Retirement Since 365 days
I recently spoke to my spouse reminding her that it has been just over a year since I retired. We remember our birthdays, anniversaries, graduation dates, so add on another major milestone, the date that you retire from the workforce. It is as Dr. Emmett Brown said to passers by in regards to his DeLorean time machine, ‘this is a science experiment’!
Shortly after the retirement, my first official act was the committing of the act of chronicide (murder of the alarm clock). I needed to keep up with what was going on in the office that I had recently left. But I found out relatively quickly, that, like the dead, you are quickly forgotten and a smooth transition to replacement personnel had already been made. Well, so much for the idea of being an irreplaceable resource. As time passed, the life of my friends still at work and mine became ever more divergent. It is much as trunk branches on a tree as you move further up, the further you move apart. No one has time to sit and wait and everybody is busy, you are now in another space time continuum, where while you believe you are in plain sight, you are actually neither seen nor heard. I waited many years for this retirement, but the break off from former work associates have been so stark, I realize that I have to make new friends. I am hoping to find some of that friendship from among fellow hubbers.
The science experiment involved how I would behave once I no longer had to go to work and maintain the discipline associated with that. Would I revert to a slug, well I did! The days seem to go by rapidly as time no longer has any meaning. In a Star Trek movie, this plane of existence was defined as “the Nexus” One day morphs into another almost seamlessly. If I did refer to the calendar or clock, I would be challenged to actually remember what day it was. My former life was defined by the weekend, but what if everyday was a Saturday? I watch cartoons and movies into the wee hours of the morning, sitting on the edge of my seat to hear from other hubbers, and old classmates, that I have not seen in almost 40 years.
I put in up to 10 hours at the office when I was working. Now, when I pick up something at the post office and put dishes into the dishwasher, I have had a “full day” and am ready for ‘Miller time’ and the daily cat nap. They say as you get older we all tend to revert back toward infancy; well I am sleeping like it!! My wife has a strong work ethic and always feels guilty when she is not doing something. I never felt that way as I believed that my current hammock is well earned. She is the consummate perfectionist and differs from me as I am interested only in doing what is necessary to push the real work off to a later time. She always takes such pride in doing a superlative job on everything she puts her mind to. Don’t get me wrong, folks, I did my all to serve the people of the United States in my federal employment http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-get-a-Federal-Grant-An-Insiders-View-Part-I-Prior-to-Government-Receipt-of-Offers But I learned early on that if I agonized on too many things, too long, nothing ever got done http://hubpages.com/hub/Its-a-Fact-Opposites-Attract The trick that anybody knows who pushes paper is the balance between what was imperative and what could wait. Well, with my wife, there is no time better than the present. Perfection for me was like asking how many decimal points are you going to consider when calculating pi? Like the physicists say about the speed of light, you can approach it but never attain it. So why expend perfectly good energy and resources trying to attain to it? I only wait and dread the next ‘honey do’, and I no longer had a place to hide. She has been obsessed with our male golden’s anal glands and his health associated with them. We had to work together to hold him while she inspected and cleaned, and as with everything else it had to be done perfectly. I wasn’t terrible interested in focusing on this aspect of the dog’s anatomy.
It is good to have some meaningful work or a hobby. Mine is politics, current events and writing. I might volunteer to help the Obama campaign here in Hawaii. I have to say that I miss the hustle and bustle of city life maybe more than just a little bit. This is truly Gilligan’s Island, with me in the starring role. Everything closes at around 8 pm. in the little town of Hilo, and the nearest excitement is Honolulu, 250 miles away by air. Before the cup was always running over, now there is this vacuum to fill. It is much like experience zero-g for the first time, what happens when you are no longer forced to submit to a gravitational field, how does that affect you and the way you proceed with life?
While my wife has a challenge or two, we are both in relative good health; I don’t have this hospital gurney following me around, with the adage ‘waiting for the next one to sneak up on you’. I will, in addition to working with the jump rope, acquire a bike to get even more exercise and have a look around the area. While, I have AARP constantly calling, the undertaker insurance people have stayed away. I was interested in Multi-level marketing http://hubpages.com/hub/HOW-TO-SUCCEED-IN-MULTILEVEL-MARKETING-AN-ALTERNATIVE-APPROACH but the Island is somewhat sparsely populated and prospects are few. I was interested in day trading and working the security markets, but retirement resources are too small for that. I was intensely interested in this for some time, but that is for another article.
Over all, I relish in the freedom, but it can be boring at times. When I assess the last year, the days have gone by rapidly and I could only say, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
