BLOG #6: Loss, Penis Envy, Seniors’ Meals, Statistics,
and More on What Retirement Means
What does loss,
penis envy, seniors’ meals, and statistics have to do with retirement? Bit of a
stretch, isn’t it?, but these are the things I’m mulling on these days. . .
plus more chewing on what retirement does actually mean and entail.
LOSS
In the week leading
up to retiring from SAIT I had an opportunity to attend a one-hour workshop on
preparing for retirement. Not a financial workshop but more of a personal
wellbeing workshop. Could be too little too late, but I had already been giving a lot of thought
to what my retirement would look like in the immediate, medium-term, and
far-off future. I recall only two things from the workshop: finding something
that provides one with value to oneself and a person’s 60s being the decade of
loss.
Yikes!
And yet, the decade
of loss is a reasonable statement. Depending on how closely a person is tied to
his/her profession/trade, there is the loss of employment, loss of
profession/trade, loss of career identify, loss of status in one’s professional
community, loss of salary, loss of benefits, loss of routine, loss of
like-minded buddies, loss of interesting and meaningful work, and probably
other losses connected to employment I haven’t considered. If one has
parents still alive, they are elderly, and a person can expect to lose them in
her 60s. Friends are no longer dying in stupid, youth-related, ill-advised,
devil-may-care accidents but of age-related illnesses and diseases. Those lucky
enough to have grandchildren might be seeing the eldest of those children
preparing to leave home and head off to college/university or jobs away from
home.
All of which is a little
depressing . . . and looks at retirement from a somewhat negative viewpoint.
Because I’m doing Google-type research on retirement (for ideas related to a
money-making blog at some distant time in the future), these types of articles
are popping up: “Don’t retire,” “No Need to Ever Retire,” “Retiring is the
Worst Decision You’ll Ever Make.”
What really brought
loss home to me this past couple of weeks was the illness and the death of fellow horse woman Cathie. Cathie was a lovely
woman and more of an acquaintance than a friend. However, our mutual interest
kept our paths crossing for about 30 years, she was only 55 y.o., and while
she’d lived a good and full life, Cathie’s plans for herself would undoubtedly have
included another thirty good, horsey years.
PENIS ENVY
If you’re wondering
how on earth I’m going to tie the male member into retirement, you’re not
alone, but I believe I can do it.
And if you’re
worried I’m about to launch into a feminist diatribe, well, no . . . at least
not this time.
What starting this
particular trip down this particular rabbit hole was a comment posted by a
buddy on FB and a recent volunteer stint at a horse show. Just to be clear, the two events aren’t related to each
other.
The FB comment
first:
To protect the
innocent, names withheld . . . but my buddy and his 85 y.o. mum were talking
about censorship in art and her reply was, “Well, at least fig leaves are more
attractive than most penises.” Not a conversation I’m likely to have with my 86
y.o. mum. I have to wonder just how many
penises this mum has seen that she can confidently make this statement. And . . . I can’t help thinking that if most of
the female of the species felt that way, the human race would have died out a
long time ago. However, go Mum go and keep making these types of comments,
please.
The horse show:
I had an
opportunity to work with Faye timing the speed event at the Working Equitation
sanctioned show in Cochrane on a blisteringly hot Sunday. Working Equitation is
very popular in Europe and is somewhat similar to western trail events if you
are familiar with those. There were two events at the Cochrane Ag Centre that
weekend: the Working Equitation show and the Extreme Cowboy show. Couple of
hundred people between the two shows (spectators and competitors not counting
horses and dogs). . . two port-a-potties (as in just two potties). . .
four days of competition
. . . four days of blisteringly hot heat beating down
on the potties. . . did I mention the couple of hundred humans? . . . and I’m guessing at this point you can see
where I’m heading.
Nope, nope, nope.
Not me. Not using those
port-a-potties. Nope. But in that heat. I needed to stay hydrated, but drinking a lot of water leads to
. . . well, the necessity to make trips to the loo. Contemplating the
port-a-potties was a non-event and . . . well, this is when horse stalls start
to look like attractive alternatives without or without the horse for company. But . . . modesty is an issue for girls. The ancient knees of retired gals are also a bit
of an issue: creaky and not terribly reliable about raising us back up to
standing . And then that the ever-present
concern that all gals have about peeing on their boots. So, “Suck it up,
Buttercup” takes on a whole new meaning . . . and that’s where penis envy comes
into the conversation.
Forget all about
male privilege, what I envy is the very practical ability men have to pee
outside without fear getting their boots wet, without exposing too much of
themselves and risking a loss of modesty, and being able to pop into a horse
stall to pee without having to bend their knees to accomplish the task.
Gentlemen, you have no idea how fortunate
you are. Think about this, please, next time you are somewhere with large crowds
and few port-a-potties.
SENIORS’ MEALS
Why are senior’s
meals half the size of regular meals?
Why does the
Seniors’ Menu offer only a very limited choice of meals?
Why do only
family-style restaurants (think Smitty’s, Denny’s, Humpy’s, etc.) offer
seniors’ meals but more upmarket dining establishment do not?
And something I’ve
never thought to ask is whether a seniors’ discount is still applied to a
reduced-size meal.
Not that it matters
as there’s seldom anything of interest to this vegetarian diner, but I do
wonder why the menu is so limited. If you know, please enlighten me.
STATISTICS
For someone as math
phobic as me, it surprises me that I like statistics. When I check my blog site
I see that most of my readers are located in Canada and England, I can find out
how many hits my blog has had each month, and I can even find out what type of
device was used to connect. What I don’t know is quite what I’m going to do
with this information. I sense a little more research is in my future.
MORE ON WHAT RETIREMENT MEANS
Earlier,
I talked about loss, and that’s something I’ve been chewing on quite a lot
recently (with respect to retirement). I’ve mentioned that I’m unlikely to be a
successful fully-retired person. What I am not missing is the politics,
the panics, the projects that go seriously sideways. What I am missing
is the intellectual stimulation, planning interesting projects, taking those
projects to completion, wrestling with problems and solving them, working with
like-minded folks, joshing around with colleagues, working as a well-oiled cog
in an efficient machine.
Shortly
before I left SAIT, Diane sent me a link to a short article about a book by
Jonatan Chevreau called The Four Phases of Retirement.
Quick
summary here:
·
Phase 1: typically freedom from obligations and
vacation mode
·
Phase 2: the “… abyss of insignificance” and losses
to do with one’s place in the working world and one’s profession
·
Phase 3: Response to those losses/trial and error
and the realization that time’s running out and one needs to get cracking to
accomplish what one wants to accomplish
·
Phase 4: Reinvent and Repurpose
As
I’m just about to enter week 8 of semi-retirement (I’m really thinking of this
as a sabbatical) . . . I am clearly still in Phase 1 and expect to stay there
for a while, but I already see signs of Phases 2, 3, & 4 creeping into my
thoughts.
Several
women friends have recently retired. Some have successfully fully retired, although I doubt
if they drop entirely being teachers, medical folks, artists, horse trainers, librarians,
etc. These folks seem to have embraced retirement, devoted themselves to
established hobbies they didn’t quite have time to do while working, or picked
up new interests. Some others retired and then promptly reinvented themselves
in new, post-retirement professions. So, there’s a certain amount of retirement-related
envy on my part as I’ve not become comfortable with being retired and I also
have not figured out what my new post-retirement career will look like.
Stay
tuned on this one as I expect there’ll be a lot of chewing on this topic in the
short- and medium-term of my retirement.
MISCELLANEOUS:
In the category of
“Things I can now do . . .”
1.
Going for breakfast on a Friday morning with a
friend.
2.
Going out for dinner on a week night, staying
out late (because I can) as I don’t have to worry about getting to bed
early so I can get up at 05:30 the next morning.
3.
Forgetting that a long weekend is coming up.
4.
Going out for lunch on a Tuesday with Joan.
5.
Being
out at the barn for 08:00 on a weekday so I can work two horses before it gets
too hot.
6.
Pushing
aside all thoughts and minor panics about preparing for fall startup.
AND . . .
Did I do it?
Did I manage to
link loss, penis envy, seniors’ meals, and what retirement means to retirement?
