I read a lovely article by the woman who wrote Marigold Hotel…she was trying to find volunteers among the retired for something in the village where she lives and couldn’t find a single soul…the retired were all off riding motorcycles across Pakistan and hiking in Wales. It was really to highlight the way boomers, that’s me, were handling retirement…pretty much the way they handled their lives…and I’m going to say their early lives, because the in between bit, if I’m any example, was filled with responsible (ish) parenting and career building.
I remember when I went to Europe as a 19 year old. I had my first giddy taste of real freedom…albeit, on my father’s dime...Wiring him for money when I ran out was actually kind of liberating too, now that I think of it. The freedom, as I think of it, was experiencing myself within the world without reference to the others who defined me: my parents, my friends, the school I went to, and so on. Suddenly I was alone and without familiar guideposts, feeling my own edges, pushing them out, finding limits that would only be defined by me and my good sense. My heart was huge and full of sunshine. No…it wasn’t the drugs…I never could see a percentage in being out of control, so I gave them up right after the first time I did them and found I could see my own words coming out of my mouth like dialogue bubbles.
Now, when I travel alone, as I did one summer to Bulgaria when I was in my late 40s, I sometimes feel that same sense of heady re-discovery of finding out who I am outside my relationships. In real life, by necessity one pulls in, accommodates, makes room for the others…the balance of happiness seems to be in accommodating just enough to allow the other person some room on the bed, without ending up clinging to the edge. Even now I am far more likely to ask, “what do you want for supper?” than to think about what I might want. When I travel on my own I have to really think about what I want. Soft ice cream followed by a stiff drink at the hotel bar? Why not?
So how is this related to retirement? I have been deeply defined by my job. Though I have won two major awards as a Principal, one national and one local, I can scarcely recognize that person as the essential, soft ice cream eating me. I never did anything to excel, I just went along, and was startled every time I ended up with an opinion about something. Others called that ‘leadership’. Without work, without awards, what will I be? Will I be able to even lead myself?
I’m hoping it will be like being a teenager again, a reprise on self discovery of my essential self. Will I tell my husband to piss off, we’re having a cocktail and crackers with Nutella, and if he wants something else he can pop round to the pizza place? In a way, I hope so. With any luck I’ll be too busy re building a 1932 roadster like Nancy Drew’s to cook for him anyway. I’d like to drive it on small, little-used asphalt highways through the Midwest and South. He can come if he wants. There will be room in the rumble seat for one extra small bag, but we’re not camping, and I’m eating whatever I want.
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