RETIREMENT AIN’T WHAT
IT’S CRACKED UP TO BE
Let’s just
say this right up front, retirement ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. Sure, sure, all your working friends assume
that retirement is a permanent cruise without the bad weather. They think once you retire all your worries
are over and life is an endless series of golf dates, travels, parties and
mornings spent catching up on all the sleep you lost while working.
That all
could be possible; except for the following rule of life which like gravity and
E=MC2 cannot be changed. The time it takes to complete a task expands
by the amount of time available. While
this sounds a little like one of the math classes I must have failed, it is a
core truth for all retirees.
What this
means is that since you have more time available, it will take you longer to do
the myriad of jobs that you will be doing.
Those of you who got home late and left early assuming that the house
would take care of itself, have likely found that the house doesn’t take care
of itself. In fact somebody has been
doing a lot of work to make it look like the house takes care of itself.
When you
worked 12 hours a day the spouse, when possible, was willing to shoulder most
of the home related responsibility. But,
when you are lying in bed until nine every morning, things change. Boy do they change. For some reason your spouse may feel that
walking the dog at 6 in the morning is one of those little life experiences to
be shared.
Then there
is of course rule number two: Things that
were once unimportant become important. You
never really cared that the neighbor’s car was always polished and yours looked
like it just finished an off road race.
Who worried that the next door neighbor got yard of the month for twelve
years running? Cleaning the windows
never got past number 20 on your to do list, but now you notice that through
your windows it always looks cloudy outside.
Yes, the unimportant becomes important and you might really organize the
garage and closet.
Finally I
must mention rule number three: When
anyone begins a sentence with, “Since you are retired” run, run away as
fast as you can. The remainder of that
sentence will be something like; “Would you mind watching our dog and watering
the grass while we are on vacation? I
wouldn’t ask but since you are going to be around the house all the time.”
A few other
odds and ends: Your spouse has been
making a retirement to do list since two weeks after you were married. Your spouse will not understand your need to
sleep until noon. Your relatives will
expect you to attend the funeral of your second cousin twice removed. Complete strangers will ask what you do with
your time.
Put all
these things together and you begin to see why retirement is just not what you
think it will be. You never get a
vacation day or holiday. The only
difference between Monday and Saturday is that it is less crowded at Wal-Mart
on Monday.
So am I
looking for a job? No way, no how, no
sir, I’ll continue to deal with the little inconveniences of retirement.
