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AUTHOR: R Quinn on 11/11/2024
Your last day of work was Friday. You wake up Saturday morning and you are retired, just another retiree, a 65 year old senior citizen perhaps and some people instantly perceive you as low income as well, just because you are retired.
But what is really different? You are still you, your personality has not changed, your habits have not changed, what you like or dislike hasn’t changed. You still like some people and others not so much.
How money gets into your bank account each month has changed, but you knew that was coming for the last forty years.
I don’t see retirement as slamming one door and opening a new one. Life is more like a moving walkway in my view.
There is no reason to view retirement with apprehension. Your work may have been enjoyable as was mine, a certain status may have been part of working, but that certainly is not all you were. Remember when someone asked, “what do you do?” You may have been proud to answer, or maybe apprehensive you would be insulted or even ashamed- if you were the dog catcher.
Now if that question is asked you proudly say, “I’m retired,” and you know that is an accomplishment most people strive for – and you made it.
Perhaps you are a spouse, a parent, a grandparent, a friend. You don’t leave that behind just because you retire. It’s like relocating after retirement. You sell your home of many decades, where you raised your family. The old place contains so many good memories. No it doesn’t. Those good memories will always be with you and each family member no matter where you are.
Besides, retirement is a time to add new memories. If you are blessed with grandchildren, being retired is the greatest time. I’ve been to more sporting events, did more babysitting, made more trips here and there, attended more plays and concerts than I can count, but they added to my memory collection. And now we are visiting colleges and I’m collecting hats – just another old geezer with a baseball cap not worn backward.
Being retired means you can do anything you want any day of the week.
I have a fascination with old graveyards I walk around reading headstones looking for the oldest dates I can find. Where I live there are many in the 1700s and even a few the late 1600s and lots around the time of the Civil War. Some are grand monuments and others warn pieces of sandstone standing askew. They all have one thing in common. There is nobody around who knows or cares who they were.
After a few months leaving your job, you too will fade away from the workplace. Colleagues you may have considered friends will prove to be otherwise. Your name will forgotten as the workforce changes.
That’s nothing to be maudlin over. Your job was never who you were.
Ask your spouse or your children or a best friend who you are. The walkway is still moving.
This article originally appeared on HumbleDollar.com
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
“They all have one thing in common. There is nobody around who knows or cares who they were.”
Maybe, maybe not.
How about this Bowdoin professor: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/2034/joshua_lawrence-chamberlain
Or this nurse: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/63/clara-barton
If you encountered those gravesites, would you just pass by, or stop, pause and consider?
There is a poignant poem about this – the “Dash”
The Dash by Linda Ellis
I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on the tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.
He noted that first came the date of birth
and spoke the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.
For that dash represents all the time
that they spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved them
know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not, how much we own,
the cars…the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.
So, think about this long and hard.
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.
If we could just slow down enough
to consider what’s true and real
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.
And be less quick to anger
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives
like we’ve never loved before.
If we treat each other with respect
and more often wear a smile,
remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.
So, when your eulogy is being read,
with your life’s actions to rehash…
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent YOUR dash?
For many Americans, work is a significant part of that dash, not only in terms of the work itself, but relationships, contributions, etc. For some, work is trading time for money. For others, not so much.
It isn’t for me, your posts suggest it wasn’t for you either.
Hopefully, someday you will package all this up to share with folks you will never meet, who otherwise might just pass by your gravesite without noticing. That would be a shame.
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