It’s now some 20 months since retirement after 45 years with the same company, and I think this is just the right amount of distance – far enough into retirement but not too far from the memory of work – to offer some observations, albeit, rambling ones.
From the start, I realized that I now have enough time to do all the things I need to do, but not quite enough to do all the things I want to do. I am an A-type personality, self-driven and able to tackle jobs without nudges or outside motivation (though the honey-do list did get a little longer), but even trying to work from a list didn’t really get everything done. Life keeps getting in the way.
My patience has not increased. I still drive fast, walk fast, and get annoyed with delays in the checkout lanes. I still set up the coffee machine the night before to speed up the generation of that first critical cup in the morning. And I still watch the clock, though my self-imposed deadlines are now measured in hours not minutes, and if a task falls to tomorrow…oh, well.
I don’t lose track of the days of the week, and Mondays and Fridays still carry some emotional significance; I don’t think the stigma on Mondays will ever go away.
I have indeed turned into the couch-potato I always feared, except I’ve exchanged the TV screen for the computer monitor. News updates, You Tube videos, and old movies dominate my time, but I can also zip off to do research on various subjects that momentarily come to the fore: where exactly is the Isle of Man located (middle of the Irish Sea and natives are called Manxmen), when did people first appear in the Americas (between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago and still counting), and what’s the population of the US (340 million third largest in the world with a 1.7 replacement rate and an aging population which means we need immigrants just to stay where we are). Trivial pursuit has now become a way of life.
I’m able to read some “thought pieces” that take me back to my philosopher roots. We play a few hands of cards every afternoon, the cat gets more pets, and the daily and weekly chores get done on time. Margie and I tend to step on each other’s toes a bit more, and I’m growing too comfortable staying around the house even though we have plenty of time to travel. And I’m able to stop and watch the leaves change in the autumn, my favorite season, reminiscing on the number of autumns I barely glanced at the trees as I rushed past.
The biggest change is also the hardest to fully grasp, smilingly clear most of the time but still consistently slipping away: the realization that this is not just a very long vacation but a permanent change in life-style. I’ll never have to go back to work on some distant Monday, I’ll never have to check in with my boss, write a monthly report, or sit through a production meeting that is anything but productive. I won’t have to brush snow off a car in the dark, navigate icy streets in the pre-dawn, or try to stomp snow and salt off good shoes when I get inside the building. And the paychecks I’m now getting – from Social Security and my pension – don’t require work and will continue as long as I’m breathing. My performance, good or bad, will never again have an impact on my income…if it ever did at work.
Writing, of course, has proven to be the biggest gain, which is exactly what I had always planned and hoped. Not only is more time available, but I no longer lose the focus of the project by being pulled away to a 9-5 job. This is proving huge. That increase in quantity is also producing an improvement in quality, the change amounting to the difference between an amateur and a professional. I used to see an improvement in productivity over weekends and vacations, but they always had hard limits; now the world is open-ended. We are in the process of publishing three novels in the space of six months, and I never could have even considered that back when I was working an outside job. I’m also running my support people ragged as I have them reviewing and processing more and more material, and I need to be careful I don’t burn them out.
This leads (or can lead) to some bonus activities like joining writing groups and reading more books “in my genre”, expanding my network and learning more about my craft. This goes beyond the transition from amateur to professional and would probably qualify as “working overtime”. So far, it seems to be paying very well indeed.
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