Transitioning to retirement has had both good and bad side effects for me. On the one hand, if I wake up and feel fussy, I just go back to bed because fuck it. I don’t have to do all those work things, like drive a half-hour in rush hour traffic to a dull office where I walk a thin line with HR because my boss is a hot mess*. I can wear something with an elastic waistband all day, every day. Maybe even the same thing repeatedly as long as it doesn’t start to smell funny. I can easily give myself permission to do that thing tomorrow instead of following my naturally obsessive compulsion. All the daily requirements of a civilized work life are now optional. After 40 years of dutiful compliance, the feeling of its absence is… surreal.
On the other hand, what the fuck am I doing? I still have good years left and all the important shit still works, mostly. I mean I’m healthy and I haven’t lost my mind yet. From a life spent in my vocational industry I know things. I’ve stayed current with the applicable technology and until recently was still a vital cog in the machine. I don’t even need much of a salary at this point, but all of that doesn’t mean shit. I’m old, I’m male, I’m white, I’m not a protected veteran, and I’m not disabled. I can’t even get a part-time job in a warehouse or store because I don’t have recent retail experience. The AI algorithm that vets incoming job applicants has dropped me from the prospect list before I’ve finished the requisite online form.
My father never made it to retirement, having passed away at age 54. My mother never retired comfortably due to a couple of ill-advised financial decisions. Personally, I have no idea how to retire and throughout my entire life I honestly believed I never would. I’d simply find something I loved doing and always make myself useful somehow. That retirement plan was a bit delusional, it turns out. Must be something genetic.
Through the miracle of government forethought, Social Security provides me with a modest monthly stipend. Nothing I thought much about over the years but here it is– a dividend from all the years of hard work, thank you for your service and for paying taxes. It may not be a lot but it’s enough to keep me from living under a bridge at the moment. How anyone can believe less government and fewer taxes is the way to run a country clearly hasn’t been faced with obsolescence. When they are, and they will, based on the news headlines it will be too late.
*My former employers weren’t all like that. Some were amazing, but that’s a story for another day 😉
3 Responses
Nice thoughts here Chris, thanks for sharing! I’ve been struggling with the same thoughts for a while, especially since COVID. We are close to the same age and same working background so I understand completely. My “What now” crisis is the major lack of motivation combined with a crippling need to accomplish something. Accomplishing “something” use to mean “work” or “creative” related. No longer. Now it could mean washing the previous nights dishes!
When I walked away from the organized work force in late 2016 I had high hopes and a drive to “go out there and do my own thing”. Do art, get better at creating logos and be oh so creative. All without being tied to having to make a lot of money. You know, being creative for that sake of being creative. It worked out for a while. But then COVID hit and things dried up. As it did for many. Then I realized that I got old.
So now my day starts in my Art Shack® (a shed with windows to look at the bird feeders) and feed the stray cats we adopted, I sip my coffee, smoke a few cigarettes that I should smoke, listen to Morning Edition and decide what the fuck to do today. Then it’s time to have lunch. Then maybe a nap. Then I’ve blown most of the day so I play a game on my console. On good days I convince myself I still need to do that website for all my work so that will take up a few hours of mulling and tweaking on a design usually left unfinished until the next time.
I guess I have to get use to the idea that all those years of being highly motivated, excited to think I could convince a consumer to buy another bag of chips, a pizza or a sugary drink are now in the past. Now I have a new normal – getting though the day, hoping I’ll have my social security for a while, hoping we don’t resort to a monarchy and watching the Black Capped Chickadees and Cardinals flitter around the feeder!
Thanks for letting me rant Chris!
One of the things I learned back in ’98 while emerging from my alcoholic haze was that there can be reasons to go on living simply by watching the bird feeder. Not to get too preachy here, but if everyone spent more time observing and protecting the miracle of nature instead of stepping on our fellow humans, we as a species would be infinitely happier and live longer.
Un abrazo, mi hermano. Thanks for reading 😉
Chris, I feel ya. I still love the work, and the challenges of brainstorming with people more talented than me. But TBH, I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with agency poIitics and holding company treachery. And the world, or at least the US quickly crumbling around me. Just seems like at work, in business, in government and in society as general the cruel and stupid are winning. So what next? I am definitely looking forward to watching the bird feeders. But also recognizing I have more to contribute. And I will need other things* to challenge my aging, defiantly not Gen-Z brain. (*non-agency things)