Here’s a word for you. Close your eyes and tell me what pops into mind.

RETIREMENT

                
Kind of a big word that brings to mind wonderful things for some people, frightening things for some people and just bafflement or confusion for yet others.

It’s one of those words that is barely part of our vocabulary for the first 50+ years of our lives. Sort of like thinking that our parents have sex when we’re 10 or thinking about smoking causing actual d-e-a-t-h (as in: our own) when we’re 17 or thinking about Alzheimer’s while having that toke when we’re 25 (if you haven’t thought of that one yet…sorry…you know the one about the postcard that the Jewish mother sends her son – “Start worrying. Details to follow.”).

I closed my company at the end of 2010. I used to have three offices in two different continents with 3 worker bees in one of them (sort of like having triplet toddlers but that’s another story).

Then I had two offices but no employees and that was even busier.

Now I suppose I technically have one office but since I do less and less having anything to do with public relations or fundraising, it’s sort of a misnomer…or a fiction…or, let’s face it, sort of a lie.

It reminds me of something Ram Dass wrote in his wonderful book, Still Here.  He wrote that many men in their 70’s and 80’s (yes, it is sort of gender-specific for his generation, maybe for mine, and maybe even for my children’s) still “go into the office” (that’s how they put it) and talk about their indispensable-ness (please overlook that not being a word) because that’s the only identity they have and cling to it fearing that the only alternative is the guy in the robe with a scythe in his hand.

 Well, I didn’t think that owning up to having retired from the work I’d been doing (foreshadowing) meant that I’d have to start watching out for The Grim Reaper (as if watching out for him helps – an aside here with a great story about the guy who caught a glimpse of TGR and ran to his friend to borrow a horse to ride to the next town over to hide out until the coast was clear in his hometown. His friend ran into TGR who said he had no time to stand and chat because he had an appointment with someone in the next town over.)

I just didn’t think about it at all. Who me? Retired?

Back in the olden days when our 5 children (finally) stopped moving back into the house “just for a month or two”, Gershon and I looked at each other over our morning coffee and fresh fruit one day and realized that we had an “empty nest”. Yikes! Lo! and behold, there followed a year of adjustment until we wiggled this way and squished around that way and looked at each other over our morning coffee and fresh fruit one day, smiled, and realized that our “empty nest” had evolved into a comfy home for two.

So just the other day, scroll up to see that I closed my office in December 2010!, I realized that I’ve retired from public relations and fundraising. I looked back over the last 18 months of playing spades online, watching American TV series from iTunes, a brief stint doing yoga as a  volunteer in a senior’s day care center, piddling in the garden, starting a blog (ahem), spending more and more time with my grandchildren and reading alot and thought,

 “Hey, I’m retired! And wasting this amazing, promising, potentially exciting time of life called retirement when I’m a lucky dog to have gotten here in good health (minus a few aches and kvetches), with most of my brain working (I still don’t know the multiplication table beyond 6), a life partner I still like to have around (most of the time), enough money to keep the proverbial wolf from the door even without becoming one of those sad older women who sell cosmetics in the drug store and…never mind, this sentence has GOT to come to an end.”

My cluelessness was pretty pathetic given that (1) I’d already decided to take a 2 year yoga instructors’ course for certification and had been getting up at the crack of dawn (I’m not a morning person unless loving those morning hours of sleep can be called being a morning person) once a week since November to be able to teach yoga in places that require insurance, (2) I’d decided not to agree to meet with new potential clients “just to listen to their ideas” and (3) I’d been checking out a Transpersonal Psychology course in the US to get certified to go back to doing therapy.

Hmm. Sure sounds like someone who knows she’s retired from what she was doing professionally for a couple of decades. Like anyone who read that paragraph and knows that I’m approaching 60 would figure it out. But the person living it…i.e. ME…hadn’t figured it out yet.

You might ask yourself what the Sam Hill difference it makes what I call it to myself? (you probably wouldn’t say “Sam Hill”, though, unless you were born before 1920)

Well, I guess it DOES make a difference because once I realized that this is “RETIREMENT” (ay yai yai), I knew I had to make the most of it and stop playing those stupid games online and doing so much of all the other wasteful things I’d been doing. In spite of what all those meditation teachers say, escape isn’t all bad. It’s great within proportion, imho, with “within proportion” being the key words in that sentence. But many of my days had lost that proportion.

So now I’m taking a closer look at what I’m doing with my time.

Part One reminds me a little of a lecture I heard Sylvia Boorstein give years and years ago about Right Speech. One of the many very wise things she said in that lecture is that it’s important, before letting words out of one’s mouth, to do a quick speech scan (my term for it) –

• What’s your motivation for saying it?
• What’s your intention?
• Will what you’re thinking of saying actually help realize that intention?
• Is the other person open to hearing it right now?
• Is this an appropriate forum?

And, in case you’re thinking that people would never say anything at all if they had to go through all that before speaking, yes, someone in the hall DID say that to her and her response was to say, “Could be. And then there would be more silence in the world. And wouldn’t THAT be nice!”

But back to the point.

Now I’m trying to institute that kind of “action scan”. Before planning my day, and as I go through my day, I try to remember to ask myself those questions and only if my motivation and intention are positive, if the action will actually help fulfill my intention, if I think the action will be received as it’s intended and if the forum is appropriate will I follow through.

Part Two of my realizing the reality of this new stage in my life is matching my values with how I fill my time. Choosing what I want to fill my time with by examining how different activities correspond to my values.

I value family – so I try to visit with my grandchildren who are an hour’s drive away once a week and my granddaughter who’s further away every other week. I try to let my kids know that I’m thinking of them. Sometimes just with a text message. I try to remember the things I can do so effortlessly that Gershon appreciates so much. It took me 15 minutes to make some dinner to bring for him to eat before the movie the other night when he met me after a 2-hour workout at the gym. (p.s. One of the worst movies either of us has ever seen – “This Must be the Place” – what could Sean Penn have been thinking? – be sure to give it a pass!)

I value friendship – so I try to keep in touch with my friends. Valuing their friendship often means respecting that they AREN’T retired. Sometimes an email is a better reflection of valuing friendship than a call or a visit. And I try to develop new friendships with some of the people I meet.  Remember that Audrey Hepburn movie where she says she couldn’t possibly be friends with Cary Grant until one of her current friends dies? I think I used to come across that way (though, sadly, without the long neck and big, beautiful eyes) and am trying to remember to make a change.

I value my health – body and mind – so I’ve re-committed myself to including at least an hour of serious exercise in five days of my week, meditating every day (at least a little bit), reading soul and mind nurturing books and actually filling some time going to doctors to check out all those pesky things I’ve been passing off as annoying but “only a part of getting older”.

I value altruism – so I’m dedicating part of my time to actually doing the things I’ve been thinking would be nice if someone did.

I value financial security – so, yes, I’m training to be a yoga instructor with much broader possibilities of income and, even though the Transpersonal Psychology certification in the States turned out to be too expensive, I’ve found and registered for training right here in Israel next year to be able to get back into doing therapy.

But, even though this blog is all about me, it isn’t really about me. It’s about the bogeyman of retirement. What is it? What does one do with it? Is it the end of the productive part of our lives? When do we do it?

Gershon has taken to asking retired people we meet on our travels, or even in Israel, what they do with their days. At first most of them sort of answer in some glib way but he always follows up with, “No. REALLY. I really want to know what you do with your days. Start with when you get up.” And they usually comply…and comply…and comply.

Many people, it turns out, do something pretty full time but don’t usually get paid for it. One man we know took over as director of a large volunteer organization in the health field. Gershon’s reaction is that it doesn’t count as retirement. That he’s working full time…just not getting paid for it. My reaction to his reaction is to laugh. What’s retirement? It’s whatever you make it.

So there it is. And why should it come as a surprise to anyone? Retirement is just exactly like the rest of life. We can just put away all that baggage we’re carrying – from the past (What’ll people think of me if I don’t DO anything? Maybe I’ll become brain dead if I don’t DO something! What’s the importance of my life if I don’t have a job? Am I too young to retire?) and the future (Will I have to eat cat food if I quit my job? Will I have anything to talk about? Will I be bored if I don’t have a job to go to everyday? ) – to recognize what’s here right now. And then we can experience the joy and adventure of this stage of our lives.

I don’t mean to make it sound easy. It isn’t. But, then, that’s the very first of those 4 Noble Truths. Just a quick reminder – the fourth clues us in that there IS a way. Choose Life.