4106

What I knew about retirement after 18 months

Tomorrow it will be seven years since I retired. Officially, I retired on October 1, 2000, but I had some vacation and sick leave, so August 31 was the day I turned in my keys. I stayed late that night, left in the dark, and shed a few tears as I hauled out the last few boxes. Today I came across a note I'd written to a fellow librarian 18 months later in February 2002 to let her know how retirement was going. I had written an extensive plan, called "Post Employment Plan" and made it public on my web page (no longer have that), so I was catching her up on how things were going.

"I’m enjoying a lot of the things I said I'd do--and trust me when I say I had absolutely no hobbies (except reading) and was a bit concerned which is why I made my plans so public. Accountability. But I am taking a writing class, a Spanish class, a painting class, and ballroom dance (for the second time since 2000--slow learner). We did the Alaska cruise in 2001 and will do an Atlantic seaboard cruise this fall [this was changed to a land tour due to a hurricane]. I'm in a book club with Marti and Adrienne, and in the Visual Arts Ministry at our church. I've got a genealogy software program, have entered about 3,000 relatives, and discovered that I am my own 6th cousin because of all those Tennessee marriages of 1st cousins. Also have found an occasional "love child", and that has been REALLY interesting. For a year I did try helping an international student with English, but decided the age gap was a problem (I was older than her parents). I never did take up roller blades--have some hip pain, so I'm sticking with walking at the gym at Bethel and Olentangy. Bird watching has been tough--can never find the little suckers. But I do sit on the deck of our condo and try it, and enjoy watching the condo crew show up to mow the lawn. I'm going to be the guest poet at an "open mic" poetry reading in April, and will be in a barn painting show to celebrate Ohio’s bicentennial. Also had a piece published in "Stories of Ohio; Tales my grandparents told me" (if I'd do the genealogy research, I could join Ohio First Families).

If it costs less to be retired, I haven't seen it. Too many things to do. But time is money, and I'm a billionaire. My advice about retirement is the same as you've heard elsewhere. The health insurance is a real problem--it is now 1/3 of my retirement check and was 1/7 when I started. I'm wondering if health premiums might be 100% by the time 65 rolls around [it isn't]. You all know what the stock market has done to your funds, so adjust and be cautious. I bought TIAA-CREF SRAs every year I worked, and haven't used it yet [still haven't], but it is a good idea to have something besides your pension. Because of STRS, I get nothing from Social Security, but every case is different--so make an appointment and check it out if you are nearing retirement age."

Then in October 2003, I started blogging. I think I may have posted this before, but can't find it. Plus, it's just fun to read it.

4009

Have your interests changed over the years?

It's interesting to look back and see how our interests change over the years. It's really a fluke that my husband was willing to go 3 days last week without my good cooking and company at the lake house just so he could sail! And with other old guys who have been sailing most of their adult lives, too! In the fall of 2004 I won sailing lessons by entering my sugar-free apple pie in a fall festival at Lakeside. I had no interest in getting wet, so my husband decided to use the $65 award for lessons in summer 2005. It turns out he loves sailing and is good at it, although he had never shown any interest before. In a few weeks he is going to take the advanced course (same instructor).


I'd never heard of blogging until the fall of 2003, and now I have eleven blogs, and am totally out of control. But that's not such a big stretch. I'd always written essays and long letters to my family and friends, and in the 90s began writing fiction and poetry. Research and publication were a requirement for my job at Ohio State University Libraries. So blogging is just a different way to publish and chat without the pressure of a deadline or peer review. However, blogging was a bit of a fluke also in that I started because I didn't like the harassment on the Usenet groups.

My husband had been an exercise instructor at the downtown YMCA for many years when he was a partner in Feinknopf, Macioce and Schappa. When he became a sole practitioner with a home office, he joined an aerobics class at UALC, our church--the only guy. The women were mostly young moms, and they invited him to become a Bible School teacher which he did. He taught VBS for 13 years and found out that he loved teaching children. And now he leads the women's aerobics class, too.

For about 20 years I was totally consumed with my children's lives--feeding, teaching, health, values, friends, schooling, teen angst, various crises, and finally the dreaded empty nest when I had to find another focus. Then from 1986 it was my reconnection with a career, promotion and tenure, conferences, organizations, publication, etc.


Thirty years ago I would have never dreamed that topics like retirement, 401-k plans, osteoporosis, nutrition or exercise could become so interesting. My reading tastes have changed completely--in fact, on Thursday I think I'll tell you 13 things about JAMA.

There were other life changes too--moving from being a humanist liberal/Democrat to a conservative Christian/Democrat to a Christian/conservative, for instance. Spiritual and social changes really rearrange your activities and friendships. Some things never changed--I never believed in evolution even though I was taught nothing else from first grade through graduate school and could fake it in science and biology classes, and I've never believed abortion was a just solution for either mother or child. Unlike many conservatives, I think the culture's gone too far to outlaw either one regardless of incredulity or cruelty to the unborn. Those two issues are very political, yet I've not swerved on them from liberal to conservative.

As a liberal I would work for social issues because I believed I could change other people's behavior and morals and make a better society. Liberals have an incredible smugness about their own power. (Living with teen-agers changed that closely held belief.) As a conservative, I no longer believe that, but am often involved in the same activities just because it is the right and Christian thing to do. Matthew 25 commands followers of Jesus to visit the sick and imprisoned and to feed and clothe the poor, not to change human society, but because those people are Jesus in the flesh.

"And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?" And the King will answer and say to them [on his right], "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me." And He will also say to those on His left, "Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me." (NASB)

As a liberal I had no hope or good news to offer anyone except maybe training for a job, or a Sunday visit during a prison term, or holding their hand as they died. Really temporal, cultural stuff. Not much in the scope of things is it? Not that conservative Christians are always politically conservative (I wasn't for a long time), or even that they do what Jesus explicitly commanded. However, study after study have shown that a solid belief in the work of Jesus on the cross on our behalf creates a much more generous and open spirit, than a socialist or humanist mentality, which seems to create more turmoil, dissension and a stingy spirit. But even if the research and polls didn't say that, he will know a sheep from a goat (Matt. 25:32-33), and I want to be sure that the good news comes first.