Retirement: A Full-Time Job

An Almost True Week in the Life of a Retiree

Several months ago, I sent around an email to all my retired friends and family and asked them to be a guest contributor to my blog.  I encouraged them to share their stories about retirement, the challenges, the rewards, how they spend their time, what they look forward to.  My father-in-law contributed a great post about retiring when it wasn't really his choice.

Since all of the others on my list are too busy (or too shy) to contribute, I decided to just begin doing their guest posts for them.  The first guest post by me for the guest is "from" my mother-in-law.  It would go something like this:

Dear Sydney:

I would love to be a contributor to your blog, but unfortunately, I simply do not have the time.  My life in retirement, as it happens, is just much more busy than it was when I was working; I barely have the time to send you this email!

Tomorrow, after I go to the gym, I have my bridge club (no, not the couples bridge club, that is not until Saturday night), this is the one I go to by myself.  On Wednesday, we are having lunch with some friends and then going to the Hollywood Bowl to watch the open rehearsal of the LA Philharmonic.  Then Thursday we pick up the grandkids from school and take them to their tennis lesson and then out for dinner.  On Friday morning, I go to the gym and then Friday night we're going out to dinner with our couples group (no, this is not the one that likes the fancy restaurants, that group is next Thursday night).  Saturday is the couples bridge group--it's a pot-luck so I will spend Saturday afternoon making our contribution (after the gym, of course).

On Sunday, we were invited to see the sneak preview of "The Kite Runner" so we'll go to a late lunch with those friends first.  On Monday we have guests coming from New Jersey, so we'll be busy with them until Wednesday (I'll have to skip the gym for a few days).  The day after they leave is the dinner club that likes the nice restaurants.  Luckily, we have no plans on Friday because we need to pack for our cruise that leaves on Saturday.  This one should be much better than the one we went on last month--more interesting ports than just beaches.

We had to exchange our tickets for the ballet since we will be gone, but we will go the Friday after we get back from the cruise.

Anyway, maybe next month I'll get to your blog . . .

Love,

Mom-in-law

(Note from editor:  I already know I'll get in trouble for leaving out at least half of the things they really did, frankly, I couldn't keep track!  Note to mom-in-law:  I know I got it all mixed up, but wouldn't you say I captured the spirit?)

At What Age To Retire - That Was Not Our Choice To Make

(Thanks to my first guest contributor:  DD (Doug's Dad))

How the working world has changed.  I remember when no one talked about retiring in their 40s.  My experience was pretty typical of those of my generation who worked for big corporations.  The time from age 40 on up was like a crapshoot - who would get the axe and who would live until another round of cutbacks.  No one thought, hmm, it would be nice to retire at 40 or 45.  Will I have the money to do it?  That answer would have been emphatically no.  By the time I was in my late 50s and the axe fell on me, I was in a financial position to be retired thanks to the generosity of the severance plan that my company offered.

Money wasn’t the problem.  Being unceremoniously kicked out the door was.  We, of my generation, fully expected to work until age 65 or thereabout. It was a blow to my self-esteem to be jobless. I now marvel at, and am a little envious of, the young people who can contemplate, plan and actually carry out retirement in their 40s.  The diametrically opposite psychology of the two generations is amazing.

After I was retired, I would wake up at the usual early hour that I had become accustomed to for all those years and realize that I didn’t have to go to work and wasn’t that awful.  I didn’t know what to do.  I tried getting another job, but at my age (59) and with no really specific skills, it was a frustrating and fruitless search.  I felt pretty useless and unhappy. Finally, I found a volunteer job where I could use my coordinative and managerial skills.  This made me feel much better about myself.  After about six months I began to realize that the corporate job that I had hadn’t been so important after all and I now had time to do many other things at a reasonable and, perhaps, inefficient pace.  But, hey, this is my life and I don’t have to answer to the corporation anymore. It’s been 13 years now and I certainly don’t regret getting out early anymore.

DD (Doug's Dad)