An ode to the old

Although retirement is a 10 letter word, a lot of people regard it as much of a four letter word as those other unmentionable expletives. They feel that their life will be over once they retire, that there will be not one thing left to live for. Their occupation has been their life.

Just as they say Youth is Wasted on the Young, I say Retirement is Wasted on the Old. I worked over 40 years to at last reach this milestone in my life and I have been embracing it with gusto. I just wish I could have achieved this status much earlier, before the joints started creaking.

I took early retirement, at age 62. After working all those years, when it got down to the final lap, I could not wait any longer for the grand old age of 65 to retire. So on my 62nd birthday I said adieu to the working world, in which I had been treated very fairly, and for the most percentage actually enjoyed, but from which world I could not wait to depart.

Retirement is like being out of school for the summer but the summer never ends. Of course there is no more anticipation of that primary day of school again, looking forward to hearing what our school friends did for the duration of the summer, eyeing them almost to see how much they’ve changed in those 10 to 12 weeks, but how a great deal of of us eagerly expect our primary day back to work after a vacation? Our co-workers will still pretty much be the same persons who we left behind 7 or 14 days earlier.

Some people never want to retire. They veritably receive pleasure from waking up each morning at a regimented time, indulging in their intimate each day routine, going off to the workplace, and then at the appointed hour, leaving the occupation and coming home to their sanctum sanctorum.

Fortunately, I am not one of those people. Retirement is Freedom! Freedom from the dreaded shrill of the alarm clock, the last minute search for suitable office attire, (because I’m not one of those coordinated people who could lay their clothes out the night before). Freedom from the each day commute. Freedom from the office politics. Freedom from…well you get it. Just pure, fantasti freedom from captivity, much like the tiger in a cage who manages to escape his cruel environs.

Even after two years of retirement, friends still inquire when it comes to my mental health and lack of stimulation. They seem to all be of the same mindset, that if you aren’t employed, you’re bored.

Oh, how defective they are! How deliciously defective they are. My life is even fuller now since retirement. The huge divergence is that now I determine when to start out my day. Truth be told, once in a while my day doesn’t start out until noon. Yes, I said it…noon!

But the end of my day may also now end at 1 or 2 in the morning, not at 10 p.m., because I have to go to bed because I have to be up early for work. My retirement, my hours.

If I don’t feel like doing anything on any queer day I don’t have to think up a good pardon to tell the boss why I won’t be in. Or why I will be late. I just smile and roll back over in bed, normally with a cat or two snuggled next to me, my poor hard working husband having already trundled off to work. If any person loves my retirement more than I do, it’s in all likelihood the cats. They love having company all day and somebody who will sleep in with them.

But what with regards to that mental stimulation? My friends are sure my brain will turn to mush if I’m not productive.

But I am procreative I see to it them. I am doing things and I am mentally stimulated. I’m just doing things in my own time. I don’t need a boss to tell me what to do and when to do it. I am my own boss and I’m a pretty good one if I will have to say so!

I concede myself a generous lunchtime, assorted decent breaks for the duration of the day, unlimited phone calls to and from friends, an early quitting time if I need it and never any work to fetch home. I may play games on the computer too if I want, though that has never appealed to me, but the point is I may do it if I want without sentiment like a thief, stealing time from my company.

Oh yeah, the drawback…no pay! Well there is the Social Security check, but as I said…no pay! It buys the cat feed but ever since said critters ran into that other pets get fed each day rather of once a week, the feed bill has gone up. Okay just kidding here, but the fact remains that I’m getting by on a lot less these days and strangely sufficient this is another type of freedom. I’d rather do with less cash and more time.

Lest anybody think I am a total sloth and don’t do anything but plod around in my housecoat with my hair up in curlers, eating bon bons (whatever they are) and looking at the Soaps, I actually accomplish rather a lot…again, in my own time!

In my initial year of retirement I wrote a book and had it published. Now I would call that a pretty good accomplishment and very mentally stimulating. I’m now working on my second book with the third one already forming in my mind.

My friends see to it me that they would be bored ridiculous in retirement. How may that be? There are so a lot of terrifi things in this world to reach out and embrace, to learn. I’m studying French, parlez vous Francais? Non, un peu, but I’m attempting to learn more each day.

Let’s not forget the dreaded H word – Housework! That, in and of itself, is a real time buyer and one from which I’d love to retire. Alas, search as I may, I can’t seem to find any person who is more than willing to do this chore for what I could afford to pay them.

So I do the dishes, make the beds and to paraphrase Joan Rivers- Then next week you have to do it all over again. I like the way she thinks.

I now have time for volunteer work and to get enjoyment from it. I have time to shop, altho it isn’t as much fun when on a scaled down income, but this just inspires me to learn a new skill – bargain shopping!

They say never tie your ego to your occupation or you’ll be lost when you lose it. I’m not lost…I’ve found wonderful, emancipating freedom. Try it – You’ll like it!

Review“His pixilism is a sort of 21st century, digital metaphor that has matchings to French Impressionist paintings. Each sentence represents an idea, effigy or treatment of the big picture.”–Redding Pilot, May 2010

“Lentz has a talent for…vivid imagery. The result is the literary equivalent of high definition — the reader is bombarded with rich text that infuses the senses.” –Greenwich Post

“Lentz’s approach to writing is soul driven.”–The Weston Forum, May 2010

About the AuthorBorn in Woburn, Massachusetts, David B. Lentz graduated from Bates College and has written in a professional manner for more than 35 years for global, financial corporations. He has lived in Boston’s Back Bay, the Garden District of New Orleans and Philadelphia’s Main Line. Currently, he resides with his family in Greenwich, CT. In addition to Old Greenwich Odes, Lentz has published six literary novels – For the Beauty of the Earth, AmericA, Inc., Bloomsday, Bourbon Street, The Day Trader and The Silver King. For the Bloomsday Centenary, he wrote a tragicomic stage play, as an American sequel to James Joyce’s Ulysses, entitled Bloomsday. He has served Bates College as an Alumnus-in-Admissions, the Bates College Club, the Board of Directors of the New Orleans Ad Club, the Philadelphia Mayor’s Council for Literacy, Stamford-Greenwich Literacy Volunteers of America, Healing the Children (Board), Midnight Run for New York City Homeless, Hurricane Katrina JazzAid: New Orleans (Founder): Hope + Heroes Children’s Cancer Foundation, St. Baldrick’s Foundation for Children’s Cancer Research and St. Paul’s Chapel as a Volunteer at Ground Zero. He is a fellow member of the Academy of American Poets.

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