Retirement Angst

Only 7 ½ Months Away

I’ve read lots and lots of articles about retirement lately. They are about whether you are financially ready and have hobbies or goals or some inner resources to keep you engaged in the years ahead. None of them have addressed something I seem to be experiencing. It must be the emotional letting go. It’s all I can attribute the anger and sadness to. If it was only happening at work it might be easier to diagnose. It’s happening at work but I’m tense and crying at home, too. I’m getting angry fast and I’m crying at the drop of a hat. The crying is especially unusual, since I’ve been taking Paxil for several years now and have hardly shed a tear since the first month of the medication. The other day I got angry at something that was happening at work, spouted off so much that I hurt somebody’s feelings and then ended up crying! This isn’t like me at all.

I’m chalking it up to “letting go and saying goodbye”. The past several months I’ve had dreams about houses. I’m moving out of one house and into another. The first house is kind of ratty, old, messy. The second house is better, though not a mansion. It was pretty easy to interpret those dreams and since this is the way I often work through difficult situations, I accepted that as my way of coping with the coming change. Last week I started dreaming about people at work and I decided those were saying goodbye dreams. But these emotions are a surprise. I expected to feel teary the last few days, but I am surprised it is hitting me so soon. The process of leaving after ten years is bigger and more important than I ever thought. It is going to be a huge change—maybe the biggest change in my life ever.

Marriage was a given at 18, in my generation, and I pretty much thought I knew what to expect. It was exciting, I knew how to cook and clean, there really were no surprises, even in the bedroom. Then there was a divorce from a man who I didn’t like anymore—no real problems leaving that or starting a new life. Then another marriage with a man I was passionate about. Easy transition there, too. Having children was certainly a shock—lots different from babysitting (which I thought qualified me for motherhood!) The divorce from that second fellow was harder and in some ways I am still recovering from that one. This retirement event seems to be just as big as childbearing in it’s change to my life, maybe bigger in it’s affect on how I will live my life from now on.

I haven’t been “home” since 1984. That’s 22 years of 9 to 5, get dressed, put on make up, go to work, come home, make dinner living. That’s 22 years of having money to spend, more so in the last several years. If I want it, I can pretty much buy it. I can plan trips and pay for them. I have a husband who makes good money, but I’m not going to have as much of my own ever again and it’s beginning to scare me. More importantly, I’m thinking, is the people part of this whole thing. After 10 years at this job I’ve had contact with people, mostly women, daily. We’ve talked about everything—menopause, bladder leaking, diabetes, pimples, constipation, colonoscopies, mammograms, kids or grandkids who are making bad decisions, us making bad decisions. We’ve complained and had good times, we’ve done puzzles together and talked about American Idol and CSI and movies, books, husbands who are leaving their clothes on the floor or not helping out; we’ve gone out to lunch, we’ve traded magazines, we’ve dieted and lost weight together and then gained it all back together. I’ve had the equivalent of at least 10 sisters that I saw 5 days a week. How am I going to replace that? There’s Sid, the New Yorker, who was my guide to New York. There’s Roger, the neurosurgeon, who is old enough to have wonderful stories about WW II and other fascinating times. There’s Wendy, who is in the Society for Creative Anachronism, making Renaissance clothing all the time. There’s Melissa, who is young and about to have her first baby. There’s Cindy, who is pretty religious, who I never would have struck up a friendship with, but who is oddly interesting. There’s Teri, who is like another daughter to me, whose two daughters I have given voice lessons to. There’s Jim, the substitute custodian, who has been entertaining me with stories of his practical jokes for years and Mary, the head custodian, who is a wonderful bawdy woman, whose father made many of the bird houses I have. There’s Jeff who shares my love for Napoleon Dynamite and Chris, who loves The Man Show and Will Farrell as much as I do. There is Oscar, the courier from Bremerton School District who is just the sweetest young man imaginable and always stops to say Hello. There’s Peter, who comes in from Speed’s Stationers and is whacky in the way I adore. There’s Lorraine, who makes chocolate chip cookies in our break room when she is stressed out about her Head Start Department. And there are so many others that I’ve shared my life with and who have shared theirs with me. All of them have marveled over the beautiful pictures of Ali that I have displayed. Who will do that after I retire?

Even when I have changed marriage partners I’ve still had the same “work” people in my life. But in retirement? I don’t know. It truly is a great unknown. Fossil Guy will probably comment that I am making too much of it, that retirement is a breeze—after all, he did it many, many years ago and has thrived. I do think I will eventually thrive, too, but I’m going to have to find a new group of friends as there is no way I will be able to keep all my old ones. I acted in the community theater long enough to learn that people who share intense time with you, fade out of your life very quickly once the time is over. Consequently, we have set up a lunch group of 6 of us, but before too long there won’t be much holding us together except for the fact that we worked for the same place for awhile and that we’re hungry. Those who are still at work won’t be able to relate to those of us who aren’t.

I think that’s all the kvetching I’m going to do about this for now. It helps to get it out and to think about it. It’ll be helpful to get comments from Fossil Guy who’ll tell me to suck it up, I’m sure.