So… retirement. What a concept, right? A blessing for some of us, a curse for others. How it hits us depends upon so many variables… what kind of person we are to begin with, how we’re aging, how much or how little we love our work, whether we feel we’ve accomplished enough, and whether we are passionate enough about it to drag it into our retirement or not.
I have this love/hate relationship with most “old” jokes. Yes, they’re funny, and I can appreciate that. But they’re also true, and without an enduring positive attitude, some of them can sting a little. Here’s one – “When I look in the mirror and see gray hair , tiny wrinkles and dimming eyes, i think, “They sure don’t make mirrors like they used to.”
Rolling out of bed on Monday morning and not going to work, not going in to the office, not getting an Uber to the airport, can be a rude shock, or it can be one of the best days of one’s life! I’ve heard about and read about so many retired folk, with totally different takes on their retired life… seems to be another one of those love/hate things. I expected the “Oh, I don’t know. It’s alright, I suppose…” kind of response. But not much of that.
There are lots of negatives and lots of positives, and you get to decide which of them you’re going to ultimately embrace. I’m not getting into all that. If we’re over 65, we all know what they are. I’m 81 and I really know what they are. No sense addressing them here. Wait, did I say “81”? No no no. What I meant was, I’m still sweet 16, only with 65 years of experience.
There are some fine jazz pianists, still playing into their 80’s. I heard Hank Jones in Billings, playing a short concert and being still brilliant… at 92! Yes, there are the occasional unicorns who make the rest of us scratch our old heads. Clint Eastwood always comes to mind, and my own special lady, Betty, still runs circles around me at 85. Actually, she still runs circles around most people half her age. I think some of all that must be genetic, for I quit playing out at 70, and was very happy about it. Still am.
The North Sound Breeze is more interested in how we look to, and how we are treated by, the outside world. So the good news there is that there are more of us than ever, and as much as the rest of the world would rather ignore us, they can’t, probably because they view us as a potential force. Ha ha. It’s far more likely that they view us as having enough money to afford their services, making us strangely valuable. In other words, we’re old and in the way, but we can pay.
You see, suddenly we don’t see our fellow workmates every day. When we cease to be in the game, we are quickly forgotten. No blame, simply a fact of life. Now we have to seek out companionship, and many of us are not that good at it. For some of us, me included, this new seclusion becomes a breath of fresh air, to be appreciated and utilized for our own private pleasure. Leisure time… what a luxury!
Betty Ann offered this – “A lot of people who retire lose their identity, though. So many men are defined by what they do, and retirement takes that away.”
So I asked her, “Doesn’t that happen to women as well?”
“Oh, women have so many other jobs, they don’t have that problem.”
Case closed.
If we’re artistic, creative, we have a world of possibilities. If we aren’t, then the possibilities are fewer, but still delicious. Reading, gardening, traveling, those things we used to scoff at when younger, now hold meaning. One of my uncles built wooden toys for his grand kids. A good friend built an entire two-story “doll house” that is incredibly detailed. Another good friend began merging chemicals to make designs, then made incredible art from them. Most of my retired friends garden to one degree or another. A few of them just drink, and try to remember… or forget.
I started out by spending large amounts of time in my garage every day. I cleaned the place up, got all my tools in order, built a storage space for my wood supply, and learned quite a bit about simple carpentry, actually building a new door for the garage.
It was a great place to spend time. The view outside the front door was typical Montana mountains, and I could sit there in the afternoon, after sweeping the floor or doing any one of a dozen mindless tasks, then crank a brew, and enjoy the view out the front door, being totally aware of the contentment I was building around myself.
view on a mild winter’s day
Solitude is such a big problem for the retired. What is a warm, fuzzy blanket for some of us can also be a deep, dark ache of loneliness and despair for others. I feel for them, and as much as I’d like to provide some easy answers here, I can’t. My answers don’t necessarily work for others. I, and some of my older friends, could occasionally go downtown to a bar and find someone to talk to. Some of them did that every day.
I had grown up in a bar, and as familiar and comfortable as bars had always been for me, still I was content to spend days on end by myself, listening to music, reading, writing, recording a little music, spending time out in the garage. I had the luxury of the enjoyment of all those things, depending on my mood at the moment. So sure, I loved retirement. Still do.
My pals in Montana taught me to be a decent snowmobiler, and in the summer I would fish and 4-wheel up in the mountains… until finally I couldn’t. Oh I could, but when things start hurting and being really difficult, even, dangerous, we tend to stop doing those things. It’s a downside to getting old, for sure, but a reality that has to be dealt with. I still feel that replacing activities with easier ones is a good solution.
To have a hobby, or even invent one, is so important to a retiree. Photography is a dandy… it gets one out of the house and back in touch with nature, with people, with wherever one’s interest might take them. Getting out into the world for any reason, and getting a little exercise, is so important. There is no secret to staying young at heart. We have to want to stay active, stay relevant, stay able to take care of ourselves and continue to enjoy the life we have yet to live.
We need to do the best we can to erase our culture’s teachings of its misconceptions of retirement and old age. The closer we can come to living out these retirement years the way we want to, the way we’re most comfortable with, the happier we’ll be. And that, my dear ones, will make us all the more pleasant to be around. After all, even now it’s still not all about us!
Steve Hulse
