As I – ever so slowly – begin the process of retiring, I’m thinking a lot about what I need to do so I will enjoy this stage of my life as much as I have my years of work. Like many people facing retirement, I have some fears that I won’t know what to do with myself.
The first thing I have confronted in what I am calling my practice retirement is just how much of my time I have spent working over the past few decades. I’m working less, obviously, but my hours of work are still pretty close to full-time. That’s because for many years I have regularly worked six to seven days a week, with work often occupying 10 to 12 hours each day. Even when I am on vacation, I often manage to sneak in a couple of hours of work before anyone else is awake to notice what I am up to.
Fortunately for me, my constitution requires very little sleep and my internal clock has me awake and raring to go by about 5 a.m. Coupled with the passion I have for my work, this has allowed me to put in long days over many years — happily — but it’s not exactly a healthy work-life balance.
I’m trying to train myself out of some of these habits. I now do absolutely no work one day of the week. The beauty of being self-employed is that I can make this whatever day I want and, while I usually pick Saturday or Sunday, recently I picked a Friday because I had no meetings scheduled and the weather was just right for my first trip of the season to our favourite greenhouse.
Now, I am learning how to stay in bed past my usual 5 am start time, and some days, rather than grabbing lunch and heading straight back to my desk with it, I take a real lunch break.
I’ve always loved to read, but in recent years, I’ve allowed very little time for it. I read until I fall asleep at night, which means I often only read a few pages before my book hits the bed (or my face), but I’ve had few opportunities to spend an afternoon with a book; something I absolutely loved when I was a kid. With my practice retirement underway, I am once again making time for afternoons on the couch with a blanket, my cat and a book.
Maybe I will finally make some headway on those stacks of unread books in my office. . . .
New activities
I’m also testing out some new or long-abandoned activities. I’ve been working with a reiki therapist for many years and, in March, I took a two-day workshop, so I could learn more and become better attuned to what reiki does for me. I’m not planning to hang up a shingle (I’m supposed to be retiring, after all), but I can now offer reiki to friends and family members.
To that end, I’ve bought a massage table although, truth be told, it has largely functioned as yet another surface on which my partner and I deposit things we’re too lazy to put away and as a perch for our cat so she can keep an eye on the action at the front of our house. With more time in upcoming months and years, I hope to put it to its intended use.
I did a glassblowing workshop when I was in Whitehorse in February, and I did another one last weekend with a friend. I will never be a glassblowing or any other kind of real artist, but playing with glass is magical, and I come home with very pretty paperweights, bowls, glasses and the like. Retirement offers me the opportunity to explore other such opportunities.
A good friend — a quilt-making artist — gave me one of her sewing machines more than two years ago on my solemn promise that I would use it within the following year, a promise I have not come close to keeping. Perhaps over the next year or so I will finally make good on this commitment.
Re-engaging
Because my work takes me across Ontario and beyond, I’ve become pretty disengaged from the community where I live. I see friends frequently, go to the farmers’ market every week (where last weekend I bought the first local asparagus and rhubarb of the season), buy my books at the independent bookstore where first my daughter and later her oldest son have worked, and am a regular at the independent movie theatre, but I often feel like a tourist in my own city.
Now that I have a bit more time, I am reconnecting with not-for-profit organizations whose work I have long admired, hoping I can find a place with one of them as a volunteer. I’ve joined the seniors’ association, which seems like a responsible thing for someone who’s about to retire to do. My membership also opens the door to countless opportunities for classes in everything from line dancing to painting.
I plan to continue my practice retirement over the next several months, moving to a dress rehearsal in early 2025. If all goes well, that will segue into real retirement, with all of its joys and challenges.