THE PROBLEM WITH RETIREMENT

THE PROBLEM WITH RETIREMENT
 

 

I like not having to work. Being able to sleep in on most mornings due to alarm clocks/ devices not activating is fabulous. The fact that I'll never wear a tie again is 'empowering' (sorry, couldn't help myself). Having the ability to put off until tomorrow what I don't feel like doing today still thrills me........and, FYI, I'm becoming quite skilled at that. In fact, much of the post-sixty world I inhabit is pretty damn user-friendly and bloody pleasant............ to a degree.

 

However, I draw the line somewhere short of 'fantastic' when evaluating 'retirement' so far. There is a dark region in the post-work terrain that you never hear about from us oldies. We're too busy being vociferous about just how dreamy the big R is to any punters unfortunate enough to be in the way. But the dim light exists and it can't be ignored.

 

The problem is a simple, yet ironic, one. Freed from the constraints of time and place (associated with the world of work) to a significant extent, the retiree is able to do all the things that he/ she craved.....within reason, of course. But the kicker is that all the other post-employment fuckers have exactly the same idea. Wherever you go and whatever you do, it seems that the only people you run into are old bastards like yourself.

 

Middle-aged people cease to exist, school-age kiddos must have been shot by white hunters whilst Gen-Yers certainly look like they've disappeared up their own arses. Far from opening up a bold and exciting Utopia, retirement heralds a world where you see mirror images of yourself and, on many occasions, that can be a most disconcerting sight. 

Not only does the social milieu downsize in one's retirement but Lexicon Lite introduces himself as a new and now frequently present companion.

 

Conversations with punters quickly focus on listening to endless recounts of breaching whale sightings, food stories, malady descriptions/ disease stagings, oral reviews of pommie/ Scandinavian TV pot-boilers and grand-kiddy updates. It's as if the annals of human existence can be whittled down to sea mammals, nourishment, media soaps, rate-your-doctors and fertilising tomorrow's leaders......... well, in 2017 at least. Lexi has a lot to answer for.

 

My own retirement ordeal involves this man who seems to always follow me around. He definitely is older and uglier than me because I can see his reflection in windows as I make my way to Valhalla.....or the shops. Quite often, I turn around really quickly to confront the crotchety bastard but he's routinely quicker than I compute. One fuckin' day I'll catch him.

The receding population sample and lexicon sit alongside a development of weird behaviour as beacons of the retiree’s life. The latter may be slower to recognise but it is no less important.

 

Once liberated from the shackles of the workplace and, more significantly, the routine mental regimen that is required to earn a buck, the punter’s mind begins a journey to exotic destinations. Whereas the office provided a venue or touchstone for much of the brain’s activity during the working years, the residence now becomes the field of dreams. Domestic operations/ procedures that were once considered mundane now assume a position much greater than their ‘utility’ coefficient.

 

I’ve noticed that I have an insatiable urge to arrange wet garments on the clothesline in a systematic and ordered way, socks need to be bundled together to avoid awkward loners (’mavericks’, so to speak) and the matrimonial bed definitely isn’t ready for use unless the doona has a 45 degree fold on the entry side.

The same tendencies influence recreational pursuits. A game of golf isn’t a game of golf unless you scout around for abandoned golf balls in the rough and alongside water hazards. I’m figuring that such behaviour is akin to squirrels collecting nuts for winter and because I’m in the late autumn of my ‘special’ journey, then these antics are entirely understandable. Of course, there’s an altruistic perspective here too. If I should predecease Kerry, then she’ll have more than sufficient hoarded golf balls to tide her over the difficult grieving period.