Your View of Retirement, and Mine!

As a retiree, I think of myself as atypical.

Old men are just that, old, and they remind me that I’m old, and as we age, we tend to share more of our miseries with others than is necessary.

Believe me, I have my own issues, but it is more than grating to listen to anyone drone on about their therapies, treatments, and the constant hollow echoes of, “I just have to get my strength back.“

We’re old, dude! We’re not getting anything back; we’re giving it up! Our DNA is breaking down — age is consuming us! Get over it and get on with it.

The best we can hope for is to keep slightly ahead of it. If you saw Shawshank, then you heard, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

Besides, you don’t come into retirement 150 pounds overweight, diabetic, with kidney disease, and heart problems, and expect that you’re somehow going to quickly (if ever) reverse the damage you’ve done to yourself.

No, I am empathetic, but I empathize from a distance and without sharing.

I don’t ‘hang out’ with people…

Besides the fact that I do not care to review and compare health issues, neither do I wish to involve myself in community or national affairs, discuss sports, gambling, join the HOA board, relive my past, exchange marriage and child-rearing tips, or swap old war stories.

Ours is a community of more than a thousand people living in about 550 homes scattered across 300 acres. To be truthful, having lived here for eight years, I now know four or five of the residents vaguely, and the remainder not at all.

Those few retirees with whom we became ‘close’ — well, they all died. Not friends, but acquaintances of convenience — i.e., we assisted them when they were in need — friendly, but not friends.

Friendship requires time, tolerance, and temperament. Friends, in my thinking, means having a deeper knowledge and understanding of someone, and not mere acquaintances with whom we share a property line and exchange occasional platitudes.

Having Fun During Retirement!

Too often, to my wife’s chagrin, I reject the idea of travel, particularly cruises, group bus tours, social outings, and the like—most likely due to my non-gregarious disposition.

She, i.e., my wife, on the other hand, can always find someone she can relate to and chat with calmly and casually. She may not particularly care for it, but she can endure it without having an anxiety attack.

For example: The weekly “coffee social” at the clubhouse on Wednesday morning, where the mundanity is so thick you can spread it on your bagel. Contrary to Psychology Today, not everyone needs to have someone to lock elbows with.

My wife and I generally sit together just listening as the conversation is inevitably steered toward who died, who is ill, or, as old people often do, they begin exchanging medical records!

Although mine would not be described as curmudgeonly behavior, as I am usually polite and outgoing even in the most mundane of social gatherings, people always pick up on my standoffish nature.

Send In The Clowns

Invariably, however, we also meet persons like the 60-something Don Juan wannabe who turns, shakes his oversized ass toward us, and says, “They call me Cheeky Charlie,” and then he laughs uproariously.

Fancying himself the man all the ladies adore, he is loud, boisterous, and what we see as being overtly obnoxious. His presence lends credence to the stories we hear of the sexual antics among the villagers.

Meanwhile, we sit nearby wearing our grin-and-bear-it faces as he makes questionable gestures toward the females whose attention he attracts with his antics.

Isolationism is a Learned Behavior

From childhood, I nurtured a puissant distrust of men and their ability to hide inside themselves. Too often, disingenuous, self-deceived, and self-convinced men in my life repeatedly proved false to their own declaration of being.

Executive types and well-educated businessmen: those whose art form is to convince and lead others over to their way of thinking. They exude a mix of superiority, tolerance, and subtle charisma. They’ve learned the psychology of “the power necktie” and how to make others feel smaller than themselves.

Very similar are those who loiter just inside the church doors — authoritarian glad-handers, often among the more erudite members who greet the newcomer and the tenant parishioner alike. Ready to take you under his wing and teach you all about life.

Often dubbed ‘elders’ or ‘lay ministers’, these are men whose Sunday best is not met only in the clothing they wear, but in the false demeanor detectable in their handshake and holy fictitious smile.

From my experience, I’ve decided that men always have an agenda, as most men continually strive to be something other than what they are, i.e., other than what meets the eye. In the process, we men often confuse what we wish to be with who we really are.

Who Can We Trust?

Far too many times have I learned that those we know intimately, even family, can and do change, often quite unexpectedly. With most, we drift apart, while others are often inexplicably amputated!

In my past, I found it easier to befriend my ribald, ill-mannered, and vulgar brother-in-law, because I knew him for what he was. He never tried to deceive; he was a nasty person who was kind and honorable toward me because I accepted him as he was, and he respected me for it.

On the other hand, I had a “best friend” whom I knew from grade school.

He was always my closest friend, until he wasn’t.

A relationship that lasted for years, unchanged by time; among his social circle, his clique, he would give me a pat on the head, dismissing me like a puppy that followed him around.

When he had no other friends, however, I was the best friend he ever had.

We are no longer friends. He has dismissed me for his religion.

Life and Retirement Life Mimic One Another

So, for me, playing shuffleboard, hanging out with the retired veterans group, card playing, cruise ships, casinos, and all of the ‘typical’ retirement gig is not what I favor.

For everyone, retirement is different. Ours is a community of blended social status, ethnicity, and ideologies. A community of manufactured homes that come without bragging rights or status.

In the words of John Prine, “You are what you are, and you ain’t what you ain’t.”

You are no longer a CEO, a school bully, a preacher, a Walmart bagger, etc. You are retired, and retirement does not mean that we change who we are, our personalities, habits, or what we like or dislike. We now live by the tag, not the title.

“Your-name-here, retired!”

My life is to cater to my wife and tend to my home and property. I am either in my workshop, occasionally playing a musical instrument, or otherwise watching television, or at my desk trying to ‘write the wrong.’

As retirees, all that we can be is who we are, allowing others to live as they wish, lend a helping hand where we can, and wishing all the best to each and every one.

After all, we are no longer striving for a great future, but for a less-than-dramatic end.