The Purposeless Driven Life

So you dread retirement.  You worry that retiring means the end of life, that you have passed from the center aisle to the checkout lane, and that the days of fruitful contribution will be replaced with a feeling of ennui, even dread as you pass hour after hour, day after day in unending boredom and sameness.  (I was going to use the checkout clerk as a really cool metaphor for the angel who guards heaven and cashes in your chips, but I can’t remember his name, so the heck with it.)  

And you hear stories.  Stories about a retired gal you used to know who couldn’t stand it anymore, so she got a job at the nearest Walmart where, for minimum wage, she shouts meaningless “welcomes” to customers all day long, until one day she isn’t there and no one notices.  Or an ex-colleague who after retiring trots on down to the local hardware store where he whiles away blissful hour after blissful hour making keys for harried people with too many burdens and never enough time — working people like you, or men with mistresses, or neurotics who want 20 extra sets because one can never have enough copies of their keys, you know — until one day arthritis takes over, he becomes feebleminded, starts drooling at the mouth, and stares at walls all day.  Or the couple who retire to Florida where they golf all day and play Canasta 20 times a week at the Senior Center until they can’t take it anymore.  So they purchase a large boat neither of them know how to pilot but take it to the Bahamas anyway, steering it into the eye of a hurricane.  I knew a colleague who dreaded retirement so much he wouldn’t retire.  He worked long past retirement eligibility until one day he slumped over his desk and that was that.  Imagine being that scared of retiring.  I can’t.

To those who worry, I say relax. I’m retired and I tell you life is wonderful.  Sure I have no purpose in life and contribute nothing, but purpose and contribution have always been oversold.  I tire of those anal retentive experts who insist one must have a purpose to have meaning in life.  I ask why must I have a purpose?  Why must I contribute?  Purposelessness is it’s own reward.  If someone can write about The Purposeful Driven Life, I can write about The Purposeless Driven Life. It’s time for a paradigm shift.  To all you worrywarts, I say you don’t know how to live.  You have been brainwashed with purposefulness.  So, in an attempt to deprogram you, as an experienced retiree let me tell you the truth about retirement.  

First, here’s the thing: You are going to grow old whether you work or retire, but retirement gives you the time to try new things that work gobbles up.  So when you can, retire.  The sooner the better.

Second, here’s an average day in my life:  I wake, I check my emails, I nap, I read a little, I write a lot, I nap, I take a walk, I lift weights, I nap, and when I want, I take trips, small and large, here and there.  I even do a little volunteer work at the local library.  I like volunteering.  It means never having to go to work unless you want to, yet you are still filled with a sense of giving back to the community.  (Actually, given all the taxes I pay, I feel no need to contribute further, and the real reason I work at the library is to discover cool books.)  When retired, you do what you want, when you want.  This includes taking out the garbage.  Have I got your attention now?  I bet I do.

I read.  Since I’ve retired I’ve read all the books I never read and was always made to feel guilty for it by anal retentive literary critics.  And I can say without hesitation, I’m the worse for it.  Take War and Peace for example or any book by Dostoevsky.  They are each so long that you have to increase your reading speed just finish one.  And my reward is I now know more than I ever wanted to about the courtship behavior of the 19th century rich and famous (aristocrats).  Here’s the courtship ritual of a 19th century English or Russian aristocratic young couple:  

Him:  Hello 

Her: Hello 

Him.  If I may be so bold, I would like to say that though I only met you 10 seconds ago I am smitten by your beauty. 

Her: Oh, thank you. (Blushing and cooling herself with her fan.  It’s midwinter.) 

Him: I’m wealthy. 

Her: I’m sure I don’t care.  (She really does . . . a lot.)  . . . Pause . . . I have only a little myself, but I’m from a good family, one of noble ancestry. 

Him:  You are?  Will you marry me? 

Her:  No.  I hardly know you. (Feigning hard to get.) 

Him:  What difference does that make?  I’m rich.  You’re not.  You have the right pedigree.  I’m don’t.  We are a perfect match.  And besides, I’m madly in love with you.  I shall not know what to do with myself if you were to refuse me. 

Her.  Yes, you are quite right.  Okay, I’ll marry you.

That’s it, the courtship ritual of the 19th century aristocrat.  Foreign is the notion of actually knowing someone before proposing.  And these are the educated ones.  See what you learn when you read?  After reading one of these Victorian era tomes, I have an urge to run out into the street and propose to the first woman of noble ancestry who crosses my path.  I sometimes wonder if married couples of the Victorian era took their clothes off in front of one another, and I’m including while having sex, which I assume they had since some had children.

I write.  I have always wanted to write, and when I first retired I wrote serious stuff, and it was all crap, every wretched word of it.  Now I write bad humor, which is also crap, but sometimes funny crap, and as a bonus I entertain myself (if not you) and no longer feel like a pompous ass telling people what I think I know, when I know I don’t know anything.  Purposelessness is never having to say you feel guilty.

I walk.  I have a nature trail nearby that goes for miles and miles.  After I walk it I feel exhilarated.  But I think I’ve found something better than walking, and that is . . . 

Assistance Shopping.  What is Assistance Shopping, you ask?  It’s when you go shopping with someone else, usually your significant other, and you walk the mall for miles and miles and stand for hours and hours while she makes her way through several furlongs of clothing racks, and you get to hold the many, many outfits she might try on.  Kind of like a coat rack.  This technically isn’t walking, it’s standing, but standing must be better than walking because after I Assistance Shop my feet, knees, and back feel like they’ve been in a football game, and that never happens when I walk the nature trail.  

I lift weights.  Lifting weights is the best exercise I know of to retard the natural process of aging.  Lifting makes your body resist muscle atrophy and bone loss.  This is important.  You don’t want to walk bent over, like so many older people do, and lifting will help prevent that.  Of course, lifting has a couple of long-term side effects you should know about.  The cartilage in my left shoulder is gone, replaced by bone spurs; my back is a tad touchy — prone to going out under the pressure of a good sneeze; and I’m 3 inches shorter than I was thirty years ago.  But I walk upright (when my back permits it); I still carry the garbage out to the curb (when I remember to do it), and I look nothing like my age (except for my skin).  But in all seriousness, I look and feel much younger than I am.  So lift.  It’s never too late to start.  And when you are retired you will have the time to lift and walk.   

I nap.  Naps are awesome.  Wish I’d known about them when I was working.  Man what a drag those last two hours were.  As a retiree a nap in mid-afternoon is just what you need to add a little zip to your step as you waddle down the stairs to lie on the couch and watch TV.  And a nap prevents those embarrassing situations when you nod off during important, intimate moments, like when your significant other is telling you how much she loves you and you start snoring halfway though.

Finally, I only take the garbage out when I feel like it.  This is the best thing about retiring.  After years of taking the garbage out just before going to bed for fear of forgetting in the morning in the rush to get to work, I now wait till the next day to forget to take it out, which happens often.  I’ve made many visits to the landfill since I retired, an amazingly big and clean place given it’s the garbage heap of Anne Arundel County, Maryland.  And the people are really nice too.  

Of course, to be honest, not everything is bliss in paradise.  My friends no longer recognize me.  I’ve gained 400 pounds, lost 450, and regained 70.  I look like flubber.  (Only kidding . . . I wish).  Gone are those days of yore when I was young and elastic and my skin snapped right back in place.  Now when someone pinches me my skin hangs for a week or two then slowly works its way back home.  And I find myself spending too much time assisting little old ladies crossing the street.  That used to be a joke.  Now they’re dating material.

And you still have to go to the dentist.  For some reason nature in its self-satisfied smugness chose not to give us teeth that last as long as our chassis, so as we get older our teeth become this huge expense that just keeps on expending.  Yesterday I visited my dentist for a bit of archeological excavation.  He says he needs the practice and can’t think of another mouth more worthy of his talents.  Somehow I don’t think he was complimenting me.  My periodontist agrees.  But I don’t like him, and besides he takes too many X-Rays.  I think he has a gum fetish and looks at the X-Rays with a flashlight under his blanket at night.  But false teeth are not an option.  They are soooo 20th century.

Then there are the medications — the statins, the beta blockers, the diuretics (because when you are old you bloat like a toadfish), and the pain pills (the back is another body part nature neglected for the long haul).  Soon you are sending Christmas cards to you doctors because you visit them more than you visit your best friends.

Once in a while I admit to a twinge of boredom.  I experienced such a twinge just the other day, so I dug out my old colleagues’ email addresses from amidst all the clutter and sent them a pithy, humorous message.  I sent them all the same message because I’m only a little pithy and humorous. 

The letter went like this:

Hello, it’s me.  Remember me?  I knew you once when we were both young and filled with energy.  Now, not so much — the energy I mean.  I finally dug out your email, which gives me the opportunity to ask you all those questions one is supposed to ask a long lost friend.  We were/are friends aren’t we? 

How are you? 

What are you up to?

I sure hope you are doing fine? 

How is work?  You’re still working there, right?  (excuse me for placing two questions on the same line but I’m running out of paper.) 

Still living in ______? 

I’m fine, thanks for asking.  I’m retired, enjoying doing absolutely nothing at all.  There is one drawback to being retired though.  There are no deadlines and no work to take up too many hours in your day, so you feel no pressure to do something right now.  After all, you can always do it tomorrow, right?  So you put everything off till tomorrow, then the next day, and then the next, and soon you are late paying your bills, miss all your appointments, and the mortgage company is repossessing your house.  Well, that last one might be a slight exaggeration (or prophesy), but you get the idea, don’t you?  

In case you are retired and have loads of time on your hands, I’m enclosing the link to my blog.  See, this is what you do when you are retired.  First you entertain yourself with funky, cute, weird aliases like shadowflutter, then you start recording your musings and ramblings on a blog named Shadow Flutter, and lastly you annoy old friends you haven’t spoken to in years to read your blog.  This is what you have to look forward to.
Good luck.

Actually, this was a humorous attempt to market my blog, and it worked.  My old friends are reading it.  They like me; they really, really like me.  I feel so Sally Fields right now. . . 

I gave one friend my phone number, but it was the wrong number.  That’s what happens when you retire, you forget things, like your phone number, or your address, or how to get back home. I remember my mom telling me that if ever I got lost to find a policeman.  But with what I’ve been seeing on the news lately, I might pass on that bit of advice.  There is always something good to be found in a mistake.  Giving her the wrong phone number permitted me the opportunity to send this follow-up email:

By the way, my phone number is 123-456-7890 (not 223). I have no idea whose number that is I gave you, but if you called, I thank you and hope whoever was on the other end was nice to you.  Maybe you made a new friend?

See, I find humor everywhere.

Retirement is paradise, and did I say you only have to take out the garbage when you want to?  

What’s that, you say?  You’re married!  Oh, then never mind, keep working.