When I first retired, I made a list of things that I was going to do in retirement. Partly this was because I was excited about retiring and having a chance to do the things that I always wanted to do but never had the time for. Partly, it was to guard against falling into the path of some retired expats in the tropics of starting off the day with a beer at 10am and continuing on from there throughout the day. Last week was the second anniversary of my final retirement, so I went back to take a look at the list. I discovered a few things about the nature of retirement and time and my way of dealing with those.
Time moves more quickly when you have nothing required of you. I was worried before I retired that the days might stretch on and on with me desperately trying to fill the day with meaningful activities. I’ve heard from some elderly folks who continue to work even when it’s not financially necessary that retirement is the beginning of death. My take on that is that it’s only true if you don’t have any interests or a sense of living creatively. Retirement offers the opportunity to see time in a new way – less as an obstruction and more as free-flowing, multi-directional paths to explore.
image: compassrosebooks.blogspot.com
So, I’ve given up on the list, which really was the equivalent to chaining myself to as set of pre-conceived ideas of how I should live. Instead, I go with what I want to do everyday within my daily routines: writing from 7am-9am, cleaning the house from 9am-12 am, reading from 2-3pm, napping from 3-4pm, teaching English to the kids from 4-5pm and then sundowners from 5 until dinner. In other words, I have a framework and mold my days around that framework. When I’m not reading or writing, I have a preference for watching online education videos from Stanford or Yale or anywhere else that I can find good ones. Then there are always the many excellent talks from TED.
And then, sometimes, the framework is just too restrictive. The floors can go a day or two without mopping – no one really seems to notice that they’re clean except me anyway. Sometimes I’m not tired enough to take a nap. Occasionally, I’m just too involved in something else to take the time to read for an hour. For example, I’m working on fixing one of the walls in one of the kids’ bedrooms. The other day I wanted to get as much paint scraped off the wall as possible so I spent six hours on it – everything else got pushed aside for the day. So, while I have a framework – a routine – I don’t lock myself into sticking with it if something more pressing, or interesting, comes along. The key thing is not to fetishize a framework. It’s only a temporary, artificial construct that can provide a sense of regularity, especially during the early months of retirement when, after the initial headiness of not having to go somewhere and do something everyday wears off, it’s possible to fall into post-retirement depression.
So, I take days now pretty much as they come up. The goal is to be open to whatever happens and go from there. Today is my 21st wedding anniversary. The framework is being set aside, and my wife and I are going out for a ride on my motorcycle to the tourist area to the west of us for lunch and some sightseeing. Nothing special, just a little time together out of the house and away from the kids and animals.
