Retirement Lessons

When I retired from teaching, I knew that if I didn’t plan something productive, I’d turn not into a couch potato, but into the couch. I chose not to teach again, and I vowed never to grade another paper. I had taken adult ed classes in writing the short story at the University of Chicago (the most expensive adult ed around somehow), and Yvonne, my instructor, had earned an MFA (Master of Fine Arts, not M-F-ing Articulate as my son and daughter seem to think) in Creative Writing from Vermont College.

An MFA in Creative Writing was the way to go, I thought. I explored a number of possibilities. Most programs required class attendance (imagine that!) and a two-year residence, to say nothing of the GRE. I didn’t want to move, even temporarily. I borrowed the GRE Prep book from the library and was immediately flummoxed by the math. Cardinal and Ordinal numbers. Hmmmmmm. I was retired, and had never needed to know the difference. I explored further. I found at that time three low-residency programs in the United States. I took a Personal Leave/ College Visit day from teaching to check out colleges in Vermont. I went partly as a model to my students, but mostly because I wanted to know what I was getting into.

Goddard College welcomed me. I applied, and they accepted me. Two years later I had my MFA in hand and a novel manuscript mostly completed on my computer. Since then I have written two more novels, started a fourth, and traveled a lot.

Every week day that I am at home I go to my office and write. I try to be there between nine and noon, but now we have two gorgeous dogs, Stella and Brando. I take them to the dog park and don’t get back until later. So I work most days from 9:30 till after 12. I still get my time in. Some days I revise. Some days I write and revise. I aim for 500 words a day and usually do better.

All that is well and good, probably too self-referential, but possibly an object lesson for those who plan to retire. Potential retirees must plan beyond the day of retirement for the life they hope to lead. That includes financial planning, but isn’t merely that. My in-laws did great financial planning, lived well below their means, and moved back to the little town they grew up in to be close to family. My mother-in-law was one of fifteen and she missed her siblings. They shrank in that little Southern Illinois town. By the time they died 25 years later, they had lots of family (too much family?) but no friends. My father-in-law read every book of interest to him in the local library – and some that weren’t too interesting. They expected everyone to have the flexibility they had and were surprised we couldn’t drop everything to visit them at their whim. A trip to Wal-Mart was a gigantic and exciting adventure – and about the biggest adventure they allowed themselves. I feel sad for them because they didn’t continue to grow.

When they retire, some people play golf. I don’t and can’t imagine the time and expense it takes. But most people don’t write, either. Lots of people move to retirement communities. We chose to stay where we are because our grandsons live nearby – it was hard for us to get grandchildren. We have friends close, and the thought of finding a new doctor, new dentist, new insurance agent, new friends, was daunting. A symptom, no doubt, of our insularity, our own shrinking.

A colleague who retired from teaching when I did substitute taught frequently her first year out, then went back to the school she retired from and started a computer math tutoring program. Each day, she says, it gets harder. Her husband, who is also retired, goes to the gym each morning for about an hour and then, I suspect, negates his workout during the rest of the day. They are active socially, make friends easily and meet them often for coffee or shopping or a walk. They go to movies and out for dinner. And it seems to me the only reason she continues to work is that she can’t think of much else to do and she doesn’t want to spend the day in the house with her husband. She married him for better or for worse, but not, as the saying goes, for lunch.

On the other hand, a friend who retired several years before I did is leading an exciting and glamorous life. Her partner travels all over the world on business. My friend goes along for the ride, meets new and interesting people, continues to grow, and is one of my all-time role models. She had plans for her life when she retired. The plans didn’t work out exactly the way she expected, but most plans don’t.

And whether our plans work out or not is immaterial. The point is to have a plan, to set a goal. Life, according to the trite adage, is not about the destination but the journey. We all meet the same fate, although not in the same way. But the trip we take getting there is what’s important. We can travel with grace and interest, or we can shut ourselves up in little boxes, never to emerge.