I’m working again after my fourth retirement. Work – retire – work – retire. I can’t really call what I’m doing retirement anymore. I need another word for it. Maybe just…Life.
The last time I stopped working for money was June, 2023. This time, I really made an effort to stay retired. I did a cross-Canada road trip, where I picked up a slew of trail hikes that had been on my bucket list for a long time. I did the trip on the cheap, sleeping in my van, which I parked stealthily enough that no one felt a need to knock on my door. Back in the Okanagan, I filled my days with hiking, reading, volunteering, hanging out with my friends, crossword puzzles, and writing poems, many of which I have posted on this blog. I also had a lot of naps.
I recognize how fortunate we are in Canada, as in other wealthier countries, to be able to retire from work. In many places in the world, retirement isn’t even an aspiration for most people, let alone a realistic option. When I was traveling in a remote region of Guatemala, I was in a conversation with a Mayan family. They inquired about me, and when I explained, my translator told me that there is no word for “retirement” in the Mayan language. I am grateful to at least have the option.
Volunteering, for all its value, can actually be rather boring. Organizations looking for volunteers tend to be looking for people to do grunt work – visiting seniors, driving people around to appointments, handing out food at an event…that sort of thing. They’re not really looking for people who do planning and manage other volunteers. For all the education and experience that I’ve built up over a long career, the volunteer gigs, though important to those who receive the services, are underwhelming.
In fact, I could sum up the life of retirement the same way. It’s not so much that retirement is boring, though it is a bit. It’s just underwhelming.
So, I look to employment as an option. The problem, however, is that it’s not easy to find a slightly easier retirement job than I had in my previous high-stress career. Believe me, I’ve tried applying for all kinds of mid-level supervisory jobs, but after a couple of months, I still hadn’t been invited to even a single interview. But the moment I applied for a high-stress, executive leadership-type position from which I had retired in the long-term care industry, I was interviewed immediately and hired in just a couple of days. Such is the human resource management mentality. And such is the demand in health care.
There are still residual effects from my last attempt at retirement. For example, I decided to let my hair grow long. I have had short hair since I left high school and joined the military. Even after retiring from the military, I still kept my hair relatively short for another fifteen years. But I’d always wanted to try growing long hair.
In my executive life, I never really fit in with the lifestyles of my colleagues. They lived middle-class lifestyles and drove executive-style cars. But I lived in a studio-sized condo and drove an old van that I slept in when I traveled. On the other hand, I’ve always been attracted to the bohemian lifestyle. Unfortunately, I don’t fit in with that group either because I don’t speak their cultural language.
Retirement does funny things to people. I was ecstatic that, at my age, I was still able to grow long hair, especially since my old soccer buddies were widely suffering from hair loss. And as my hair grew, I was shocked to find that I actually had curly hair. Who knew? I found myself looking on the Internet to see how men styled their long hair and learned that some of the styles were classified as bohemian.
Bohemian, eh? Well that appealed to me. I looked up from the computer displaying those bohemian men’s haircuts and looked around my tiny condo. I realized that my décor simply wasn’t bohemian enough. So, I redecorated. Now there is colour everywhere. And where there was empty space (yes, I had empty space, even in my 380-square-foot studio), now I have numerous house plants. Having never been responsible for domestic flora before, I had to learn how to take care of those house plants. I watered them on a schedule, and I sang to them regularly. They were thriving.
But now I’ve taken a job in long-term care out of town, and I only get home the odd weekend. My mother lives in the same building, so I depend on her to care for my plants. I text my mother every Sunday and remind her to water the plants. Then I text her a second time to remind her to sing to my plants. They like music. And though you’d never see my mother on an opera stage, the plants seem to like her voice.
This is my life today. I’m working again, and stupid long hours to boot, trying to set up this long-term care home, its tired staff, and its frail residents, for success. But I haven’t given up the things I enjoyed in retirement – reading and writing poetry, posting something on my website every day if I can, a crossword puzzle most days, a good book, a good walk, and a cup of tea. I’m just not able to spend all day doing those things like I did before. And we’ll see what my hair looks like in another month. I wonder if my new boss will ask me to cut it, you know, to look more like an executive again.
Being away from home, I miss my friends and the little bohemian nest that soothes my soul. But I’ll see them again. On the next retirement phase of my life cycle.
