BLOG #4: Retire/ment, and Napping and . . . a few things I don't need to do

BLOG #4: Retire/ment, and Napping and . . . a few things I don’t need to do

I’m now our weeks into this new state of being, I know now that I am likely to be a complete flop at being fully retired.

True, I now understand why retirees say, “I’m so busy I don’t know how I had time to work.” I am busy, and I am booking coffee dates and such a good three weeks out in my calendar. There’s still a lot of work to do in the yard (planting a prairie garden in the backyard and re-sodding the front yard) and in the house (wrestling out-of-control rooms back into submission). I’ve come to realize that my retirement certainly won’t be my grandmothers’ retirement and won’t be my mum’s retirement either. . . and that got me thinking about what do we mean, in 2018, when we say retirement.

RETIRE/MENT:

Do we need another name for this phase of life? I think so.

Dictionary.com (one of my favourite sites) offers this definition for retire: “To withdraw from office, business, or active life, usually because of age.” And that’s certainly a useful definition as things go. To ensure fairness, I checked the Merriam-Webster and Collins online dictionaries as well and got pretty much the same results.  

I have (at least temporarily) withdrawn from office and business, but not from life. I anticipate doing some consulting or working part-time after Christmas.

I have good examples of unsuccessful full-time retirees in my own family. Grandpa Stan retired, took his gold watch, and promptly took a part-time job at Manchester airport (probably to get out from under Grandma’s feet). My dad shut down his business when he was around 65 and promptly took a part-time job working with a consultant. That job lasted about 12 or 14 years till the specialist died. So I like to think I’m  following a family tradition.

I wonder, too, if retirement is different for women and men or if I’m hanging onto stereotypes. Women are just as invested in their careers and career identities, and I expect that women with careers still do disproportionate amount of childcare and housework (in addition to working for money) than their male partners. And if that’s the case, then women don’t really retire as the laundry, shopping, housework continues.

Grandma Maud continued being a housewife. Other than drawing a pension, nothing changed. There was no sudden shift from paid work to retirement. But then I was viewing this part of her life from the viewpoint of a child or teenager.

Grandma Priscilla did what many women of her generation didn’t do: work for money. She had to; she was a widow responsible for raising a small boy (my dad).

My grandparents’ expectations were small. No expensive holidays. Whatever hobbies they had they continued. A simpler life; smaller expectations. I like to think they were all happy.

My mum’s retirement was different again. A professional woman, there would have been a very noticeable difference from her combined working for money and being a housewife life to being a retiree (remember, the  housewife part continues). Mum often says that retiring at 60 was the best thing she ever did.

I’m still chewing on what we mean by retirement and what possible new name we can conjure up that is better. Open to suggestions.

While I was ruminating on the words “retire” and “retirement,” I thought about some things I can now do that I couldn’t do when I worked and some things I just don’t need to do. If you’re getting close to retirement (or just dreaming about your far-off golden years), here’s a few things to consider:

NAPPING:

My late dad, Ted Horgan, was a champion napper. He had his favourite reclining chair and his “dossing cap” to pull over his eyes. He was also a champion snorer, but that may be a story for another day. My dad could, and did, fall asleep in the blink of an eye and often took more than one nap a day. As for me, I’ve always loved afternoon naps . . . but until recently, they have been relegated to weekends. Not now. Now I can (and do) nap whenever I want.

ALARM CLOCKS:

Apart from the occasional need to set a morning alarm because of an early appointment, I no longer bother to set an alarm. . . which means the cats don’t get disturbed in the morning either. I let the sun, the cats, or the need to pop to the loo be my alarm.

A FEW THINGS I DON’T NEED TO DO:

The other morning, I pulled out the iron to run it over a couple of items I needed for a lunch date. I haven’t used the iron in a month. . . and that got me thinking about a whole bunch of things I did to get prep’d for a week’s worth of work that I don’t need to do now.

1.       No ironing: At work, I wore a lot of linen and cotton items and so ironing (a chore I don’t actually mind) was a weekend task that occupied at least an hour of my weekend.

2.       Less laundry: As in way, way, way less laundry. As I’m not wearing business clothes, there’s hardly any laundry. Barn clothes don’t care . . . although it is prudent to launder them before they gain the ability to stand up by themselves.

3.       No makeup: Somehow, wearing makeup Monday – Friday just seemed to be required to feel fully dressed and ready to face life in post-secondary. I haven’t worn make up since I left work.

4.       No nail polish: Love putting on pretty colours; hate removing those colours. Don’t feel the need anymore. Besides, nail polish has a very short life expectancy out at the barn.

5.       No shoe polish: Barn shoes seldom require polish so I’m ready to ditch the polishing equipment.

6.       No hair products: That daily fussing and primping (again, just part of feeling fully dressed and ready to face life at work) – mostly gone.

7.       Checking and printing the next day’s calendar: Checking and printing the next day’s calendar was a task I undertook before leaving work each day so I’d be prep’d and ready to hit the ground running at 07:30 each work day. Gone. Now, true, I do check my online and phone calendars as I have to keep my social engagements straight, but the need to be as prep’d has gone.

8.       Wardrobe: . . . and I’ve come to realize that, out of necessity, I had two completely separate wardrobes: one was a business wardrobe and one a barn wardrobe.

The business wardrobe consists of smart jackets, blouses, trousers, skirts, smart coats, hats,  pretty scarves, jewellery,  plus sensible and serviceable smart shoes – some of which have already made their way to the Sally Anne.

The  barn wardrobe which consists of jeans,  riding pants, t-shirts, warm sweaters, an assortment of gloves,  steel-toed paddock boots, plus (depending on the weather) wellies, snow boots, long johns, thick jackets, woolly hats, and thicker gloves.

You can see my problem. I have no casual wardrobe. Do most new retirees go shopping for a new wardrobe?

My wardrobe has been attracting rather a lot of my attention these last few days. Perhaps an unhealthy amount of my attention. You see, this weekend, I’m off to audit a Charlotte Dujardin clinic at Anderson’s (just south of Spruce Meadows) http://rmsj.ca/.

Now, I appreciate that some of you are asking, “Who is Charlotte Dujardin when she’s at home?” . . . and if you have to ask I have to conclude that either (a) you are not a horsey person or (b) you are a horsey person but in the western disciplines.

No matter, I’ll forgive you. For homework, please look at this Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Dujardin.

And the Readers’ Digest version is that she’s only the current, top dressage rider in the world, she’s coming to Calgary (Calgary! Of all places), she’s teaching a day-long clinic, and the local horsey/dressage community is all a twitter. So, what to wear? I mean, this isn’t your run-of-the-mill trainer coming to town. That’s when I realized that I have a work wardrobe and a barn wardrobe. . . and nothing in between.

Which got me thinking (you can see how I end up going down rabbit holes, right?) about a quote generally attributed to Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex: “I’d rather be a woman who works than a lady who lunches.” Well, I’ve been a woman who works for almost 50 years, and I’m happy to be the occasional lady who lunches. And if I’m hyper critical the comment is a criticism of woman who do a different type of work (because lunching ladies do work), but then, I’d also be splitting hairs. 

The connection? The connection between Charlotte and Meghan? Well, I don’t want Miss Dujardin to think we are a bunch of country hicks so I was planning to look something like a lady who lunches . . . only to realize that I don’t have a casual wardrobe, I’m in the cheap seats, and I’m just not cut out for the role. Where I’ve settled, in good Calgary fashion, is to put a real sharp crease in my clean jeans and wear lipstick. Surely that’s good enough?

More on the clinic in a later blog. More on working women and ladies who lunch in a later blog, too.

All of which brings me back to my earlier ramblings about what we mean by retire/ment. I still don’t know. If you’ve figured this out, please share.