Grugger’s Way

As a retirement challenge, Keeping Active means not seceding from society, not becoming a hermit, nor a misfit, nor a strange geezer.  I don’t want to be known as a grouch either.

So, when it comes to keeping active, I do know how to go about it; in much the same way as when I first moved to this neck of the woods and didn’t know a soul: I volunteered.

There are always non-profit and charitable organizations that would love to have help.  Political campaigns, if you can stomach them, are seemingly ALWAYS underway for some local office, or mill levy or bond election.  Anyway, they will always accept help to make phone calls, canvass neighborhoods, put up signs or lick stamps. (Oops, I guess that is outdated.) Continue Reading »

Retirement Challenge One is Keeping Solvent

Assuming that I could maintain financial solvency, I elected to take early retirement. I also hoped to maintain my lifestyle with minimal adjustments.  Before making that major decision I had to be able to answer a couple of questions; questions that concerned my spouse as well, since my early retirement would also involve her financial solvency. Continue Reading »

As Retirement Surprise Five - Victimization is probably a misnomer. It is the idea that somehow I make myself become a victim. This is very self-centered; very much “all about me.” Continue Reading »

Retirement Surprise Four - Resentment is a surprise that goes both ways: I feel resentment and my spouse feels resentment.  What fun!

I think my wife resents my early retirement and the thought of me “sitting around the house all day” and so she makes it clear that she thinks I should make more contributions toward the daily chores of maintaining the household.  I have touched on this subject in earlier Posts.  And for me?  I resent her resentment.  Why shouldn’t I be able to retire?  That fact that she hasn’t retired is her choice.  She is a Boomer too, and she loves to work!  The real truth of the matter is that if she were to retire tomorrow, we could not replace her income with savings and (Lord Almighty!) I would have to find a job!   I find it very difficult to gauge her resentment.  She will deny it and say it is all in my own head.  That is where I live.  I make up stories to suit my own opinions, regardless of whether there is any truth when it involves other people.  This is funny stuff and it keeps our relationship interesting.  I just have to reassure her that I don’t resent that she has a job and makes good money.  I don’t resent that she gets to go out in the world and work with men and that she spends her days in confrontation and competition with them.  Nope.  I don’t resent that.  (I don’t envy her either.)

 Although there were many words of encouragement prior to retirement, I can’t help but detect some resentment of my early retirement when I visit my old co-workers.  Whether they are just as tired of the job as I was, or whether they resent that I found just enough financial security to retire early, I always sense some degree of separation when I visit the old office gang.  The visits will become more seldom as time passes, I am certain.

To my children, all adults now with families and some who have jobs, my retirement sort of meant that I was now an old guy.  They realized that Dad is a different sort of animal now…heading down the road toward the Nursing Home!  Dad is not working.  I’ll bet none of them has ever thought about this eventuality.  Who does think about their parents’ retirement?  I never did.  My own Father’s retirement came so many years after I left home that I wasn’t even aware that it had occurred.  My Mother just quit work at some point and I don’t even know when it was. 

My siblings, three sisters who are still living, all expressed envy but good wishes at my early retirement.  One has now followed me into retirement; she is two years younger, so technically, she beat me into retirement.  Another has talked of retirement in the next two years; she is five years younger than I am so would also, technically, beat me into retirement.  All three of us are fortunate to have partners who have contributed–substantially–to our financial well-being.  My youngest sister could retire any time she wants to.  She is known, affectionately, as the “successful” sister.  Her annual bonus sometimes exceeded my other sisters’ annual take-home.  All of us are “Boomers.”  What drives the boomer mentality to retire early?  Did we exhaust ourselves in pursuit of the American Dream?  Did we give OUR ALL to the employers who drove us to the limit?  (Those subjects are beyond the scope of my intellect.  After all, I am just an old retired guy.)

And now what shall I do?  I can’t just sit around the house all day…that might lead to real resentment.