retirement – Tess Perko's Blog

The Purpose of My Blog

I recently took a free class about blogs from Reedsy, a website that offers professional help to writers.

One of the topics discussed in the online class was the purpose of a blog. While I was reading about this, I realized that I had begun my blog for the purpose of improving my teaching skills; however, now that I’m retired, my focus is on my own writing and my other retirement activities.

The purpose of this post is to explore the current focus of my blog.

Practicing Writing Skills

The biggest focus of my current blog posts is to practice various writing skills.

I am currently exploring the ideas for my second novel so I decided to writing a series of character studies. In each post, a new character finds herself in a different situation. I use distinct character traits to identify her. I choose a unique name and reveal whether she is a child, youth, young adult, or older. I sometimes describe her physical characteristics, especially if they are important to the story. For example, if she is riding a bicycle, I may describe the strength of her legs.

Since each story is unique, I use specific description to illustration the setting. She may be in a bedroom, on a trail in the country or behind the bar in a night club. In addition to using visual description, I try to add smells and noises to make the setting as vivid as possible. Perhaps, someone has spilled whiskey on the bar or the juke box is blasting out Beatles’ music.

Sharing My Writing Experiences

Since I retired almost three years ago, I have written one novel and over one-hundred blog posts. I also have petitioned several publishers about the publication of my first novel.

Needless to say, I’ve learned a lot in the past three years about my current writing activities. I like to share my experiences so that other writers can benefit from my practice, and so that I can interact with other people who love to write. Writers have so much passion about their work, and that excites me.

When I was writing my first novel, I wrote a post about my experience. You see, I didn’t have much of a clue how this project would go. Maybe I’d write it and find out it was awful. Maybe I’d have to completely rewrite it.

I wrote about telling people about my novel writing. They asked detailed questions. I made no promises. I protected my heart from criticism, but I listened to it as well.

What happened? I actually wrote a novel that is now being considered by a few publishers.

In another post, I wrote about how I evaluated publishers for my first novel. I thought this was important to share with other writers since publishers all have their own missions. Writers waste time if they don’t evaluate which publisher is appropriate for their book.

Sharing My Retirement Experiences

Retirement has turned out well for me because, during the first month, I made a three-part plan of what I wanted to do. The first goal was to write a novel. Second, I wanted to become fluent in a second language, and, third, I wanted to raise money for scholarships for community college and vocational students.

I’ve met so many people in the last three years and I’ve learned that some retired people are happily retired and others are bored. I write blog posts about my retirement experiences to demonstrate how retirement can be a vivacious time of life.

I’ve traveled several times since my retirement, and I’ve written about these trips. Two summers ago, I visited my cousin’s dairy farm in Minnesota. I wrote a blog post about being a “town girl on a dairy farm.” From that same trip, I wrote about how my ancestors came from Kashubia, currently a northern part of Poland. I also wrote about a hike on my great-grandfather’s property, which is now a Minnesota State Park. And I pleased my dozens of cousins when I wrote about how diverse they were.

I joined a philanthropy group named The Alamo Women’s Club since they raise money for college and vocational scholarships. Now, I’m the chair of the AWC Scholarship Committee. I’ve written a blog post about how we awarded eleven scholarships to financially-disadvantaged students in April, 2023. But that’s not all the organization does. We collect coats in the winter for people who need clothing. We assemble food packets for Ukraine refugees in Poland. We sponsor jewelry sales for scholarships. Our activities have provided a host of ideas for my writing blog posts.

Now that I’ve written this post, I’m going to revise my front page to update the purpose of my blog. It’s nice to gain clarity.

How to Meet Stimulating People in Retirement

Photo by Dario Valenzuela on Unsplash

Retirement can be lonely.

People who are used to working with a diverse group of people may miss that dynamic social network. For example, I worked as a professor at a community college. Every day was filled with fascinating interactions with numerous college students full of young energy and ambition. After I retired, I missed my students’ vigor and spontaneity. I also missed the intellectual conversations I had with other professors whose goals were aligned with mine.

Individuals used to engaging with technological advances may miss those challenges. A software programmer I know felt bored when he retired from his technical job. He also developed anxiety that he would become out of date.

Medical workers such as doctors and nurses who strive to care for others often miss the opportunities to help their patients. When they retire, they may find it difficult to focus solely on their own needs instead of the needs of others.

Retirees often face loneliness due to the changes in their families. When they retire, they no longer have their parents or children available in their lives on a frequent basis. Their parents may have passed away, and their children may have become adults with busy careers and families of their own.

This blog post addresses how retirees can avoid loneliness and achieve a socially-satisfying retired life with stimulating friendships and meaningful activities.

Take a Class

One way to meet people with the same goals is to take a class on a subject that interests you.

I’ve always wanted to become fluent in another language, so when I retired, I found some adult education classes that taught Spanish. I started this activity during the pandemic, so the classes were held online. When the pandemic ended, the students, who are mostly retired, voted to keep the classes online.

I began taking Spanish 2 and now I’m taking Spanish 4 with many of the same students I’ve known for two-and-a-half years. During class, we were in groups a lot, so I’ve even more familiar with four of five people with whom I’ve worked. Besides helping each other learn Spanish, we share our hobbies, family news, backgrounds, and travel adventures as we converse. Sometimes, we have even helped each other with technical problems relating to the class. Furthermore, a few of us meet outside of class to strengthen our Spanish conversation skills while we enjoy a cup of coffee or have lunch together.

My community offers a variety of classes for seniors including courses about Medicare, computer skills, line dancing, and yoga. My town also organizes social outings for seniors such as trips to theaters, local public gardens, or historical monuments.

One of the most interesting classes I’ve taken is a class on movie directing. In the class, attendees watch movies by specific directors and then discuss the techniques used in the movies. I found this class not only relaxing, but intellectually stimulating.

Join a Philanthropy Organization

Individuals who love to contribute to their community can find many opportunities to do so by joining a philanthropy.

One of my retirement goals was to help financially disadvantaged students. I joined an organization which raises money for college and vocational scholarships. In fact, I’m now the chairperson of the scholarship committee which gives me many opportunities to interact with high school seniors and college students. I also manage the production of a scholarship luncheon at which we award our scholarships.

A woman with a degree in gerontology and psychology volunteers on a county committee that develops transportation options for senior citizens. She interacts with a variety of county agencies and uses her expertise to develop worthwhile programs.

A woman who retired as a buyer for Safeway now works at the county food bank, sorting food and organizing bags for distribution. She enjoys talking with the management about sources of food and how best to store them.

Hang Out in a Bookstore

One of the most stimulating places to hang is a local bookstore. The bookstore in my town always has its door open even when it rains. Its display tables and shelves are chock full of the latest books or books recommended by its staff.

When I looked up this bookstore’s website, I found out that it has a mailing list so that customers can stay abreast of the store’s activities. They invite authors into their store for readings, arrange readings at various schools, and …

The store also sponsors eight book clubs. One is for mystery readers. Another is for wine drinkers. On Wednesdays, a book group meets at 10:00 a.m. and goes for a 45-minute walk while discussing their book. Another meets at a local assisted-living home. Obviously, this book store aims to please all of its potential readers.

Find a Social Group

The goal of some retirees may be to socialize as much as they can after working hard in a career.

In my area, there are men’s groups known as Sons in Retirements (SIRS). This group is organized into various chapters. Each chapter caters to the interests of the men in that chapter. For example, the chapter to which my husband belongs offers a wine club, golf, book clubs, hiking, and bocce ball on a weekly basis. The group also sponsors monthly lunches with speakers, a spring lunch for spouses, and a Christmas Dinner Dance for couples. My husband had never played Bocce Ball before joining this group, and now he never misses a game.

My local town offers Mah Jong and Bridge socials. If you belong to a country club, they may also offer games such as poker or other card games.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, retirees have lots of options for hiking and walking. My philanthropy organization sponsors a hike once a month. I found a MeetUp group for seniors that hikes on various open-space trails. I even found a MeetUp walking group that focuses on interesting walks in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco.

The best thing to do is to pursue activities that you enjoy. While you’re doing those things, you’ll meet like-minded people. Don’t be shy. Reach out and develop stimulating friendships.

Why I Make New Year’s Resolutions

Every year, just before New Year’s, I take out my diary and write down New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t show them to anyone, not even my husband. They are only for me to see, only for me to enjoy. I hide my resolutions where no one can ever find them, and I look at them throughout the year and at the end of each year.

Some of my friends never make New Year’s resolutions. Maybe they don’t want to disappoint themselves. Maybe they don’t want to change their lives. I read once, though, that as long as a person continues to grow, she will feel young. I like to challenge myself to continue to grow in various ways. Resolutions help me do that, but here are more specific reasons why I make them every year.

New Year’s Resolutions Help Me Clarify My Goals

I am not always clear on how to accomplish my goals, but when I make a New Year’s resolution, I try to make it specific enough so that I know exactly how to succeed.

Let’s say that I want to pay off my mortgage early. A New Year’s resolution will help me decide exactly how to do that. For example, I could promise myself to pay an extra $500 a month for the whole year. This makes it easy for me to follow through on my promise.

Resolutions Help Me Grow

When I want to learn something major, I make it part of my New Year’s Resolutions, so I don’t forget about it.

For example, after I retired, I decided that I wanted to become fluent in Spanish. I realize that this is going to take me years to accomplish, but I’m not going to worry about that. I’m just going to practice until I achieve it. In order to do that, I made a resolution to practice Spanish for at least fifteen minutes every day. Along with this resolution, I am taking a two-hour Spanish class every Wednesday morning for which I complete homework. Nevertheless, outside of the class and homework, I still promise to practice fifteen minutes a day. This is not too long so that I become overwhelmed, but long enough for me to improve my speaking, listening, and vocabulary. I’ve been practicing Spanish for fifteen minutes a day for two years now, except for the three weeks I went to Italy. I can now speak in Spanish without have a brain freeze.

Resolutions Act Like a Measuring Stick

I love looking back on my resolutions from prior years and thinking about how they helped me accomplish something.

Last year, I resolved to write the first draft of my novel. By the end of October, I had finished it. Even if I hadn’t finished it, I would have written far more of it than if I had never made the resolution. I can always measure my progress against the promise I made. I don’t berate myself for not accomplishing my goal; instead, I’m happy of the progress I made.

I’ve made eight resolutions for 2023. One is about how I promise to exercise a certain amount each week. Another is about how I plan to write the second draft of my novel. Practicing Spanish is the third one, and the other five are for my own eyes only.

During 2023, I’ll look back on my personal promises, and coach myself to stay on track. I’ll be my own best, supportive friend.

Rain

Photo by Ahmed Zayad on Unsplash

When Don woke up, it was raining. The water that he ran in the tub sounded like rain chortling out of a storm pipe. The water that streamed from the kitchen faucet for his tea beat into the kettle like rain on a wheelbarrow left out in the yard. Rain. Rain. Rain. It had rained for months.

Don’s mother had died at 10:05 a.m. on the same morning that Don worked his last day. He was looking forward to retirement, and one thing he would do more was spend time with his mother—playing Scrabble, going out for hamburgers for lunch, driving her past her old house where prolific flowers signaled the change of seasons.

At 10:06 on the day she died, the rain started. He had kissed her on the forehead as she lay quiet in her hospital bed, checked to see if she was safe, and slipped out of the room to live the rest of his life without her.

Claire had managed the funeral and service arrangements which were beautiful. On the day Mom was buried, the sun came out for a couple hours—just enough time for Mom’s ten children to say their prayers and lay red roses on her casket. When the casket was lowed into the ground and the earth filled in her vacancy, the grounds men laid the large spray of red roses over the dirt.

Then the rain began again. It rained while they cleaned out Mom’s room at the assisted living home. Maddy took all their mother’s clothes home in garbage bags. A few weeks later, she knocked on Don’s door and handed him a teddy bear. The bear was blue and green and peach and red, made from pieces of Mom’s shirts, pants, and dresses. It looked both happy and sad as Don sat it on the couch in his living room.

Soon, the group texts began. Don shared memories of his mother with his nine siblings every day. Old memories. Vague memories. Disputed memories. Sunny memories. Rainy memories.

Some people in the text posted pictures of what they made for breakfast. Don posted pictures of his new seedlings and old pumpkins. He talked about his clocks inherited from Mom and Dad. Claire posted perfect plates of salmon dinners. Rita identified the birds that Maddy found in her garden by looking them up in her bird bible. Beatrice posted old photos of Mom from her twenties when she was thin, before she had ten children.

The siblings discovered each other again. Most of them had moved out of town since their childhood, and their communication had been through Mom for the most part. Through their texts, they found out that Don had the best green thumb, Claire grew flowers but not vegetables, Rita was a bird and owl watcher, Maddie loved wine and dessert most of all, Beatrice was just starting a walking routine, Minnie continuously created new jam recipes, Jim was the handyman at his job, Carol had learned how to play guitar, Ron still told the best jokes, and Geo wrote poetry in his spare time.

The texts started usually around 7 a.m. in the morning and lasted until the last sibling drifted off to bed. Good mornings. Breakfast recipes. Descriptions of walks. Flower postings. Loaves of bread. Jars of jam. Bowls of soup. Directions to parks. Comments on the news. Revelations about hobbies. Progress on quilts, puzzles, and charity projects. Movie recommendations and dinner plans. All these subjects and pictures streamed between the ten children that Mom left behind.

A few months later, the rain stopped. The sun came out like a herald of good news, and Don woke up to the birds chirping outside his bedroom window.

When he wandered out into his living room, he saw his colorful teddy bear leaning over on its side and bent down to sit it upright, and, as he did, the sun blazed through the window and lit up the bear in a shaft of light.

“Let’s go visit Mom, today,” Don said to his bear. “The sun is out and I know she’ll be happy to see us.”

Half an hour later, after an oatmeal breakfast and coffee with chocolate, Don put the bear in the passenger seat of his blue truck, and drove to the cemetery.

When he got there, the sun streamed like yellow curtains through the oak trees whose branches spread over the graves like kind arms. The green grass, which covered the shallow hills and valleys, glistened with diamonds of left-over rain.

Don drove his truck onto the center road and stopped it in front of his parents’ graves. There they were—lying side by side like happy campers in sleeping bags. Their gravestone rose from the top of their plots like a crown, and Don noticed that one of his siblings had stuck some colorful plastic flowers into the metal vase in front of the headstone.

Don knelt down in the middle of his two parent’s plots, reached out, and placed his teddy bear on his mother’s side of the stone near the flowers.

He paused for a few minutes, furrowed his brow, then recited the Hail Mary prayer, and his words wafted through the cemetery like a low whisper. When he finished praying, he looked up at his teddy sitting quietly.

“You can’t stay here,” he said. “We’re just visiting. You and I have to go home and live some more.”

Don looked at the words of his mother’s name on the head stone and the dates of her birth and death. 92 years long. Somehow, not long enough.

“Thank you for giving me life, Mom,” Don said, placing his hand on his heart gently.

He reached over, lifted his teddy bear from the ledge beside the plastic flowers, and held the bear against his bent frame.

“I’m always here, Mom, for you, just as you were always here for me.” Then Don slowly stood up from the ground, brushed the wet grass off his jeans, and walked back to his truck.

When he got into his seat, he checked his phone to see if any of his siblings had posted another message. A few rain drops fell onto the windshield as he drove away.

My Epiphany: I’m not Retired, I’m Now a Full-time Writer

Last year, I retired from my English professor job. Throughout the years, I had always claimed to be a writer. Heaven knows, I wrote countless essays, paragraphs, articles, and lesson plans for my courses, but I also wrote poetry, articles, and short stories whenever I found free time–in-between semesters or during the summer. What I never wrote was a novel. I’ve had ideas on the table for years. Scribblings in pretty journals. Scratchings in lined notebooks. Never a complete draft or a completely formed plot waiting to be expressed.

When I retired a year ago, I looked at my retirement as a time when I would fill my days with hobbies. I even developed a list of hobbies and stuck it on my little bulletin board next to my computer in my library. That’s where I write, and one of the hobbies on the list is writing. I also wrote gardening, cooking, learning Spanish, and, of course, writing. The list was for whenever I didn’t know what to do. I would just read the list, choose an activity and proceed.

I made such glorious dinners for my husband and me the first six months of my retirement: chicken and shrimp gumbo, mushroom risotto, marinated leg of lamb, and grilled flat iron steak. I created recipes for healthy versions of pumpkin bread and blueberry breakfast bars. I experimented with turmeric and cinnamon in oatmeal and developed personal breakfast egg sandwiches with tortillas and flat breads. I filled my recipe blog with over a hundred recipes and attracted followers from all over the globe. My culinary prowess was astounding until I decided that eating out looked like a lot less work.

By summer, my garden was cleaned of weeds, pruned, fertilized, swept, and raked. The flowers grew like happy children and the fruit trees hung heavy with lemons, blood oranges, and figs. My pots of herbs provided me with lush clippings of thyme, parsley, mint, chives, lavendar, oregano, and basil. By the time fall came, I had done such a remarkable job at sprucing up the front and back yards that there was little else to do except to sit outside and enjoy my beautiful environment.

I started studying Spanish, but in the summer, I started taking classes every Wednesday at a local adult education school. Now, after a whole year of practice, I’m conversing with my classmates in conversations that span paragraphs.

The most difficult activity that I started, however, was to write a novel. I now felt that I had an overall plot in mind. I didn’t have all the pieces, but I was just going to start and see what happens. To ward away writer’s block, I decided not to make any rules or promises. I would write a novel even if I never published it. I would write even when I didn’t know what to say. I would write even when the words came out stilted and awkward. Revision is so much easier than a first draft anyway.

What’s funny is that I’ve just had an epiphany after being retired for a year. Cooking is not that important to me. Gardening is fine, but my little yard will not require much of my time to keep up. Besides, Alfred comes once a week to cut the grass and clean up the leaves.

Spanish is so much fun, but I’ve found that writing is really where my passion lies.

The other day, Valarie from the Alamo Women’s Club called me to ask if I would run for an office for next year. I joined the club last year to help them raise money for scholarships for college students, and I’ve done that. But run for an office?

No. If I became an officer, I wouldn’t have enough time for writing.

I need time to stir up ideas, time to catch up on sleep when I’ve gotten up at 2:00 in the morning to write, time to outline scenes, and lots and lots of time to write.

Next time someone asks me what I do, I’m not going to say I’m retired. They’ll think I have time to fill.

My time is full–of writing.

Retiring Is Hard to Do

I retired just over a year ago, and I’m just starting to figure out what “retirement” is all about.

I must admit, that before I gave my retirement notice, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about what I would do. I was, after all, still working as a college English professor, a job that seemed to require a 24-hour-a-day, 7-days-a-week commitment. I knew, however, that I wouldn’t be lying around on a beach chair in Hawaii; I wanted to continue to make a difference in people’s lives. I just didn’t know what that would look like.

I spent the first month of my new life walking around like a zombie. I cooked elaborate dinners, went on long hikes with my girl friends, and spent hours and hours pulling weeds in my garden and making tiny changes in my front yard landscape.

But I didn’t really feel like I knew what I was doing. I was “just keeping busy” enough to fool myself that I “was retired.”

Finally. about two months into this new endeavor, I made some critical decisions. Not that I was sure of them. Not that I was confident that I’d continue to do them forever. I just felt like I needed to make some decisions in order to be productive.

I continued to create new recipes and post them on my recipe blog. That was fun for about nine months, and then, all of a sudden, I decided that the pressure of posting recipes every day was a bit like working again. Since the beginning of 2022, I’ve only posted one new recipe. I feel fine about that. Instead, I’m enjoying watching my older sister post gorgeous photos of her cooking on FACEBOOK. I like to think that I’ve inspired her to display her own cooking talent with confidence and pride.

During the summer, I planted an herb garden that tickled me to my very core. I had basil, thyme, oregano, chives, parsley and mint growing lushly in pots just outside my kitchen window. I used the herbs in my new recipes, blended them into pestos and herb sauces, and dropped them into pitchers of water for cool summer evening thirst-quenchers. Along the way, I learned some incredible secrets about how to enrich the soil with calcium and when to plant cilantro, an herb that doesn’t grow well in summer.

I decided to take up Spanish again since I hadn’t been able to practice much while I was teaching English courses. I found my old Spanish books and got to work. Every day, I wrote sentences, used a flash card app to practice vocabulary, and even told my Argentine son-in-law what I was doing. That, I thought, was brave.

I also started writing a novel that had been simmering in my head for a couple of years. I told people I was doing this, but I also explained that I didn’t have any requirements except to write it. As soon as you tell people you are writing a novel, they ask questions like, “When will it come out on Amazon?” “What percentage of the book have you written so far?” “Can I read what you’ve written so far?” I decided that, since I was retired, I wanted to experience complete freedom in my writing: no deadlines, no demands, no rigid outlines, just the sheer joy of being creative and writing from my heart.

I also took a giant step. I joined a women’s club so that I could help raise money and award scholarships to students going to college. This was my jackpot activity, I thought. By working with this club, I would continue to make a difference for college students; however, what a commitment it might turn out to be.

At one of the women’s club meetings, one woman said, “Retirement is a time when you keep reinventing yourself.” After about six months, I knew that was true.

My Spanish practice was fine, but, whenever I tried to speak it aloud, I forgot all my vocabulary. My brain fogged up and my eyes got buggy as I dug around in my head for words, so I signed up to practice with a tutor online. Jessica was fabulous, but, I noticed that after twenty minutes into an hour lesson, I was watching the clock and getting frustrated. Finally, a friend told me about some weekly, online adult ed classes which would allow me to learn at a less strenuous pace. I signed up for a summer course and found the right fit. I’m now taking Spanish 2 for this year, and I can keep taking these classes up to level 5. After that, I’ll reinvent my Spanish learning.

The writing of my novel has proven to be more successful than I ever dreamed. My main character has traveled across Argentina and into Chile in pursuit of finding out what she wants to do with her life. She’s gutsy, intelligent, and courageous, and, most importantly, I like her. I’m still getting those annoying questions from people about deadlines, but I’m more confident about asserting that I have “no rules or expectations.” What they don’t know is that when I get to the end of my story, I’m going to start at the beginning and rewrite it. They must think that my writing is so good that my first draft drips with eloquence and comes complete with sophisticated figures of speech. I’m okay if they think that. I’m just enjoying the writing.

I’ve given myself a break when it comes to cooking, and my husband and I go out to eat more often. My herb garden is dormant for the winter, and my freezer is stocked with pestos and herb sauces. And you’ll never guess what happened just nine months after I retired and only six months after I joined the women’s club. I volunteered to be the Chair of the Scholarship Committee even though the other women on the committee all have at least ten more years of philanthropy experience than I do. I’ll try to act like a student of philanthropy and listen as I lead a group that is much wiser than I.

One day, I sat down in my living room to take a break from all my projects. My husband was sitting in a big arm chair. His Kindle was on the table beside him, and he was staring straight ahead of him, his eyes and mouth relaxed and content. “What are you doing?” I asked him.

“I’m relaxing,” he said. “I spent my whole life working hard. I’m going to spend my retirement relaxing and having fun.”

Oh, I thought. I don’t know how to do that.

Hmmm. It’s time to reinvent myself, again.

Retirement Richness: Project Self

Photo by Sherise VD on Unsplash

For about a year before I retired, I kept asking everyone for ideas about what I should do to keep busy, to stay active, to find purpose during retirement. I thought about working for the local food bank, reading with children in Oakland schools, or volunteering to work at one of the county libraries.

Many people think they need to fill their retirement with activities. One retired nurse I know still rushes through her day trying to fill up every minute. She volunteers at the local hospital for three hours a week, sews quilts and activity blankets for seniors, takes walks, and feeds the birds. Yet, whenever she gets tired of these activities, she searches hectically to figure out what to do next.

For those who truly loved their careers, like many teachers and nurses I know, retirement is an especially challenging transition. I taught English to college students for 16 years. I’m proud of my growth as a reading, writing, and critical thinking professor and of my unique ability to inspire and educate students of all backgrounds and skills. My job gave me tremendous purpose and fulfillment.

To retire is to rest from the frenetic pace which a career often requires. Engaging in activities just to stay busy defeats its purpose. Instead, retirement’s purpose can blossom from the time available to reflect and explore new life paths.

After thinking long and hard about what my retirement purpose could be and by consulting advice from a variety of sources, I am now content in what my purpose for retirement will be; my primary purpose is now ME.

This goal may sound a little selfish to those who have strong feelings about doing charity work or participating in volunteer activities. Many people judge their own worth mostly by how much they give to others; however, if people ignore their own psychological well-being, they can’t offer their best self to others. Their volunteer work will be marred by feelings of stress and anxiety. Instead of leaving those they serve with better peace, they could even raise the anxiety levels of the people whose lives they hope to improve.

Focusing on the Process

Since my retirement is a brand-new phase of my life, I knew that I had to treat it as a process of discovery instead of expecting to know right away how to spend my retirement years. If I had assumed that my retirement would just “happen,” I would have been sorely disappointed.

The first thing I had to do was to avoid filling my days with busyness. Each day, I chose to do projects that make me happy. My own happiness is my primary goal since I know that, if I am happy, I will naturally share this joy with my family and community.

Thinking of retirement as a process gives me permission to be patient and to let my life unfold in a natural progression. It also gives me freedom to try new activities that I hadn’t previously thought of because I was so tenaciously focused on trying to be “retired with purpose.”

Viewing retirement as a process empowers me. Because I don’t assume I have to know how I will spend the rest of my life, I don’t stress about not having all the answers. I don’t expect to know what comes after today. I only know that what I do today will lead me to more knowledge about what I value and more opportunities; every day, I achieve personal growth and this growth teaches me what is possible next. I take confidence in my baby steps and know that my staircase has no last stair.

Re-evaluating Values

I’ve discovered that the voices in my head that drove my career and previous life are no longer all relevant. My new role in life, focusing on myself, encourages me to discard old “rules” that were given to me by my parents or previous bosses. Why? Some of those old rules don’t allow me to explore my true potential. I know retired people who have adopted a new spiritual focus by discarding the religion taught to them by their parents. Others have become creative for the first time by learning how to arrange flowers or paint in watercolors, activities far different than their careers. I am re-evaluating everything, and I feel great.

For example, I have decided to write short stories because I love fiction and think that it is one of the highest forms of creativity. I also walk and perform yoga which both help me feel healthy. When I finish one activity, I sit down and carefully choose my next one so that I don’t get caught up in mindless activity. I focus on the present with each activity, knowing it is enough and is leading me to a greater, happier self.

Releasing Negativity

I don’t want to be a crabby old lady who chases people away with her bitterness and narrow mindedness. I don’t want to act like a nasty old man that can find nothing positive in what others do because he can’t find his own joy. I want to cultivate joy within myself that will naturally touch others.

Sometimes, in order to build self-joy, a person must eliminate the negative energy of others or of negative activities that threatens to usurp their joy. I’ve chosen to to gradually eliminate anything or anyone that negatively affects my life. Since I don’t want to injure my knees or ankles, I only walk for as long as I am comfortable, and I never compete with others. I also set firm boundaries to prevent negative people from affecting my growth and joy. I take no responsibility for their development, only mine.

Measuring Growth

Since my retirement project is a process, I’ve found ways to measure my growth to witness progress. Here are some examples. Whenever I walk, I use an app on my phone to measure my steps and distance. I set rewarding goals for each day and observe how much I achieve per week. In my writing, I post my short stories and articles on this blog to feel “published” and to keep track of my accumulated posts. I also keep another blog for posting recipes that I create. When I garden, I take time to admire new plantings or newly pruned hedges. I observe and enjoy my growth on a daily basis or even several times a day.

Retirement truly is the gift of time to discover how life can be joyful, but a person must intentionally focus on achieving peace within themselves if they want to attain the greatest version of themselves. What better way to do this than to make my biggest retirement project all about me.

Retirement Richness: Nourishing Relationships

Photo by Ekaterina Shakharova on Unsplash

When people think about retirement, they often struggle to think about what activities they will do to fill their days. Some take up golf. Others start biking. Others work for the local food bank. Retired teachers go back and teach a single class, and retired nurses volunteer for essential posts at the local hospital.

I have a suggestion about another way to think about retirement and a rewarding focus for this special opportunistic time in life.

Relationships are key to our happiness, and during our working years, we often fail to nourish them due to time constraints or career responsibilities. In retirement, however, people have more time and can be more flexible with it. I suggest spending some of that time to renew old relationships and build fulfilling new ones.

One of the most gratifying sources of happiness is a positive relationship with a significant other. When I retired, my husband had already been retired for a few years and he was just waiting in the wings to spend more time with me. After a few weeks, we settled into a flexible routine for our retirement days. We both have individual activities, but we consciously set aside several times during our day to spend with each other. For example, on most days, we eat lunch together. We sit down at our dining room table with a bowl of homemade soup or some takeout from a local restaurant and we share 45 minutes feeling grateful for each other and for the wonderful food and food providers in our lives. Before we start eating, we even express our gratification to make it formal.

Another way we spend time together each day is by sitting down to talk at 4 p.m. until we eat dinner at 6. Part of that time, we may sit outside if the weather is fine or make dinner in the kitchen. We talk about foods we love, friends we talked with during the day, and what is happening in our extended family. What makes this time so special is that we are both committed to being present with each other.

If you have been blessed with grandchildren by the time you retire, you can spend more time with them to enrich not only their lives, but also your own. One retired couple that I know visit their grandchildren three afternoons a week after school to help them with their homework or to play games. They interact with their grandchildren before the parents come home from work and they don’t stay for dinner. They are not babysitting since the children’s nanny is there too. The focus is on developing meaningful and loving relationships.

Retirement is also a wonderful time to spend more time with your own children. By this time, they will be busy in their own careers, but retirement gives you the flexibility to meet them during times when they’re available and to participate in the development of their lives. For example, one morning at 9:00 a.m., I helped my daughter practice for a future interview for a new job using Google Meetups. Throughout the day, I play chess with my son using an app on my computer. When they are free, we go for walks together. I babysit my daughter’s dog while she gets her hair cut which keeps me in tune with her interests. The key is to participate in their lives so they have time for you and feel comfortable sharing their life with you.

Perhaps you have retired and your parents are still living out the twilights of their lives. Retirement gives you extra time to spend with them, too. One person I know cuts his mother’s lawn every two weeks. A woman whose mother lives in an assisted living facility visits her once a week to play games, help her with her tax return, make crafts, or eat a meal together. I know from personal experience that this late-in-life time with a parent can prove to be the most cherished of all.

One extremely rewarding opportunity in retirement is renewing the relationships with siblings. I come from a large family and have nine siblings. Recently, my siblings and I have started keeping group chats going throughout each day. We discuss family history, our goals, our exercise activity, problems. And more. I recently helped one of my brothers write his will and apply for retirement. I helped another brother buy cremation services, and I got help from one of my sisters to plan a memorial service for someone. This renewal of our relationships takes me back to the carefree days of my childhood when we played in the backyard until dark. Only now, we are seasoned and more diverse in our experiences which makes our conversations so much more interesting.

Even relationships with extended family can blossom into beautiful connections. As soon as I retired, one of my nephews asked me to read the novel he was writing and provide him with feedback. I jumped at the chance and carved out a space in my schedule to achieve this. From our connection, we have become much closer, I have helped him form a writer’s network, and we converse all the time.

One of my mother’s sisters is a prolific letter writer, so I’ve decided to write her letters back and enjoy hers, too. Sometimes, instead of writing letters, I send her a short story that I’ve written about my mother or some other family member. She loves the connection, and writing letters helps me slow down and enjoy my connection with her, and through her, with my late mother.

When I was teaching English at a community college, I rarely had time to meet with my girlfriends, and, now that the pandemic has curbed my activity as well, I’m still not seeing them enough, yet I still am refreshing my friendships with my treasured women friends in a variety of ways. One friend and I share our blog postings with each other, providing support and inspiration. With another friend, I share new recipes, wine ideas, and plans for future travel. Another friend and I go for socially-distanced walks and enjoy our spiritual connection with nature all around us.

I’ve noticed that my husband works hard at nourishing his guy friendships as well. He plays golf about once a week, not for the purpose of playing a great game, but for the opportunity to spend time with three of his favorite buddies. They talk about travel, the news, sports, and their family lives. One of his childhood friends keeps him in contact with friends from grade school, high school, and college. They share pictures of their former sports’ teams and provide financial support for old friends who fall upon hard times. On golf days, he comes home rested and happy, and, with his old friends, he and I share lots of laughter.

In retirement, our lives take on a new perspective. We aren’t teachers, managers, salespersons, congressmen and women, cashiers, hairdressers, or waiters anymore, but the summation of those deep and diverse experiences that our careers have created; we, then, also may wish to develop new friends to accompany us in our new pursuits.

A few years ago, I joined a chorus comprised of mostly retired singers. I only sang with them for three and a half years, but when I quit the chorus, I didn’t quit those cherished friendships. Now, I attend their concerts as a listener instead of a performer. I support their individual singing events, and I’ve made even more friends through my association with them. I share their joys, witness their talents, and happily rejoice in their accomplishments. And through all of these musical experiences, I nourish my own love of music.

Retirement is a new beginning—a time to rediscover the people who make us bigger than ourselves, better with company, and happier with connection.