

[30] Mariella Vigneux, https://crabapple.ca/2015/02/23/flow-the-overlooked-ingredient-in-the-recipe-for-happiness-part-1/

[31] Frank, https://crabapple.ca/2015/03/07/time-for-a-change/

[32] Helen, https://crabapple.ca/2015/07/21/am-i-really-retired/

[33] Helen, https://crabapple.ca/2015/06/22/clearing-out-my-office-and-my-life/

[34] Helen, https://crabapple.ca/2015/06/22/clearing-out-my-office-and-my-life/

[35] Rose Morley, Of lists and blank pages

[36] Martin, When work ended abruptly, I was catapulted into serious soul searching