Retirement: A Full-Time Job

This is My Brain. This is Retirement. This is My Brain in Retirement.

Sunday night I had the great fortune of being invited by my friend Vicki, to join her and her friends at the James Taylor concert at U.C. Berkeley's Greek Theater.  This is the very same venue at which I saw JT many, many, many, years ago.  Let's just say we were both a lot younger and he had a lot more hair (although I'm pretty sure he was wearing the same pair of jeans.)  He made a bunch of jokes about memory loss, but I can't remember any of them now.  

The concert was great, and old-folk-jokes aside, the music made me feel 17 years old again.  This young-again phenomenon was, however, only temporary . . .

I was rudely deposited back into my 44-year-old self shortly after the show ended.  We made our trek to the really far away parking lot where I suggested Vicki's friends park the car.  You see, if you are willing to walk a bit, you can get out of the area and onto the freeway a lot quicker than if you park close to the theater. That is if the garage DOESN'T LOCK UP WITH YOUR CAR INSIDE!  This was my first introduction to Vicki's friends; I fear this suggestion may have negatively impacted their first impression of me.

Yes, the garage which I had so diligently researched on the Greek Theater's website closed BEFORE THE CONCERT WAS EVEN OVER.  When we arrived at the garage's locked gates, we were not alone.  There were at least 20 other concert goers, wearing their picnic blankets and tired faces, wanting so much to just jump in their cars and get home to their warm, comfy beds.  (I am about the average age of the other attendees, and so am pretty confident they shared my feeling that WE ARE WAY TO OLD FOR THIS!)

The couple closest to the gate informed the rest of us that they arrived at the garage at the precise moment that the attendant left the building.  He told them that he was "going on a break" and would be back in half an hour.  The crowd continued to grow outside the garage and we began to question whether he really would be back, as the fine print on the back of our tickets clearly stated that the garage closed at 10pm on Sundays--an important fact previously overlooked by all those present.

But here's where the great advantage to being retired set in.  I REMAINED CALM!  No, I did not worry about how I had to get up early and go to work in the morning.  Instead I masterminded plan "B."  I called my husband to find out when the last BART train would be leaving Berkeley.  We had 1 1/2 hours until this drop-dead moment.  We would wait for the attendant to come back, but if he didn't, we would take BART, my husband would pick us all up at the other end, and deliver everyone to their respective homes.

Because I am retired, I would go back out there the next day and pick up Vicki's friend's car and deliver it to their home while they were at work.  Not exactly how the evening was supposed to go, but we all felt better knowing we had a plan.  Let me tell you this:  I never would have been calm enough to figure this all out if my brain were going to the office the next day.  The part of my brain formerly devoted to work-related anxiety was free to engage in more productive endeavors.  Just as I finished explaining the plan, the attendant returned. 

Retirement Goals?

Question:  Why sleep in until 8am when you already slept eight hours by 7am? 

Answer:  Because you can! 

It turns out it's not any easier to get out of bed in the morning in retirement than it was while I was working.  Even though I’m now averaging an extra hour of slumber each night, I still have to force myself to get out of bed by 8am.  (An arbitrary hour that I have deemed almost respectable.)

The other night, a new acquaintance asked me how I liked retirement.

“I love it!” I told her.

“What are you focusing on in your retirement?”  she asked.

“Nothing really, I’m just deciding each day what I’m in the mood for, and seeing where it takes me.”  She looked puzzled.

I guess she thought I didn’t understand the question.  “When you quit your job, did you have any GOALS in mind for yourself?”

I laughed, “Definitely not!  That’s what I just left, the world of goals and to-do lists.”

“But then will you go back to work after some period of time?” She asked.

“Not if I can help it.”

You know how when you meet someone, sometimes your conversation just clicks?  This one wasn’t really working that way.

It just dawned on me, though, that I HAVE been achieving a goal in retirement, almost every day: getting out of bed by 8am!

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Practical Advice for Retirement: Stock Up on Underwear

If you're getting ready to retire, you can find plenty of advice out there on what you need to be doing. You'll find advice on saving and investing, pursuing hobbies, staying healthy, choosing where to live, and volunteering or working part-time.  But no one ever tells you another fact of retirement:  you're going to need more underwear.

When you work, you pretty much keep to one pair of underwear per day.  Wake up, workout, shower, put on nice clothes, go to work, come home, change into sweats, and plant yourself on the couch and watch t.v. until bedtime.  What you have here is a one-pair-of-underwear day.  (Unless, of course you were compelled to wear thong underwear with your work outfit, in which case you will want to immediately de-thong upon arriving home, therefore making it a two-pair-of-underwear day.)

Since I pretty much wore the same pair of scraggy sweats every night when I was working, the laundry basket didn't really get too full all that fast.  And I had enough underwear to get me through a week or two.

But in retirement, the meandering nature of the day can often require several changes of underwear a day.  A typical day might include waking up, working out, hitting the shower and then getting dressed to go meet a friend for lunch.  After swinging by the library for some books, or running some errands, you might find yourself home and eager to get working in the garden with plenty of daylight hours left.  So, you change into gardening clothes and come in a couple hours later dripping in sweat, covered in dirt, and feeling like there may be a few bugs that have worked their way into your bra.

A second shower and complete change of clothes is definitely in order; so far a two-pair-of-underwear day.  But possibly you are going out for dinner and want to wear your favorite jeans, you know, the ones that you have to wear thong underwear for--which means you will arrive home after dinner and promptly de-thong into your third pair of underwear.

Since many of my activities don't actually involve going out into public, I can wear a mishmash of clothes that I've accumulated over the years.  So having something to wear doesn't depend on my having to do the laundry very often.  But going through two or three pairs of underwear a day could mean having do to laundry just to get some clean underwear!

Before you retire, head to the Jockey store in the outlet mall and triple your underwear wardrobe; you're going to need it.

Things I'm Learning From Retirement: Get Out of Your Routine!

I've been retired for almost four months now and have pretty much settled into a daily routine.  Mostly that's a good thing because it means I do actually manage to make myself work out each day.  But yesterday my routine was changed because I was forced to get out of bed at the ungodly hour of 7:30 am.

The night before, I was engaged in a bit of computer rage.  Rather than take a hammer to my laptop (one friend's answer to fixing anything, "If it can't be fixed with a hammer, it can't be fixed at all."), I went on-line and booked an appointment at the Apple store.  All they had available was 9am, before the store opened. This meant I had to be up, showered, and down at the store at what I have come to believe is the crack of dawn.  It was a nice time to be at the store though, before the throngs of people descended, very quiet.  The Apple guy told me "that's because we're all out of iPhones."

I was home by 10:15 and decided to tackle the cleaning of the house.  It had been several weeks since I had cleaned, but we're having a dinner party on Sunday, and I can't let actual people see the squalor we have been living in.  (Today a friend asked me, "How often DO you clean your house?"  I said "Whenever we're having people over.")

After spending four hours (on and off) cleaning, I did also manage that workout and felt VERY good about the day's accomplishments.  I rewarded myself by pouring a glass of wine and taking my book out into the garden to read.  This is exactly what I pictured for all those years that I would be doing in retirement, but I hardly ever do it!  The weather was perfect, everything is blooming right now, and birds were singing and playing together.

After a couple hours, I came back into the house and said "this is what retirement is all about!"  What took me so long?

Cocktail Party Chatter

I love being retired; I just hate talking about it at parties.

A few weeks ago at a big 50^th anniversary shindig for my in-laws, one of my favorite guests, Sam, came over to say hi.

“I’m going to tell you what I told you 16 years ago at your wedding.  I wish you had a sister that I could introduce to my son!”

He then went on to say that he heard I had retired.  “What am I doing wrong that I’m 72 and still working?” he joked.

Last week in Molokai, at one of the many neighborhood dinners we were invited to, Diane, who works as a real-estate agent, asked us “what do you guys do that you can just take off on a Hawaiian vacation with your friends at a moment’s notice?” 

I told her “nothing.”  I think she thought I was joking.  Later during the evening, my husband admitted that, yes, we really did do nothing—we were both retired. 

Well then Diane wanted to know, “what do you guys DO then, now that you are retired?

Another retiree, Georgie (age 70) jumped in.  “You don’t have to answer that!” she said.  I thought that was a very appealing option.

Because the truth is, I find myself uncomfortable discussing my retired life at cocktail parties—especially with people that are working; even though I know that in both these instances, they work because they want to, not because they have to.   Even before I retired, I knew the cocktail party chatter would come to an abrupt halt when called upon to list my retirement activities; especially with people that actually love their work. 

“I blog, read, bike, garden, and sew. “  As I say it, I anticipate the glazed look in their eyes, “that seems very nice,” they say.  I guess a simple fact comes to the surface at cocktail parties.  It’s much more fun to be retired than it is to talk about it.

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Failure at Vacation?

Last night I had a dream that last night was the final night of this vacation and that I had not finished even ONE book.  In my dream I felt like a failure.  A failure at vacation?  Who cares if I carry all four books back home unread; what difference does it make?  There will be no test, right?

I received a comment on my Vacation from What post that vacationing in retirement is called “travel.”  It’s hard to think of an island vacation as “travel” but this island, the Island of Molokai, kind of is like “travel.”   You tell people where you live by mile marker from town.  Town is Kaunakakai.  It’s about 25 minutes from here.  

But if you just need milk, you can walk and get it right here at the little neighborhood store.  If you need 2 bottles of orange juice, a can of pineapple juice, salsa, a Mr. Goodbar and a Diet Coke you can also get them there, but bring a bag, they don’t have grocery bags.  We would have had trouble if we actually bought the Triple Sec.  The Mai Tai’s will be just as good though, because I did have the presence of mind to bring along some little cocktail umbrellas in my carryon luggage.

To walk to the beach access, you have to walk along the highway.  It has a name but it’s really the only road, so I don’t know its name.  There are a few snarly dogs on the way, none are fenced in, but most stay on their property.  Our friends told us that if one starts to come out after you, you pretend to throw an invisible rock at them.  Guess what, it works (he was a pit bull mix—they mostly are on the island).

Even with the remoteness of our location and the non-touristy nature of this island itself, I haven’t found much time to sit and read a book.   For anyone that thinks this sounds like a nice vacation (or nice “traveling” if you are retired), here’s the link to our friends' tropical rental cottage. 

Aloha!

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Why Vacation in Retirement?

Ok, I get it now.  We came into Molokai after dark so I didn’t get the full impact until I woke up this morning, or shall I say until the symphony of roosters woke me up.  I got out of bed and saw that it was raining but saw that the lanai is totally covered so went outside to watch the rain, gaze over the palm trees at the ocean, and listen to the birds.

A few other birds jumped into the chorus.  I don’t know anything about birds so can’t identify which birds these are, but soon, what sounded like a huge jungle bird joined in.  Wow, I thought, it’s like being in the jungle.  Then I heard it again and tried to find it.  I looked behind me to the source of the bird call—my husband, inside the house behind me doubled over with laughter watching me look for that bird.

To say magical is too cliché and doesn’t capture it anyway.  I haven’t even been here 24 hours and now I totally get why my friends bought this place.  In fact, what I don’t get is why they would ever let renters grace the premises.  I don’t understand why they haven’t already quit their jobs and sold all their belongings so they can just spend every minute of the rest of their lives on this lanai.

Maybe it’s because they need a couple of chaise lounges, and to get them, it would remove them from the lanai for a full day.  They must drive to the airport, get on a commuter flight to Maui, rent a car on Maui, go to Home Depot, buy the chairs, put the chairs in the rental car, drive it to the dock, load them on a boat, drive back to the airport, return the rental car, get back on the commuter airline and fly back to Molokai, go to the dock in Molokai, pick up the chairs from the boat, load them in the car, and drive the 45 minutes back home.

Small price to pay in my opinion.

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Vacation From What?

Vacation from What?

We scored a huge boondoggle! Our friends have bought a vacation rental in Hawaii and have invited us to come out and see it (and stay in it) as they get it ready for renters. So with free lodging and oodles of frequent flier miles, we just have to pay to feed ourselves (and buy drinks with umbrellas in them.) It's on the island of Molokai, which is very quiet and not very touristy, so a total escape.

But escape from what exactly? The good news is that it won't take that usual couple of days to unwind and start enjoying the island pace. We can hit the beach running, so to speak. But the big question is, when your whole life is vacation, what are you vacationing from when you go on an island vacation? I'm bringing a stack of books, my computer, and my homework for writing class; pretty much the same tools of my current trade when I'm sitting here at home.

So, will it feel differently doing my homework on the beach? Will I be more inspired to write while feeling the cool ocean breeze over my not-so-tan skin? Will reading books feel more decadent with a Mai Tai in hand? It will be interesting to see just how a vacation works when you are already on permanent vacation!

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Retirement Self-Esteem

I have to admit that besides wanting control over my own time, another reason I was so interested in retiring was to have control over my own self-esteem. When I was working, a hefty amount of my self-worth was impacted by what others thought about me (mainly my bosses, but also my co-workers.) A glowing performance review or nice, big raise would have me feeling just great about myself. Feeling valued made me feel valuable. A critical comment or, worse yet, periods of no feedback at all would have me assuming the worst. While I was working, I let an inordinate amount of my self-image be influenced by what others thought about me.

Ironically, this praise or criticism didn't necessarily bear any relationship to my actual performance. But since my role was in large part a function of what my superiors thought of me, it was more important to me what they thought about me than what I thought about myself. Since work represented such a large portion of my life, a large portion of my self-worth was driven by how I thought I was viewed at work.

When I say I'm discovering who I am without work, what I'm really discovering is what I value about myself. It's all up to me. It's kind of hard to break away from the praise-equals-I'm-a-good-person mentality. That may be one of the reasons retirement is so scary for some people. Some people thrive on what that work feedback does to their egos; it can be tough to give that up.

The truth is, it's much harder to figure out what you value in yourself when you are not viewing your value through other people's opinions of you. But how great to get to spend the rest of my life feeling good (or bad) about myself based totally on what I value: friendships, family, health, and creativity.

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Stress in Retirement?

Yes, there is stress in retirement.  It's so silly because this should not be the source of tension, but I'm feeling like there are just not enough hours in a day and it's stressing me out.

When you are working, you pretty much accept the limitations of time.  You don't like it, but you accept that during the work week, you don't have a lot of time for yourself.  You come home from a hard day's work and make dinner, eat, clean up, and maybe have enough energy left to sit on your couch to watch some TV.  You have to get to bed early so you can wake up early, squeeze a workout in, and get to the office on time.  You save your hobbies for the weekend and try and squeeze them in around errands.

Now, I stay up late and don't wake up until 8.  I'm loving getting an extra hour of sleep each night.  I wake up each morning and I think of all the things I want to do that day.  I know I can't do ALL of the things I want to do and I find it frustrating.  I'm retired; I should be able to do whatever I want!  The problem is I want too much!

A friend of mine is buying a vacation/rental house in Hawaii and we get to go with them and help warm the house.  I bought some fabric to make a skirt for the trip.  I have homework for my writing class, extended taxes to finish, stacks of unread magazines and library books, housecleaning and gardening projects, and creative endeavors like making a photo album for my in-law's 50th wedding anniversary.  It doesn't seem like I'll get that skirt made before I leave for Hawaii.

There are so many things, I sometimes feel paralyzed by the choice of what I should do first, since I know they can't ALL be done immediately.  Maybe stressful isn't the right word, frustrating is more like it.

Don't fool yourself that retirement will be leisurely.  There's still too much to do and too little time to do it all.  Thanks to the recently retired Patricia for her post today reminding me that I should be relishing these choices, not viewing them as a source of stress!