1 Retirement
I am free. I have retired. After almost thirty years, I have voluntarily
left my teaching toil in the vineyards of higher education. I am not planning to carry on in that employ
or a similar employ, or any other employ, for that matter, again. Well, maybe on some occasion I will teach
writing or literature on a part-time, temporary, just for fun basis. I actually
do fantasize about short contract teaching in some as yet unnamed exotic but
comfortable and safe clime, an experience I have been fortunate to have enjoyed
a few times in the past. You should
know, by the way, if you are contemplating retirement, that peregrination is evidently
expected and almost obligatory for retirees.
In fact, one of the first questions folks asked when I announced my
pending retirement was if I was going to travel. I cringed a bit at such inquiries as I enjoy
touring but very much hoped to avoid that and the other stereotypical
retirement tropes which, alas, in their myriad forms, loom seductively. I have, for instance, taken up sculpting. And my also retired partner and I have joined
the local senior center to take Tai Chi.
Can you imagine! When I tell my
non-retired friends this, often their first response, unmediated by sensitivity
or conscience, is to laugh. I take no
offense. I understand. I understand. But even if I do indulge in a
variation of travel disguised as employment, I have no plans to derive a sense
of utility or comprehensive identity from these or other endeavors. I tell myself that I have weaned myself from
the tyranny of a need to be productive, of service, or fame. I have registered for Medicare and have just
started collecting a pension. I can now relax.
Or can I? That is what I thought until I read an
article in the New Yorker by Patricia
Marx on the “Golden Years” (New Yorker,
October 8, 2012). (I have always thought it ironic that a person
named Marx writes the shopping advice column for the New Yorker.) I read Marx in spite of my best
anti-consumerist intentions. And just so
you know, I am no slouch in the Marx department. For a year or so in my late
twenties, I lived in a socialist, co-ed, non-sexist, semi-vegetarian political
collective whose do goodery was supplemented by study groups on Marx and others
of his ilk. And while I currently live as
thoroughly a bourgeois life as I can afford, I have not abandoned myself to the
worship of the material. Still, I find
myself fascinated by this guru of affluent consumerism’s considerations of the ins
and outs of individuals and establishments that purvey prestige products and
services. I am attracted and repelled by
discussions of the proper messenger and handbags, watches, linen, shoes and advice
about gourmet take out, private schools, beauty spas, yoga institutes, and the
like. I know that Marx is not writing to
the likes of me. And yet . . . and yet, I
am haunted by her presentation of the various options for modern retirement and
wondering if I am doing it right.
First, there is the problem of
nomenclature, which in itself reveals the tendency of the times for many baby
boomers: “Encore Career, Recareer, Rewirement, Anti-Retirement, Regenopause
[clearly for women only]” are only a few of the phrases Marx presents as
current descriptors. OMG, I thought, I am supposed to be having a second
career! Retirement is not an entrance
into freedom and leisure as one leaves their job/career, a time for reflection,
hobbies, and fun, as I thought it was, but a retooling for another commitment
of time and energy to finally fulfilling and enriching myself. We
still want to “do” something. What
happened to all that talk about “being”? (I note, by the way, that family and
friendship seem to play little part in filling the apparently yawning gap in
personal satisfaction and meaning expressed by many of the retiring boomers.
The much quoted sentiment that the only things that matter in the end are love
and relationships is often cited but little observed. Personally, I have long thought that, yes,
people are perhaps all that matter at the end, but not necessarily in the
meantime. )
The implication of these terms for retirement
is wearying enough, but also disturbing is that apparently, the new retirement requires
expert assistance in the form of retirement coaches, which Marx goes on to
describe. Now I know that this coaches
thing is not new for the baby boomer generation weaned on weed, psychotherapy
and mood altering and/or controlling pharmaceuticals. While we might have spent our youth
acclaiming freedom of expression and individuality, we have been joiners. We may bowl alone and not join Masonic and
other lodges, but many of us did flock to therapists, Esalen, EST, encounter
groups, and other workshops that promised fulfillment and self-actualization. We may have not trusted our parents and
elders, but we have depended much on the paid kindness of strangers.
So what’s a good time girl like me who
craves to do the right thing to do? Why, after a lifetime of laboring for wage
and/or profit, can’t I simply relax and be lauded and applauded for it? The life of the mind and the swimming pool
beckons. Isn't that enough?
Congratulations, both of you, on your arrival in the Land of Do-Whatever-the-Fuck-You-Want!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, Judith! I look forward to the day when George and I can join you in that state of ultimate freedom(?), and in the meantime will enjoy your musings and reconnaissance on retirement. I've added you to my aggregator. :-)
ReplyDeleteI love retirement. To me, retirement has meant time. I do what I want to do. And I don't have to do it now. I smile a lot.
ReplyDelete