The First Days of Retirement

Monday:  

Oh Freedom!

You wake up and begin reading—leisurely!—what passes, in the third decade of the 21st century, for a newspaper: that Krugman-plus-Spelling Bee digital amalgam much talked about by your already retired friends: Hmm … the government is worrying now about “forever chemicals”? Alright, I now have time to take the time to find out what the hell these “forever chemicals” are!

Drink your coffee. Damn, savor your coffee. And revel in the absence of that feeling that has been with you since they started assigning homework in second grade: that feeling that there is something you have to do that you do not want to do.

It’s gone. Not just Sunday gone, ‘cause Sundays were always befouled by their proximity to Mondays. Not just vacation gone, ‘cause you were the sort of person who’d be fiddling with one project or another even in the country. My friend Thackeray (not his real name) put it nicely after he shucked a tenured teaching position while in his early 60s: “I wake up every morning and decide what I want to do today.”

So, what do you want to do on this, the first day of the rest of your life?

Golf? Gosh, maybe you could even learn to play golf. Mosey on down to the lake? Well, maybe now, after half a century of scurrying, you could finally get the hang of moseying. But do you really want to swim in the lake? 

What about picking up that Fender Telecaster, which 12 years ago you decided you would learn (relearn would be too kind) how to play? What about working on your perhaps-not-entirely-hopeless tennis serve, finally finishing The Overstory, reading Jane Austen and the other half-dozen things that would make your retirement meaningful? (Friend Thackeray has even read Austen’s Northanger Abbey.)

Uh, but don’t these “wanna do’s” sound suspiciously like “have to do’s”? And, coffee or no coffee, you feel a nap coming on.

Tuesday:  

Gonna Get This Retirement Thing Right!

A walk! Healthy: 10,000 steps. Spiritually beneficial: trees, other people even.

I remember a time when I couldn’t get enough of walking.

That was, of course, in Paris.

Okay, so Putnam Valley ain’t the Marais. But how great it will be to meander some, to observe the local humans as they go about their business.

Even when you yourself are preoccupied by the absence of business to go about?

Anyway, the forecast is for showers.

Uh oh. Friend Thackeray just called. Wants to come visit. He’s bored.

Wednesday: 

Not Raining Anymore.

I take a walk.

My wife suggests that I listen to a podcast while I walk next time.

Thursday:

I’m Reading a Book

A long one. It’s about trees and how they communicate with each other, but we humans mess everything up.

Interesting.

You know Twitter —“X”?—isn’t that bad even under Elon Musk. There’s still a lot on the NBA.

One day or another:  

Self-Dementia Test

Seven times eight?

Who was John Kerry’s vice-presidential nominee in 2004?

A certain amount of memory loss is normal at this age.

Apparently, the weekend: 

Human Contact

  Well, there is your spouse. Been awhile since we really talked.

“What you thinking, Babe?”

“Not too much. Plants seem to need watering.”

That handsome senator from North Carolina, who fathered a child with his mistress!

And you want Mondale’s VP? A woman: Geraldine Ferraro. Hah!

Just multiply seven times four and double it. Easy peezy!

More weekend:  

A Visit From a Son

Comment to son and wife: “You know, I really like not having to do things I don’t want to do.”

Son: “Huh?”

Me, by way of demonstrating that the sense of humor is still operational: “So we old people are not just invisible but inaudible?”

Son: “Huh?”

Wife: “Most of the things he says since he retired are hard to understand.”

Weekend appears to be over:  

What the Hell is an RMD?

Apparently, there remains a lot of stuff to do that you don’t want to do.

“Required minimum distribution.” I’m told an accountant might help.

Another day:

Good for Nothing

Okay, maybe I do miss doing things valued by society. And, I note, society, as a rule, demonstrates what it values, many charitable endeavors excepted, by rewarding those who do it with a salary.

This feeling of incipient uselessness is going to take some getting used to. One tries to resist thinking, “Okay world, it’s been fun. Now carry on.”

Wednesday (Nailed it!):

Chillin’

       I notice it while walking (walking!) to the supermarket. My pace, previously up-tempo, has slowed a bit. And not entirely in response to the infirmities of age. Instead, I am, in fact, experiencing an unadulterated and unexpected absence of hurry.

      At the store I linger for a moment amongst the lettuce: Sure are a lot of different kinds nowadays!

       I loop through a park on the way back.

       Damn, if I haven’t—after lo those many decades of having to be somewhere and complete something—started to mosey.