Retiring Minds

Some people love their jobs so much that they work twice as many hours as everyone else.

I am not one of those people.

I can’t justifiably complain about my job. I have one. And I make a good living.

Ever since graduating with my degree in occupational therapy, I haven’t had to worry about job security or the ability to get a new one when I become dissatisfied with an employer or workplace.

This doesn’t mean I love – or even like – my job. The job is okay. There are some aspects of it I even enjoy.

But this was never what I wanted to do with my life.

In fact, for the past 15 years, I’ve been counting down to retirement.

No, I haven’t been wishing my life away. I don’t look forward to being old. I’ve never even pretended to be older than my actual age. In fact, I’ve often passed for younger.

I might spend a few minutes from time to time thinking about what I’ll do in the future, but the rest of the time I live in the present.

This is not to say I don’t plan for the future. 

I’ve taken a course and taken some pro-active steps to establish myself in voice-over work once I retire. I don’t know whether or not it’ll pan out, but I’m making the effort.

And the beauty of it is, it doesn’t require leaving home. A computer, a good microphone and an engineer on the other end of the phone, and it can be done easily.

That, at least, is closer to the career in acting I always wanted.

There are also my books. I have a file folder full of story beginnings that I never got around to finishing. There are a few very intriguing ones on my thumb drive, as well.

If I’m able to make some extra cash doing voice-overs, I might be able to take a few courses in marketing to learn how to get my books to sell. Publishing on Amazon certainly isn’t doing it.

The hard part will be trying to stay awake through such boring classes. I can’t envisage marketing being remotely interesting.

But retirement is supposed to be about no longer working, isn’t it?

Perhaps for some. I know me well enough to know how lazy I can be. It would be easy to fall into sleeping late and spending the rest of the day playing on Facebook, reading or watching TV.

I don’t want to be that person.

And current science says that staying active, and keeping the mind strong are the keys to living a longer, more fulfilling life.

I’m all for that. The problem is, my full-time job gets in the way.

I love to travel. But that takes more money than a pension, an IRA or Social Security will cover.

I also have more things I want to learn.

I want to be able to play my violin without the cheater strips on it.

I want to spend more time playing my guitar and singing – preferably to an audience.

Learning Welsh, Irish, French, German and Russian are also on the agenda, as well as improving my Spanish and American Sign Language. And I wouldn’t mind learning British Sign Language as well. I have a smattering of all of those languages, but I sometimes substitute a Russian number for a Welsh one, or get the Welsh word for blue and the Irish word for green confused. (For the uninitiated, they’re the same word.)

I’d also love to learn to draw. I have absolutely zero talent in this area, but I’ve spoken to a few people who insist they could teach even me to draw.

That would be awesome. I could then design my own book covers!

And then there are the shelves of books at home that I still haven’t read.

Of course, in between all of this learning and earning, I’d like to spend time riding my bike, and maybe re-learn in-line skating.

If my hearing gets bad enough, perhaps I can return to kickboxing aerobics. I had to leave that because the music got too loud, and I can’t keep earplugs in my ears.

I do hope to be in better physical shape by the time I retire. If so, my fencing whites should finally fit again, and I can return to that sport.  I have no delusions that I’ll do well in it; I’ve never been athletically gifted. But I love playing with pointed sticks.

So, you see, my interests all take money, which means if the voice-over work doesn’t pan out, I may have to return to working at Burger King, unless I want to return to OT.

Last summer I did a dry run for retirement. I had the summer off.

Each evening, I made a list of what I wanted to accomplish the next day, since I had lots of cleaning and getting rid of things that have been taking up space for a while. I made sure I only had a few minor things to do each day: clean off one shelf or drawer; practice piano; complete one Irish lesson; spend a half hour riding my bike; spend a half hour playing guitar; float around the rest of the afternoon in the pool reading a book.

I tried to keep it all limited and assigned a time frame to each activity.

It looked good on paper.

And I did accomplish most of the things I wanted to get done.

But most days it was too hot to ride my bike, and my guitar is still waiting to be taken out of the case.

With few exceptions – it was summer, after all – I didn’t waste my time off.

So, there is hope for my retirement.

The thing is, I’d better live to be 100. I have too many plans for anything less.