Retirement should be thought of as a process, a voyage of discovery like other life phases, writes KIERAN FAGAN
PEOPLE WHO travel on the Luas green line towards Dublin will know the sensation you experience soon after leaving Windy Arbour stop.
The tram clatters along the downward incline between garden walls. Then suddenly you are up in the sky as the tram crosses the nine-arch bridge – horizons fall away on both sides and the river Dodder is a silver streak in the valley below.
Retirement can hit you like that.
All the comforting rituals attached to work are gone. “It’s 18 months since I left the job and I’m not retired yet,” one colleague told me recently. His horizons had not been replaced. Another who has taken to “just popping in” to his old place of work on various pretexts is unkindly known by former colleagues as “forgotten but not gone”.
I discovered I was getting on a bit when a young Chinese woman on the 145 bus stood up and offered me her seat. I didn’t understand straight away, I thought she was giving it to the “oul fella” standing beside me, he was a bit doddery but no, she was looking at me. So I said “thank you” and sat down. That bit was easy, retiring was tough.
A problem with retirement and being “elderly” nowadays is that the concepts have become moveable feasts. The end of the “job for life” and unexpected redundancies in what seemed like recession-proof jobs have all blurred the clear gap between the world of work and that of retirement.
Add to that the fact that most of us will live longer. When my father retired, his life expectancy was 73 years, according to the pension fund to which he belonged. Today it would be about 80 years and that is rising.
Now some of us have the possibility of retiring – say five years early – and greater longevity can double the number of years we spend in retirement. Many of us can hope to enjoy good health for much of that time.
Central Statistics Office figures for 2010 show about one-third of a million people describing themselves as retired, up from just over a quarter of a million in 2002. The expectation must be that this trend is going to accelerate.
For some, the big leap from every weekday being spoken for and weekends being a precious break to the all-day-every-day weekend is a tough one, and not everyone makes a go of it. For others, there is the prospect of continued work, paid or voluntary, perhaps part-time.
Patricia Conboy of campaigning group Older Bolder sees in this cohort of younger retirees a major resource available to the voluntary sector, as they become involved in social activities, fundraising and membership of voluntary boards.
Some act as carers for spouses, adult children (with disabilities) and of course the time-honoured role of looking after grandchildren. (Older Bolder advocates supports for older people to live out their lives in their own homes, as far as possible.)
“The retirement journey is an individual journey and the ways in which people find a sense of purpose, experience connectedness, make a contribution are as diverse and heterogeneous as any group of older people,” Conboy adds, noting that what suits one will not necessarily work for another.
In other words, we have to think about retirement as a process, not an event, a voyage of discovery like other life phases. Pre-retirement courses help hugely with practicalities like managing money and health insurance, future-proofing your home (if you don’t have a downstairs bathroom, this is the time to put one in, etc), but they don’t address the big question of what do you do with the remaining years of healthy living.
From observing my parents, I knew I had to be wary of retirement. My father spent almost 50 years working for the same firm and he was not very happy about retiring. Although my mother was distraught when he died far too soon, she then succeeded in making for herself a better life than she had had during her last years with him.
Women who are accustomed to having the house to themselves during the day can find a retired husband under their feet to be a very mixed blessing. “Half the income and twice as much husband,” as the old joke has it.
My first (failed) attempt at retirement provided me with some lessons. What do you do when your job disappears at age 57? My answer – find another one. Wrong. The right answer: nothing, stop for a while, take stock, if there’s a trip you have been postponing – take it now. Just let things settle, observe and listen to others, this is no time for kneejerk responses.
As the French writer Chamfort put it, “man comes as a novice to every stage of life”. You are free of the daily chains which bound you, but you need time to see where you are. Don’t rush to take on another set of chains, until you are sure of what you want to do.
Conboy has this to say from her observations: “People who have had to lead very structured lives and who have felt ‘time poor’ can relish the freedom of retirement and come to experience it as a positive new chapter and a time of liberation, accept the gift of time on retirement for a period, settle in before making decisions about onerous commitments to new projects and to avoid the temptation to rush to fill the new space that is emerging.”
There’s never been a better time for the healthy older person. Pensioner Syd Prior retired in November 2011 from customer service at BQ hardware in New Malden, Surrey, at age 97. He said he wanted more time for lunches with his mates.
Five do's and don't's
DO
Do trust your instincts. Before you decide on whether you will accept the package on offer, remember that you won't make a perfect decision, because you don't know what comes after.
Do take all the expert advice you can get and talk to those who matter to you before you decide to quit, but avoid those who have instant opinions on everything under the sun.
Do go as quickly and quietly as you can. Don't hang about once you have decided to quit, unless there's some important anniversary, like an increment which will increase your pension.
Do try to set up something outside work to bridge the transition. My one- year diploma course beginning while I was still working and ending after redundancy was a sanity saver.
Do remember what a very wise HR manager said after a vicious round of job cuts. "Im not worried about those who went, those who stayed are the ones with problems."
DON'T
Don't confuse work with a job. Post- redundancy or retirement, you may think you need another job. You probably need work. Work is easier to come by than jobs.
Don't forget that you can go places cheaply off peak, now that you are not tied to work routines. Plan a trip a year to somewhere you have never been.
Don't forget to join the library. It is a great clearing house for local activities and you can borrow traditional books, books on CD, films on DVD, browse the internet and read newspapers and magazines. All free.
Don't worry too much. On a fine day if you have nothing to do, just do nothing. Go for a walk or tend the garden. There are worse things in life . . .
Don't nail a dead fish to the underside of your boss's desk, close the windows tight and turn the heating up as you leave the building for the last time. It's been done.
