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In 1985, when working for 3M, I got my first retirement planning guide. It was personalized with all my pertinent information -- my employee number, date of birth, date of hire and at the bottom it stated my earliest retirement date being September 1, 2017. I was 24 years old at the time. I quickly did the math and concluded I needed to work more years than I had lived so far. I quickly filed that guide under, “Long-Term Planning.”
I did retire at the end of this past November, which is now last year. I felt ready to pull the plug, but after submitting my letter of resignation, I was surprised I had done it.
The decision to retire came out of the blue about six weeks before my last day. I got to work on that Monday and suddenly it hit me I reached the point of being done working. My 18-month plan I moved up into the next month.
I remembered Forrest Gump in the movie of the same name when he was running for months and then just stopped. When asked, “Why did you stop?,” he replied, “I was done.” I felt the moment I decided to retire; I had a Gump moment – I was done.
I started working the day after I turned 10 years old. After a lot of different jobs, self-employment and many employers, I realized I had been pushing myself for 53 ½ years. After my resignation was in, I knew I was on my way to being that “Freebird” that Lynyrd Skynyrd has been singing about since 1974.
I sit here clicking away on my laptop and think back to the day of learning about my earliest retirement day being far away in the year 2017. No one had yet come to grips with leaving the 1900s. It was a lifetime away then and now I can’t believe that 2017 was eight years ago.
Life moves fast and sneakylike. When you are young, you think you will always be young.
When you are older, you still think you are younger, but it’s a trick.
Yes, that’s it – a big life trick.
You are going along fine in life. You have made money throughout your working years, you feel confident, and each year slides on by and it doesn’t hit you until one day you are in your mid-60s, and someone refers to you as old.
A few days later I walked into the bathroom, looked at my reflection and saw my mother looking back at me. There she was – yup, Mom. It was weird to see her so clearly in my own face. It wasn’t a bad thing. It just took me so much by surprise.
As I studied my face, I saw wrinkles that appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Gray hair needs to be covered at least every two months, my hands look eerily like my mother’s, too. I know these things are to be expected, but why did they all have to hit in the same week?
I’ll admit I am a senior citizen and in the last third of my life.
It took me a while to get to say or type that out loud. It is funny how self-righteous indignation and a sense of denial can assist in driving away these admissions.
Once you reach this new ground floor of realization, you are ready to move forward.
Last August I ran into a classmate at the Kwik Trip in Cloquet.
I walked past this gentleman and saw just the side of his face.
I thought to myself, “That’s a nice-looking older gentleman.”
As soon as I thought that I looked closer at him and realized we graduated from high school together! Then I remembered he was younger than me. Holy crap I just thought he was A NICE-LOOKING OLDER GENTLEMAN!
I laughed while I got a coffee and drove the rest of the way to the Twin Cities, but that moment hit me so hard that I viewed others through a different set of lenses than I see myself. I’m sure I look older, but I still feel so young.
Young at Heart? Now I get it.
They wrote songs about that. We played it on our Magnus organ along with “Beautiful Dreamer.” Maybe I unlocked the secret of life at age nine as I mastered those songs, and it only took 54 years to understand the lyrics of what I played.
Maybe the secret of life is not worrying about your outside appearance. I am not one for undergoing facial plastic surgery or injections so I must embrace these body changes. If you are an aging man reading this, you know men are challenged with these kinds of issues as well. Full heads of hair thin with the years and jowls and a belly like Uncle Bubba appear out of nowhere.
I’ve been retired for two and a half months and not much has gotten done around my home and that has been a bit of a disappointment. I did have Christmas to enjoy with baking, shopping, decorating and wrapping. January was spent volunteering on a big church project and February has been a month of sickness.
I guess that’s how life goes.
You can plan and plan all you want, but interruptions happen.
Being retired does get in the way as you can always put off tomorrow what you were supposed to or planned to get done that day.
You tell yourself, “I don’t have to work tomorrow.” I do realize this could be a frequented trap or a project-killing way of being.
There are no longer early-day alarms, performance reviews or deadlines. I have traded those things for sleeping in, sipping coffee while sitting by the window and feeling blessed I don’t have to leave my house when the temperature is -35°F outside.
Time flies and it’s something my parents always said. It drove me crazy to constantly hear that from them only to live into the reality of those words.
We, meaning all of us, have about 100 years to live. Each year seems to go faster than the year before. We get to go when it’s our time and not a second before. I guess we must settle in then and keep as busy and productive as can be.
I have put off a lot of things when I was working and waiting for this time to come. Many books, crafts, sewing and house projects are ready whenever I am.
I need glasses for close work and reading. That happened around age 60. My thumbs are affected by tendinitis and arthritis and my neck gets sore when looking down for more than an hour.
I’m sure these afflictions are a result of working for years. One’s body does start to wear down.
I have visited many retirement places and seen so many sitting idle watching their surroundings.
I think I understand why now.
They are tired. Their body no longer works like it did. You can’t see, you can’t hear, and you can’t remember. Arthritis and other ailments have crept in and won’t release their hold.
I have started to notice a few physical changes in my body from earlier injuries. The most notable I recently noticed is my hearing.
Forty years ago, a toddler I was holding on my hip had a Tootsie Pop sucker in his mouth and he sneezed and bobbed forward. The sucker stick went into my ear and punctured my right eardrum.
Now I noticed my hearing has been getting worse - especially in my right ear. Last summer my brother and family were here, and my sister-in-law asked me if a local woman was still in real estate.
I turned to her and said, “She’s never been in a wheelchair!”
Oh, how we laughed and still throw out the comment, “She’s never been in a wheelchair,” every chance we get. Funny, of course, but it’s bothersome to notice the subtle creeping in of an issue that can progress and affect your life in profound ways.
I figured out I have now lived in seven decades. That was weird to see seven decades in writing as I just typed it. I do feel grateful for all I have seen and done and the changes along the way.
Being born in 1961 and living my formative years in the 1970s was magical.
We are all on some sort of self-discovery adventure. Complaining needs to be erased by thankfulness. Many never get the opportunity to retire due to financial circumstances or have others relying on them so continuing to work is a necessity and not a choice.
Life isn’t perfect. It’s an ever-changing world that can’t be controlled. I guess attitude is everything and I have always had somewhat of an attitude…albeit it isn’t a bad one.
My mother used to tell me I always had to have the last word to which I would reply, “No I don’t.”
I wish Mom was here to know I have this column. I would smile and tell her I still get to have the last word.
