Retirement: A Full-Time Job

Zombie Retirement

You know how at the end of a vacation, especially one you are really enjoying, you start to dread going home?  I used to count the days I still had left and then when it was down to one or two, I would start to get depressed about the vacation being almost over.  I would try to enjoy what I had left, but there was always that growing feeling in the pit of my stomach, the dread of returning to reality.

I always thought this was because I had to go back to work.

So then why did the same thing hapen to me this time, at the end of my month in Manhattan?  And why am I still having trouble getting out of this post-vacation funk nearly two weeks after being home?  I don't work anymore, so why would I mind being back to the daily grind when the daily grind doesn't include any hard labor?

You'll often see advice to retirees to get into a daily routine, to add some sort of structure to your life.  The thing I hate about people giving me advice is that it's usually wrong, and here's a perfect example.

I hate routine.  I hate structure.  That's probably the reason I was so anxious to retire.  I was sick of the routine:  wake up early, get ready for work, go to work, go to the gym, go home and eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed, and then wake up and do it all over again.  Add to that a job I held for 18 years and that's being stuck not just in a routine, but a boring one.

I couldn't wait to retire so I could decide each morning what I felt in the mood to do that day, and then do it.  Whatever it was, wherever it took me, each week would look different than the week before it.

Except it doesn't.  

Monday is lunch with one friend, Tuesday is walking with another, Wednesday is writing class, Thursday is hiking with Doug, and then yoga, homework, housework, yard work, and social engagements are squeezed in over the remaining hours.

It's not that I don't enjoy these activities, these are exactly the things I like to do.  It's the structure of having an actual schedule that has me feeling like a zombie again.  I wind up going through my week on autopilot, much like I did when I was working.  Without being totally engaged in it.

On vacation, decisions like what to see or where to eat, or the constant attention it takes to figure out how to get from point A to point B, where to transfer, even which direction you're facing upon leaving the subway station, keep you totally engaged in the moment.  It's impossible to just drift through your day in a trance in New York City--if you stop paying attention even for five minutes, you'll find yourself on an express train to Harlem when you meant to get off at 86th Street.

All those years I spent fantasizing about retirement, I always thought I was attracted to the promise of an easier existence.  I see now that what I really wanted was a more complex one.  I wanted to escape the sameness of each day, the monotony of the structured workweek.

So for me, the retirement challenge isn't to find a structure to my life without a job, it's to find ways to break out of the routine that has replaced it, so that I can be more engaged, less zombie-like.  Because what's the point of having the life you always wanted if you're not even paying attention?

Invasion of the (Retirement) Body Snatchers

We visited with a friend here in New York a couple days ago.  He asked us about our retirement, and whether this was it for us.  You know, the end of the working thing.  

When he said he would like to be retired too, I told him I wasn't sure whether he would like it yet.  I think he loves the fast-paced deal-making of his work and would miss it.  

He wasn't sure about that, but he did say that he feared that he would engage in self-destructive behavior if he were retired.  The fact that he has to be at work the next day prevents him from drinking four martinis the night before.  If he didn't have to be functioning the next day, would he be?

Doug had lunch a few years ago with another co-worker from the past.  Mark asked Doug what it was that he did all day.  Doug recited a list of his usual activities, including his new hobby, biking.  Mark is another that really enjoys the fast pace of his work life.  He said that he didn't think he could just ride his bike all day.

So is it true that if you are retired you have to drink four martinis each night and bike all day?  Or play golf and watch TV?  Or get lazy, boring, or whatever else it is that you fear?  

There seems to be an idea that once you retire, this alternative personality comes out, snatches your body and takes it hostage.  All of a sudden, you will be living in a parallel universe where your thoughts and actions are controlled by this alien being who will make you do all sorts of things that you don't really want to be doing.  The you you thought you were will be gone forever, and now you have to wear black knee socks with sandals and move to Miami.

Here's a little secret:  You get to do anything you want to do when you are retired.  It's true.  Anything.  

Now, it takes each person a different amount of time to figure out just exactly what that anything is, and while you are figuring it out, you might feel lazy, boring, and unproductive.  But after you start to figure out who you really are without work defining you, you will overpower that body snatcher and send it back to the pod it came from.

Traveling in Retirement (or Champagne Taste on a Beer Budget)

We made a not-very-economical decision to blow our wad of frequent flyer miles to fly free business class to New York.  It was a very nice way to start our journey to the center of the universe.  Sipping champagne before takeoff, enjoying a movie on our own portable video players, eating and drinking the not-too-terrible food and wine.  The six hours literally flew by.

After landing, we made our way through JFK to the baggage claim area to find our specially-tagged bags already waiting for us.  As we wheeled them out of the airport, Doug said, "Aaah, those people all have to WAIT for their luggage.  Wave bye-bye to them."

To which I reminded him, "Don't get too excited--they will all be waving to you from their chauffeured Lincoln Town cars while we're shlepping our luggage on the subway and through the streets of Manhattan." 

You have now completed the luxury portion of your vacation.

Two transfers, 17 subway stops, and two hours later we arrived at our stop on the Upper West Side.  We negotiated our wheelie bags through the turnstile, up 25 stairs (no elevator!), and rolled along two long blocks and one short one to the first of our three free stays in Manhattan (8 more steps up and then 16 more down).  A cute brownstone, where our stay includes kitty-sitting duties.  

Oh, and did I mention we saved enough money on a taxi to go out for a light bite at a local wine bar for an 11 p.m. dinner?  

Oh, and did I mention there were actual other people, and a lot of them, eating dinner at 11 p.m?  We're not in Kansas anymore.

Dressing for Retirement

Yesterday, Doug got out of bed, picked his cargo shorts up off the floor, and slipped them on.

    "Did you sleep in those?" I asked.

    "No.  I just put them on."

    "Oh, it's just that the last I saw you, that's what you were wearing."

    "Sydney, maybe you haven't noticed, but this is what I wear every single day."

It's true, and now that I'm retired, I pretty much wear the same outfit every single day too.

I told him that's why it's so good we're going to New York, so we can actually wear some of the other clothes in our closet.  I pictured strolling the sweltering streets of Manhattan in a cute cotton dress and strappy little sandals.

About a week ago, a friend asked me what the status of my closet-cleaning project was.  For a year and a half, I've been meaning to purge my closet of all those cute skirts and dresses that made up my professional persona.

My friend is starting a new job in an environment that is more dressed up than her old one and wanted to go "shopping" in my closet.  It was just the nudge I needed.  I piled up mountains of clothes all over my bed.

    "You've got to take this one, it just pains me to give it to Goodwill, it's just so cute.  Oh my gosh, and this one too, I'll feel so much better parting with it, if it's for you.  Whatever you don't want, just give it to Goodwill and don't tell me."

I loaded her up with two shopping bags, five more directly for Goodwill, and pulled back three dresses for myself, even though I have not had even one opportunity to wear any of them in my new life as a retired person.

The truth is, I miss dressing up for work.  Now, if I dress up even a little, friends ask me, "Why so dressed up?"  It's more like an accusation than a compliment.  I'm usually wearing jeans when they ask this--they think this is dressed up?  My regular repertoire must be getting really bad.

So imagine how excited I am to get to dress up a little while vacationing in New York.  No one will ask me why I'm so dressed up--I don't know anyone.  If I'm wearing the "wrong" thing, I still don't know anyone.  And it gives all the other clothes in my closet a chance to get out a little.

Carrie Bradshaw, you got nothin' on me.

Boredom Begets Boredom

S.B. left a comment on my last post that I've been thinking about all week:  

"I don't think human beings will stay happy very long if they aren't doing something they feel is fulfilling to them. Whether someone is happier after retirement is ultimately likely to hinge on whether they can find something that they are passionate about doing."

This comment was made in the context of boredom in retirement.  But really, this insight is relevant not just to retirement, but to working life as well.  

I spent 18 years at my last job, and 22 in the field that I chose when I was 18 years old as I entered college.  At some point those last few years, I lost the passion for my chosen profession, (well, if you can call it that, it was, after all accounting).  It's probably more accurate to say it became unfulfilling to me, and when that happened, I became extremely bored at my job.  Possible cures for this boredom were to get a new job, get a new career, or as I chose, retire.

It's true, the same thing can happen in retirement if you don't continue to follow where your passions lead you.  The great thing about being retired though, is no one is paying you to stay bored, so if you find you want to head in a new direction, you can just pick up and do that.  

It's true already that my second year of retirement is shaping up to  be very different than the first year.  Last year I was really just transitioning into retirement, shedding my work persona and the strict daily structure of working life.  This year I'm obsessed with travel.  Who knows where my interests will lie next year, but you can be sure that whatever it is I will commit fully and obsessively to my new passion.

With possibly 50 years of retirement in front of me, embracing change is not just an option, it's a necessity.  If my retirement looked exactly the same in 18 years as it does now, I can tell you with absolute certainty, I would be bored.  I'm definitely not bored now, but if I don't grow, learn new things, follow some dreams that I don't even have yet, I will be.  I'm pretty sure this phenomenon operates whether you are working or retired.

Where Are All These Bored, Depressed Retirees?

The second year of retirement is already proving to be very different than the first.  You may have noticed it by the decrease in frequency of my posts.  All that time I previously spent contemplating the transition to retirement I now spend in action.  There is absolutely no time for navel-gazing.  Now that I'm firmly in the actually-living-it phase, I don't have time to think anymore!

That's why I found this blurb from Fortune Magazine to be so amusing today.  In contemplating the non-financial reasons that "even before 2008, the long-term trend toward earlier retirements had started to reverse," the explanation was that "it's extremely boring.  We have built a fantasy in our minds that 20 years of free time is a dream come true.  It's not."

The article continues, "Every study that's been done on this subject shows that more than half the retired population feels disoriented and depressed.  They don't feel as productive and connected as they once felt.  According to A.C. Nielsen, they're watching an average of 46 hours of television a week.  The people who seem the happiest and the most comfortable with their maturity are those who by and large are still working."

So where are these bored, depressed retirees?  If "every study" shows this to be true, then gosh, I guess it must be true.  But I'm not encountering any of these unhappy retirees in my writing classes, in my bocce ball league, in my travels, or in the emails I receive from folks that read my blog.

Perhaps it's because the unhappy ones are home in front of the TV bringing up that average.  (If that's where they are, I can guess why they are depressed, and it has nothing to do with not working.  I'm now on month three of no cable news shows--apparently the only thing I've missed is some kerfuffle between David Letterman and Sara Palin.  Please don't bother filling me in, I really don't want to know.)

Television watching aside, maybe I don't identify with the angst of not working because I AM still working.  I may not be getting paid, but cleaning, gardening, exercising, managing the finances, and now devoting a huge chunk of my brainpower to travel planning, it all adds up to a full-time job!

In this second year of retirement the travel bug has taken a huge bite into me and I'm ready to be on the move as much as possible.  When you are trying to wedge as much travel as you can into a fixed retirement budget, you have indeed created a full-time occupation for yourself.  When I had a job, I had more money than time, so I booked the trips, paid the money, and then simply showed up.  

Now that I'm not sitting at my desk at work, getting paid so that I can escape for two weeks on vacation, I have all that time in the hammock with my laptop to find ways to travel on the cheap.  And believe me, I am spending all those hours doing just that.

Besides scouring the corners of the internet looking for travel deals, I'm working on my own deals for free lodging by swapping my home with other travelers, calculating the most economic use of my airline miles, and prowling for last minute deals.

How I'm expected to have time to do all that, see friends, keep up my blog, read books, AND watch the requisite 46 hours per week of television, I have no idea. 

Related Posts:

Happiness is Cheaper in Retirement

What Five Things Make You Most Happy (and Why Aren't You Doing Them?)

Happily Retired With The Science to Back Me Up

Believing in the Dream

That whole "ten-thousand hour rule" from Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers, just fascinates me.  He explains that people that excel at something don't just leap to the top of their field simply because they have talent.  That expertise comes with tremendous effort, about ten thousand hours of dedicated practice.

Last weekend I went to a concert and listened to Karrin Allison accompany herself on the piano as she sang Brazilian jazz songs.  As I enjoyed her music, I was thinking of how many hours of dedicated practice she must have put in over the last several decades, and was struck, not by the quantity of work, but by the faith of it.

All those years while she was practicing, doing this thing she loved doing, she had to have faith.  Faith that she would keep learning, continue to improve, and perhaps even be able to make a living with her talent.  Faith that it wasn't just time spent in vain.

I am struck with the same admiration when I read the work of a great writer.  How many unpublished pieces did they have to produce before writing this wonderful novel I'm enjoying?  The faith that it must take to keep at it until they actually get published, and then make a living at it, inspires me.

I have a friend whose family is working together to shed pounds, together nearly 200 so far.  Of course we all know that if you consume less calories than you burn, you will lose weight.  But to tackle the monumental task of losing so much weight, to stick to it, to have the belief that it is really possible to accomplish, it takes faith. 

And so it is with the dream of retirement.  Yesterday, Tim posted about why it's so hard to save money.  As he says, when you opt not to spend money on something, and instead save it for your retirement, "you are buying a tiny bit of a future dream."  It's hard to save because it requires faith in your future dream.  It requires belief that the tiny down-payment you are making really will amount to the achievement of that dream someday.

What's the Difference Between Vacation and Retirement?

Yesterday I got an email from my parents who are vacationing in South Beach, Florida.  They are having a great time staying in a friend's beautiful new condo for a couple weeks.  This alone is shocking, because they are not the type to like to stay in one place on vacation.  The even more surprising revelation was that they actually enjoyed sleeping in on their first day, lounging around the condo, and eventually getting dressed and out by noon.

Two years ago, Doug and I spent a month in Manhattan.  Every night we were out late and every morning we slept in late.  We lounged around the apartment each day, reading the paper, writing blog posts, eating breakfast, and maybe hitting the gym before showering and getting out of there by noon or so.

We ate lunch at the local sandwich place before setting out on our adventure for the day.  Yes, adventure, not adventures.  We would pick ONE thing to do each day, a museum, a walk along the river or in Central Park, a concert or a play, or a stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge.  One thing.  We would come home for a nap and a shower before going out for dinner and maybe some jazz or comedy.

It was a perfect lifestyle.  I relished it, enjoyed every slow moment.  I knew this meant that I would be very happy in retirement.  That month of New York City living was a little preview, I thought, into my future retired life, and I couldn't wait to get started.

So what's different about that vacation and my real retirement?  Guilt.  Did I feel guilty for sleeping late back then?  Did I feel badly about myself for not getting dressed before noon each day?  Did I beat myself up every day for not accomplishing anything?  No, no, and no!

Retirement is much like that vacation lifestyle, I sleep late, am slow to start my day, and have learned to have only one or two things on my agenda for the day.  But I still feel, even after 14 months of retirement, that I'm goofing off in the morning and I really should get moving a little earlier.  I have come to accept that this is how I operate, but guilt seems to be a permanent byproduct.

When you are on vacation, it feels decadent to live such a lifestyle.  After all those long working hours you deserve it.  But in retirement, there's nothing really you are escaping from, so instead of a decadent well-earned pleasure, it just kind of feels pathetic to still be in your pajamas at noon.

A couple times a week, my early-to-rise husband meets a friend at our house to go for a bike ride.  I am careful to find out what time they will arrive so I can change in to real clothes, or at least work-out clothes, to show that I do have the intention of getting something done today.

This is probably what people worry about when they think they will be lazy in retirement.  But shouldn't it just be like those weeks in Miami, or that month in New York?  Shouldn't I just be relishing the fact that this is my life, and focusing on how exciting that is, you know, without the guilt part? 

Taking Retirement for Granted?

I am finding it harder to write fresh thoughts about retirement these days.  I attribute this to what Ram at Retirement Experiment, discussed last week:  Hedonic Adaptation.  

Now that I've been enjoying the good life for over a year, it just feels normal, like it's always been my life.  It's hard to contrast it with my old, working life, because it just feels like I've always been living this way.  My old life feels like ancient history.

And all those pesky retirement adjustments, like what to tell people at cocktail parties, "What I do," how to structure my days, how to deal with the guilt on days when I don't actually accomplish anything?  I almost can't identify with those struggles anymore.  I've adapted so much to my new life that it just feels like my life.  The truth is, I think I'm beginning to take it all for granted.

The lack of stress over to-do lists, the freedom to behave spontaneously, the lack of HURRY in my life, I admit, I don't have the sense of awe over these advantages anymore.  It's just the way I live, and so I tend not to appreciate the stark contrast from my old working life as much as I did in the past.  My working life feels like it was so long ago, almost like it was someone else's life.

Every so often though, I do realize another benefit of retirement.  On Saturday, I got a haircut that is so insanely short, I really want to minimize any excursions out in public until it has had a chance to grow out a bit.  Like maybe a year from now.  I was so happy this morning when I realized that in my previous life I would have had to get out of bed and face an entire office full of people as a bald woman.  Instead, I just rolled over and hoped another hour of sleep would somehow accelerate the hair growth process.

(And lest you do not believe that it's truly that bad, I asked my husband to take a picture of said hair to put on my Facebook page, in order to give my friends some fair warning, and he said "You do NOT want to put a picture of the way you look right now out on the INTERNET!")

Is This Marriage Surviving Retirement?

I've been reflecting, over the past month, on the first year of my retirement.  I've posted so far about the retirement issues that I found to be easier than I had expected:  money, identity, and boredom.  Some adjustments were a bit more tricky.

I met my best friend during my junior year in college and married him eight years later.  While we spent most of those 25 years living under the same roof, much of our waking hours were spent apart, in college at classes and studying, and then later, working at our careers.  Much of the time we did spend together was in front of the TV, decompressing after a long day at work.  

So the prospect of both of us being retired had me filled with the excitement of getting to spend the whole day, every day, with my very best friend.  I pictured us side by side at the breakfast table, each with our laptops, discussing the news of the day and the status of our Facebook friends.  Working out in the garden together, biking, hiking, and going out for lunch, it all seemed a very romantic picture.

Just as I had pictured, we sat at the breakfast table together with our laptops, each perusing the morning's news.  Within the first week, though, I came to the realization that the reason people aren't killing one another at work each and every day is because of offices with doors.

Everyone knows that co-workers get on your nerves.  You spend eight or more hours a day with the same people day in and day out, and it doesn't matter how much you like them, they are going to annoy you.  It's not that our workmates are inherently irritating, it's just that when you mix daily concentrated time with the same people, and a stressful work environment, irritation is simply a natural byproduct.

Part of the natural order of the world is that at the end of that long day at work, you come home and complain to your spouse about all your annoying co-workers.  That's how it's supposed to work.  That is the natural order of the world.

Turns out that when you spend all day with your best friend, he is going to annoy you too, and really for nothing more offensive than eating, breathing, and living.  

I'm perceptive enough to know that I cannot say, "Could you PLEASE stop eating, breathing, and living?" Instead, I relocated.  I rearranged some furniture and set up my own workspace overlooking the garden.  In a room with a door.  Away from the kitchen where all the eating, and much of the breathing and living take place.

It took me more than a few months to realize that we were not going to live up to the idyllic, romantic image I had conjured before my retirement.  When I finally did let go of that fantasy, we were able to settle into a livable routine.

The first few days of the "work week" have us out running around, each with our own friends.  Not together.  Doug has regular biking dates a few days a week; I have class and regular lunch dates scheduled.  Toward the end of the week, we're actually ready to spend the day together, catching up over a hike or bike ride, or lunch and a movie when the weather is bad.  Our weekends are filled with social engagements that we enjoy together with friends.

We each have our household areas of responsibility, I do the cleaning, Doug takes care of dinner.  I am a night owl, so I stay up an hour or two after he goes to bed, and he has the mornings to himself before I wake up.  He needs a little more social time with friends than I do, which leaves me more of the alone time I need.  He likes TV more than I do, so I immerse myself in a book when he's cheering on the San Jose Sharks or his favorite American Idol contestant.

Now I know I'm not the only one that has had to adjust to the reality of us both being home together, Doug had been retired for years before I crashed the party.  He'll have to write a guest post if he wants to share that trauma first-hand, but I think it's fair to say, his retirement has become a whole lot different with the introduction of a new face around his water cooler.

Related Posts:

Will this Marriage Survive Retirement?

Easing into Retirement

And With This I Would Marry Him All Over Again