One Thing or Another: Brave New Retirement

By Mark McNease

It’s always One Thing or Another… a lighthearted look at aging, life, and the absurdities of it all.

“What day is it?”

It took me very little time after retiring from full-time work to ask this question, common among the post-job legions. After spending years with a life organized around a work schedule, one of the first things you may notice when the schedule is gone is that you’re uncertain if it’s Monday, Sunday, or some other day of the week you used to spend punching a time clock of one kind or another. For myself, I’d invested the previous five years staffing a deli counter at a grocery story, Thursday through Sunday. I’d called it my semi-retirement job, since I only had to put in thirty-two hours a week in exchange for benefits. The main reason was to provide health insurance for myself and my husband, and I’d promised myself that as soon as he was on Medicare, I was out of there. And I was!

It’s early days for me in this less restricted life. I can go to weekend festivals again. When we take our two-night getaways, they don’t have to be early in the week, when the hotel rates are cheaper but most of the restaurants are closed. I’d enjoyed that for a long time, but now we can book a room somewhere for whatever nights we want to be there, and it’s almost an overdose of freedom.

I’ve heard from many people that once they retired they didn’t know how they ever had time to work. I also know others who went back to work because they didn’t know what to do with themselves. I’m somewhere between the two: I have books to write, columns to compose, creative endeavors that take up several hours of each day. But then? I can’t say. It’s only been a week.

I’ve planned all along to return to work part-time, for the income and socialization. I may not be that fond of the public, but I enjoy the company of my co-workers. And I’ll be paying for my own health insurance for the next year-and-a-half. It’s a costly tradeoff, but worth it. I once read that time is a nonrenewable resource, and I’ve always remembered it. The thing about reaching this age is that you become ever-more aware that your days really are numbered. No one tells you who numbered them or who is counting them down, but you know it’s true. My life partner is on Medicare—both a milestone and a reminder of time’s fleeting nature. I’m collecting Social Security. We’re both in very good health, and I’ve imagined for several years what it would be like to enjoy our lives without me going off to a grocery store job four days a week while he stays incredibly busy in his retirement, because he’s one of those people.

I won’t put too happy a face on my retirement experience because I haven’t lived it long enough for any in-depth review. I’m sleeping later, which is a good and welcome development. I have the time to do all the things I used to put off with the excuse that I just didn’t have enough time! But I’ll be feeling my way around this brave new retirement to see what fits and what doesn’t. And when I go back in to spend a shortened shift slicing deli meat and cheese for people who’ll ask me where I’ve been the past couple months, I will probably have found the perfect balance for me. Old meets new in a life as fulfilling as I’ve always wanted it to be.

Mark McNease is the author of ten novels, two short story collections and six produced plays. He was the co-creator of the Emmy and Telly winning children’s program Into the Outdoors. He currently lives in rural New Jersey with his husband and two cats. He can be found most days at MarkMcNease.com