Retirement: A New Weekend of Life
Retirement is something many of us look forward to, especially as we move into our mid-to-late forties and begin thinking more seriously about the years ahead. I thought little about it when I was younger, but in my early forties I withdrew money from my 401(k) and bought a new home, convinced it would be the place where I would grow old. Life, however, took a different turn. I went through a divorce; the home was eventually sold, and my ex-wife and I went our separate ways.
Fast forward forty years, and life has given me a second chance. I am now remarried, content, and living in a retirement community surrounded by wonderful people, most of them well into their eighties. My wife and I are blessed with decent health, enough money to live comfortably, and a circle of family and friends that makes us feel secure and loved.
Still, growing older and moving into a retirement community comes with a few unexpected lessons. The first is that no matter what you accomplished in your earlier life, whether you were a doctor, a lawyer, a business executive, or something else entirely, that old authority no longer follows you everywhere. No one brings you morning coffee on command anymore, and people do not always respond the way they once did.
Not long after we moved in, my wife and I became friends with Jerry and Ruth. Jerry had been a full-bird colonel in the military, and one day he told me he used to have ninety people listening to every word he uttered, but now nobody seemed to listen at all. I told him, “Jerry, that’s just the way it is in retirement. You get used to it.”
Retirement gives you the chance to let go of everything except your core values and begin anew. You make new friends, discover new hobbies, and spend your time doing things you actually want to do. No daily chores are weighing you down, no meals to prepare unless you choose to cook, and every day feels a little like Saturday, or maybe Sunday. To help keep track of the days, we give each one a purpose: walking the trails on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and yoga and the gym on Tuesday and Thursday, Saturdays are open to any possibility, and Sunday is our church day.
As I have gotten older, I believe that if I want to stay healthy; I need to do something good for my body every single day. That thought becomes more important with age, because many of us quietly worry about our health taking a turn for the worse. We see it happening to others around us. Sometimes it begins with a sudden fall and a broken bone, and from there the decline can come quickly.
To me, the difference between seventy-five and eighty-five is not unlike the difference between ten and twenty. It is a major shift, and I expect the same will be true between eighty-five and ninety-five, if I am fortunate enough to reach that age. In the end, retirement is something we should truly look forward to. We should welcome it the way we once welcomed the weekend. I remember how important Friday felt when I was younger, because it meant the weekend was about to begin. Retirement is like one long, beautiful weekend, and if we look for happiness in each day, we will find it. Sometimes, like an Easter egg hidden in the grass, it is tucked away in the very places we least expect to look.