Blog #13 (or is it #12?): A Day in the Life of . . .

 Blog # 13: A Day in the Life of . . .

I’m an English major which may explain why I can’t count. I seem to have managed to post two Blog #12s, but I’ve now arrived, correctly, at Blog # 13. (I hope.)

So, what do retirees do all day?

You'll recall my saying (in an earlier blog) that we give time, energy, and thought to our financial retirement but a lot less time to our emotional retirement . . . and that whole "What's my value?" piece is still causing me some grief.

Many younger retirees (in their sixties or seventies) will tell you that they are so busy they don’t know how they ever had time to work. Certainly my mum and dad said that for about the first 15 years of their retirement. I don’t really think I truly understood what they meant at the time, but the last eight to nine months have given me a much better understanding. Whatever it is that I do all day, I am certainly not twiddling my thumbs and doing make-work projects. I am always productively busy.

When David and I started talking about retirement, I was wondering what I’d do with my time. This wondering and chewing on the topic is all part of my continuing struggle to find answers to “What’s my value?” It’s also linked to my worries about not wanting to look back in 20 years’ time and wondering what the heck I did with my retirement years. I want to ensure that I use them wisely.

Wise man David suggested that retirees mostly continue doing what they did when they were working. I think he’s right – mostly.

Certainly, when I was working, I worked (which took up 10 – 12 hours/day), I walked, I visited with friends, I gardened, I read, I travelled, I volunteered, and I spent a lot of time at the stables working with our horses. The difference between when I was working full-time and now as a semi-retiree is that then I had to “squish” all my recreational activities into a short weekend (minus time for mundane things such as housework, laundry, grocery shopping, etc.) and now I have an extra eight to ten hours/day available to me. Back when I was working I looked forward to long weekends, and now they bypass me and I don't even notice them.

So, what am I doing?

I expect I'm doing what all retirees do in the early years of their retirement: completing long-over-due household projects that have sat on the “Honey Do” list forever. Plus, I am also walking, visiting, spending more time reading, resurrecting my interest in writing, planning long-put-off travelling, sleeping in, spending more time on interests, and—of course—spending much more time out at the stables working with the horses. 

Those of you living in Alberta know that February 2019 in Calgary has not been kind or helpful. It's been the coldest February in 83 years according to CBC Radio, so working with the horses was mostly been curtailed and reduced to that which is necessary vs. that which is pleasurable.

So, I’ve been informally keeping an eye on what my similar-aged friends are doing in their retirement. We’re all still young enough to be active and out and about. Fifteen years into the future, this may all change, but right now, they are all doing the things they want to do and did when working and enjoying the additional time to do those things. This is encouraging (for me).

In Blog # 10 or Blog # 11, I was reflecting that it was about six months since I’d left SAIT. I was reflecting that time seems to have both slowed down and sped up, and I was wondering how that happened. I found what I think is one of the best explanations of this phenomenon:

“That is why I need you to take into account the elasticity of time, its ability to expand or contract like an accordion regardless of clocks. I am sure this is something you will have experienced frequently in your  lives, depending on which side of the bathroom door you found yourselves. . . . time expanded in his mind, creating an eternity out of a few seconds.”

This passage comes from The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma. 

This is a book I’ve tried (unsuccessfully) to read several times, but with explanations like this one, I think I have to return to the book and attempt finish it. However, I see from the dog-eared pages of my paperback version that the “ears” stop at pretty much the same place . . . so I am unlikely to finish the book . . . but I do want to know what happened. So, if you’ve successfully made it through this book, please tell me “Who dun it.”

One of the upsides of having more time to myself (and having the intellectual energy) is that I have broadened my reading choices.  I find myself interested in, for example, blogs and articles I wouldn’t ordinarily read. For example, “How to Spend Your Time” by Matthew Coyte. Here’s a link to Avenue magazine’s article: https://www.avenuecalgary.com/city-life/how-to-spend-your-time/

What’s encouraging is that my struggles around “What’s my Value?” seem to ring true for many other retirees.

What else has changed in the eight to nine months since I’ve left work is the grief I felt at leaving work has eased and that I’m feeling more optimistic about the next phase. I am back in the work force (well, sorta) as a dog walker. I work around three shifts a week. It's a good job I’m not taking the job to get rich, but I feel much better having a “job.” I started as a dog walker in late January so I (and the dogs) have survived our awful February, and I’m now more or less ready to retire my woolly combinations and Sorrels till October or November.

I’ve also been looking for volunteer work--not just to fill in time but to make some difference in someone's life.  I was  hoping to become a volunteer at Opening Gaits, a therapeutic riding organization, but it’s way out in Priddis,  and I don’t drive much in winter. 

Source: http://www.openinggaits.ca/

As fortune would have it though, I lucked into seeing an advertisement in the Cochrane Greenhawk store and discovered Prairie Sky, a therapeutic riding organization in Springbank (about 15 minutes from me). 

Source: http://www.pseat.ca/

Way back in the day, when I was 16 years old, I was involved in one of England’s very first Riding for the Disabled organizations. I didn’t know much about the movement then, but I was sure happy to be helping out, spending time with the horses, and learning how to help the kids in the program. One of the young riders (now long dead) was a Thalidomide victim and very disabled. Riding Timmy (the naughtiest pony at the stables) lent her wings and allowed her to move as quickly or slowly as she wanted under her own steam (and with Timmy's more or less willing cooperation). Many years later, I ended up teaching in that very same program and the same riding school. Years later still, my daughter (Heather) volunteered up as a horse leader with Opening Gaits when it was still operating near the hamlet of Shepard, Alberta. When one has a young, horsey daughter who (at that time) wasn't old enough to drive, that meant that Mum got recruited as well. So it seems only fitting that I should come full-circle and become a therapeutic riding volunteer again. 

This, I hope, will address some of the “What’s my value?” question I’m struggling with.

One of my favourite posters and pieces of advice follows:

Source: Facebook posting from Online Equine

So, when younger retirees say to you that they are so busy they don’t know how they ever had time to work, believe them.

What’s next?

After surviving the application process for my work's pension (LAPP) and my Canadian pension, I put my British pension application off to the side of my desk for a week or so. Now, I'm just waiting for some new information from the powers-that-be at the British pension office, and then I'll be embarking on that application process. "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" comes to mind. Exactly, Dante, exactly. 

However, spring brings optimism and makes new plans seem more do-able. Spring doesn’t actually happen in my world till my horse Hasty starts shedding (and he’s not letting go of any winter coat just yet) . . . 

But, . . .  there are travel plans afoot, my garden is calling (and I have lots of plans to make the garden more bee friendly),  dogs will be walked in better weather, there's much more personal horse therapy time on the horizon, and I have volunteering with Prairie Sky to look forward to.