Grugger’s Way

Retirement Transition - Where is my Schedule?

This year I decided to retire from my municipal government job.  I have some savings, some pension income, and most importantly, a spouse who still works.

I retired because I am exhausted.  I have given all I have to give.  I am dog-tired.  I don’t even care what people say or what they think of me.  I am 60.  I have worked for 42 years.  No layoffs. No breaks.  Not even an extended vacation or sickness.  I have been blessed with good health and steady employment. 

I have been successful by the standards set by my employers.  (I can’t recall ever having set my own standards.  Do we not live our lives according to standards established first by our parents, then our teachers, professors and employers?) 

I guess I was also successful as a parent.  I became a single parent raising four children when the kids were ages 2, 4, 14, and 16.  I probably assumed too much credit for our family successes and took too much blame for our failures.  They all made it to adulthood.  (Currently, they are ages 26, 28, 38, and 40.) Another child, born later as a result of a work romance, is now 22.  As to the children’s mother…well I know we failed.  We now rationalize our relationship as having run its course at the time, like two sailboats that sail along for awhile and then tack to different headings.  (As a point of interest, she now lives right down the road from me, and we talk about as much as we did when we were married 24 years ago.)

So now I embark on a new phase of my life.  The final third of my life (30,60,90). I am 60, finished with children (except when they need money), finished with employment, and filled with questions about my future.

I have no “Grand Design,” but I have HUGE questions:

1. Will I become a house-tv-internet slug,
2. or a ”putterer” in the yard and around the house,
3. or a fitness nutto who runs ten miles a day between work-outs,
4. or an on-line “socializer” who sits around in underwear and chats, or
5. will I write the “great American novel”? 
6. Will my current spouse seek to define my new “duties?”
7. Will I seek out and make new friends, or have an “affair” of the heart?
8. Will I suddenly want “back in” my children’s lives?
9. Will my marriage survive my retirement?
10. Will I survive my “retirement” or will I go back to work? (or drive myself crazy worrying about it?)

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