Tag Archives: retirement

Hanging With the Old People

Life, thinking out loud,

My mother celebrated her 91st birthday last week, and I was thrilled to be able to spend time with her. I spent a week visiting with her and my father, also 91, and their friends. We went out to dinner with a long time family friend, and I sat in on my mother’s Bible study group, something I have done several times. I am sorry I missed the discussion of Bad Girls of the Bible.

I am incredibly fortunate to still have both my parents in my life. While my mother has mobility issues, she is able to get around with a walker. My dad is in better physical shape and still drives short distances to the grocery store, Starbucks and their favorite sandwich shop. When the weather is nice, they take a picnic to the local park. They repeat themselves (as we all do) and their memories can be faulty (mine, too), but they keep up with the news and participate in events at the retirement community. Our dinner out was at the new fine dining bistro on campus. I enjoyed delicious gourmet potstickers and lobster ravioli in pesto cream sauce.

I am also fortunate to be able to connect with my parents’ friends as well. They talk openly about the joys and challenges of getting old. The leader of the Bible study made a comment that has stuck with me. In a discussion of what kind of evidence we use to support our beliefs, she said she tends to dwell more in the mystery of her faith, not doubting but finding the human explanations of the divine and the afterlife to be inadequate to describe her widening sense of the beyond.

The women in the Bible study also talked about the challenges of continuing to find purpose in their lives. Most of these women married, raised families and, as part what I think of as the Betty Friedan generation, a few went to college and most worked outside the home in some capacity. They had opportunities to travel. They volunteered in their local churches and communities while they worked and more so after they retired. Now, even as their world gets smaller, they see the next generation moving into their places as committee chairs and event organizers.

I don’t remember if the group had a specific answer to the challenge of finding purpose, just that it was a struggle. For me, the answer lies in the way they live: they are active in the world they inhabit. They participate on committees, offering their historical knowledge (the retirement community is 75 years old); they meet in various study groups; they attend lectures, concerts and, if possible, go on field trips. There are several choral groups and a bell choir that participate in the weekly chapel service. The retirement community has partnered with the Rodale Institute, which operates a small farm on the campus. Residents are invited to help with the farm as they are able, and everyone benefits from easy access to fresh vegetables. There are lots of public spaces where people can socialize. Usually, one table in the gathering area holds a jigsaw puzzle. Together, these elders are creating a new purpose, supporting themselves and others through the process of growing old and dying and providing an example to the next generation about how to live your whole life.

My Last Monday

thinking out loud, work

When you work as an independent contractor, you never really retire. I called it retiring when I left the Virginia Society for Technology in Education as the directorship had been my main gig for many years. But, I continued to consult and teach. For the past year, I have taught online for a Virginia university’s library science program. I am finishing up the summer semester this week. I am not scheduled to teach another course until the second half of the fall semester. So, once I submit my grades this coming weekend, I will not be working for money, my version of retiring.

To be honest, the teaching I have been doing takes up just a few hours a week so it won’t be huge change: there are no live classes, only office hours. I joke that my main jobs are to nag and grade. I also work hard to create community and develop meaningful relationships with my students in an online, asynchronous class. But despite not being a huge demand on my time, the work provided some structure to the week. Next Monday, it really won’t matter that it is Monday. There will be no announcements to post or assignments to grade.

I am spending my first week of “retirement” visiting my family in Pennsylvania. And then, when I return the following Monday, the week unfolds with wide open spaces on the calendar. Rereading my post from 2022, I have kept to the list of what was going to do when I retired: reading, gardening, and lots and lots of making of all sorts of arts and crafts with a focus on making different kinds of books. I practice the piano most days and occasionally pluck at the ukulele. My morning routine includes journaling and some sort of artwork, often a quick collage or doodle. We adopted a dog last year, and we take a long walk each morning, watching the property change with the seasons. I am doing some volunteer work including serving on the Board of Trustees of the regional library system, participating in a bell choir, and playing piano and singing hymns with a group at the local rehab center once a month. I have avoided the very active pickleball group but do attend the book group at the library.

This fall, I want to spend time doing all of the above along with quilting and watercoloring, two of my newer interests. As for writing, I will keep poking at this blog. It might be fun to do some throwback Thursday posts to see what I was writing about in 2003 and 2013 and all the years in between. I would also like to try my hand at poetry. Earlier this year, I wrote a daily haiku and found it to be a mindful way to start each day. To that end, I pulled a few poetry writing manuals off the shelf.