Retired Introverts

I woke up this morning (a good thing!) thinking about retirement now that I have reached my one-year anniversary and realized I am still learning how to be retired.

My first observation in the wee hours - retirement is like starting a new job.  New employees don't start out as the expert on Day One - it takes time for them to figure out the "corporate" culture and how they can maximize their position and contribution within their new surroundings.

Because I am a researcher/analyzer type of person, I naturally spent many hours digging into other's comments - written or spoken - on how they "do" retirement.  Like the new employee, I took to heart most of those comments and felt pulled in many different directions.  I pulled back and hid out for awhile (thankfully no one fired me!) and feared I would fade into the woodwork permanently those first few months.  This morning, I read an article about introversion - one of those "13 ways to make the introvert in your life feel loved" kind.  Thank goodness these two blogs together finally shot a dose of realism and clarity into my blood stream.  Made me look at how I was loving the introvert within my own skin!

Without the distraction of a busy work schedule, I have been embracing my introversion in a way I feel I couldn't while being the best in my work of choice.  Work pushed me into social situations where I learned to be the extrovert social diva to promote and educate and market - all at a cost to my energy and motivation to do more and more.  Fortunately, these times were balanced out with my other tasks that tied me to the computer, working within my comfort zone, writing and crunching numbers!  Ah!  Balance!

Take me out of the "have to" scenario and I flounder - like a fish out of water!  Give me eight months and I finally figure out I am not a fish after all!  The guilt surfaced - how my social activity was being sidelined, even avoided at times.  Wise words (some of them mine!) reverberated in my head:

"You need friends - girlfriends, couple friends, casual friends and especially face-to-face friends."
"Get involved in the community.  Volunteer.  Bake cookies.  Go to events."
"Go to the local coffee shop and meet people. Walk up to a table of seniors with an empty chair or two and ask if you can join them."
"Walk around your neighbourhood.  Talk to people.  Get to know their names."

Can I just say that some of this was great advice and some of it was even great advice for me, but some of it (go to a coffee shop!) made my throat constrict in terror!

My moment this morning realized that my happiness quotient goes up when I stay true to myself,  being authentic within my own heart.  I have taken up solo types of activities like painting and writing to my heart's content.  Learning to paint works - joining a class gives me the kind of beneficial social connection I love while I pursue my creative side.  Joining a writing group puts me in a whole group of introverts! Knowing this even encouraged me to venture out and make my first meeting with them a lunch in a restaurant before I had even met one person!  Volunteering looks different for me than the cooking, baking, kind that I think many of my advisers had in mind.  I volunteer at the local art gallery, meeting and greeting complete strangers but in a setting that houses one of my passions - art.  Instant conversation starter plus I can capitalize on my "being in charge" character from years of management.

Social activity is very important, but it looks different for everyone.  Just like the many home choices (style and location), travel ideas (mode and destination) and financial situations (frugal or on the edge!) differ from one to the other.  Retirement is not a destination but a continuation of the life you started sixty or so years ago - true to character with lots of room to grow and explore and finally with the time and opportunity to relax into it.

Retirees don't morph into something they are not, but for this retiree, at least, they continue to become who they really are.  Free time opens up the opportunity to explore some of those neglected corners of a busy, working, parenting life and infuse light, life and colour back into them.  I was a child who loved to create, read, write and hang out with a few special friends.  I am again that child - just a little wiser and freer to pursue all of this and more!

Minimalism at Any Age

With the prospect of down sizing in the near future, I decided to tackle my photo albums.  I thought I would start out on a small project that would not mess up the house with piles of junk as I sorted and sifted.  What I didn't count on was the sorting and sifting through the memories.

Now, I know that most of these photos can be digitized and I am a big fan of the digital photography world where mistakes get caught and hidden before any money is spent!  But how do you decide which actual printed picture to toss and which one to save?  Really?!  Throwing out pictures of adorable grandchildren in several stages of birthday cake smeared from top to toe is almost like drowning puppies - well, maybe not but you get my drift.

The sheer size of my collection (which does not even include the old pictures of my own daughters childhood - those will be tougher) was enough to set my head spinning off my head exorcist style.  The family room couch was soon littered with piles of pictures I was systematically removing from albums by year.  I soon realized I would need to use some envelope system if I ever wanted to sit on the couch again within the month!  It soon became evident which years I had kids coming home for visits and which years contained weddings and births!  The height of the pile soon dictated the emotional investment as well.  So, now I have this little project spread out over every empty surface available.  Do I sort into kid-designated albums or just by year and deal with that later? Do I just keep it chronological and make subsequent albums?  Do I use themes  like grand kids or Christmas or ?  Yikes!

But, with iron willpower, I am moving forward to get this done by the end of February.  Every last printed picture is going into a well-defined album - I will not divulge the chosen system as I would hate to give away all my secrets to any child of mine checking out my blog today - but, it shall happen and memories will remain intact!  Sweet cherubs will continue to smile up at Grandma and saucy munchkins will continue to frown!  Daughter, Mother, Grandmother - photos contain the pixels of those moments but my heart, it is so much bigger than any hard drive - it contains the memories!

And I have only just begun.  Next - the kitchen!   Graduation Day must be just around the corner if I can commit to that gigantic downsize! Minimalist Grandma - here I come!

http://www.becomingminimalist.com/accomplishment-minimalist-kitchen/

Deja Vu

Seriously, how many times do you go to do something and your mother's voice rings in your ears!  I was getting dressed one day a week or so ago so I could trudge to work in -27 C temperatures and decided I would wear a long skirt which perfectly covers my capri-length leggings and I thought I heard my Mom whisper to me, "It is too cold to go without bloomers, Eileen,  You will freeze your skin!"  I almost giggled out loud.  Gone are the days of shivering in miniskirts at a Winnipeg bus stop or wading through knee deep snow with no winter boots.  I am the practical 60-something, dressing for comfort!  And my mom would be smiling at me with a "told-you-so" glint in her eyes if she were still here today!

Thanks Mom!  You live on!

I discovered I often do things without even thinking because that was the way mom did them: tape paper bags to my sewing machine to catch snippets of thread; cook beets only with the skins on; wear white only in summer; and never wear black to a wedding.  I could go on.  The brilliant day is when I hear my own daughters do the same thing!  Generation gap no more!  We become our mothers some day!  Oh JOY!

Just Up Ahead

Retirement used to be just over the next mountain, then it became just around the next curve.  Now I can see the sign post just up ahead.  My problem is that I am bouncing around on the details: when and where.  I have accepted soon!

In a previous post, I indicated YES, we were going to stay put, renovate, and live out the remaining years on the prairies.  Now? well, now that we have been living through -27 temperatures, we are thinking NO, let's look at something warmer.  Sigh.

I so relate to the 18 year old graduating from high school with parents and grandparents breathing down his or her neck - now what?  college? university? employment?  No wonder they retire to the basement and surface with backpack in hand and the graduating cash gifts going toward six months in Thailand.  Coming to terms with retirement is a lot like that.  There are so many scenarios to choose from - the decision is a life changing one and at this end of your life, there aren't too many do-overs available!

Narrowing it down to the important things helps somewhat - once the survival questions are addressed!  Now you may ask yourself if there is a backpack sitting in my front entry and cash stuffed in my pockets and I would have to say, not yet.  But if you checked my laptop you would find the www.mls.ca site has been visited quite often and the "favorites button" is flashing.  Excitement has replaced the fear I struggled with over the years - now I know I have enough to live on and even enough to travel a little - my eyes are focused forward and anticipation is building!

You Don't Have to Plan for the Rest of Your Life....

I attended a workshop on wills and estate planning recently and learned a few things about life in the process.  Now, since this session was about "death & taxes" that might seem a little unexpected - but planning for any momentous occasion generally applies many of the same principles!  One of the most challenging issues facing me as I face down the retirement question is knowing how much is enough when it comes to planning,.  I rattle around in my own head a lot - it is a familiar space and I am used to the twists and turns that have developed over the years; however, it seemed like I was roaming in circles on this question of retirement.  Conversation with self: "So, if I age in place how long will that last and does that mean keeping the house or buying a condo and when should that happen - before I get frail and lose my grip but not too soon so I can still enjoy sleep overs with my grandkids and leisurely visits with my more adult friends and family and then what about nursing homes and do I have enough money for them and ....."  Round and round - if I go this way then that will happen; if I don't go that way then this will happen.

If I walked away with anything that night it was this:  You don't need to plan for 10 or 20 years.  You only need to look about 5 years down the road!  Simple thinking really but it was like someone stepped in and opened up the hidden exit I had been rolling past on each subsequent circuit in my mind and - PING - I popped out like a bingo ball - Under the O - OH!

Five years - I can do five years.  Why, I will still be a 60-ish person in five years.  Still travelling; still hosting family and friends; still walking the neighborhood and still living in my house!  That wasn't so hard.  There are a few details to be ironed out but what a relief to take on only one chunk of the journey.

I read recently on "Satisfying Retirement" that retirement isn't a destination but just the continuation of the rest of your life.  I like that picture - I have been on an amazing journey and have especially embraced the last two years of living an authentic me!  I have hit the age when I have quit looking for a new grey hair on my head and started anticipating a new smile line crinkling my much wiser face. I have accepted that I will never arrive - I will just BE - and that is an amazing place!