Retirement, the rest, the hobbies, the pink fluffy bathrobes....the myth...

I didn’t really have a visceral sense of what ‘retirement’ actually means till a couple of weeks ago when I was at my local community center gym asking for an appointment to be shown what all the machines do.  Their resemblance to the machines of torture on display in the dungeons of the Tower of London required, I felt, some explanation.  “Can you come at 2:30 on Monday?” I hesitated and then it came upon me in a flood…of course I can!  I can be anywhere I want in the middle of the day…I don’t work!

How is it, then, that not two days later, I found myself standing in the 6 am winter obscurity of my room, drawers open, socks pouring out, rejected tops piled on the floor, trying to remember how to assemble a work-day outfit? And why do I not have two socks of any colour that match?  Why do all my tights have runs?  I thought I threw those all away when I retired, but here they are, taunting me like they did every day of my working life.   How had I put together a new and stunning outfit day in and day out, when now nothing seems to match, even if I pretend to be a cutting edge fashionista  from one of those issues of Vogue given over to ‘beauty at any age’? (those issues, by the way, always stop at 60 unless you’re a countess.) 

Because I jammed out, dear reader.  I have let the side down, I have gone back.  To be honest, I always assumed I might do some little odd jobs for the educational monolith that used to be my keeper and paymaster.  When I still worked for them I noticed that retired Principals were being dusted off and propped up against a desk from time to time.  They did a little recruitment for HR or led little workshops in which their object was to provide wisdom to Principals to do their job better, or helped out when some Principal broke a leg. 

      When I still worked I used to see these people and say to myself, “really? What can you tell me? I’m on the battlefield every day.  You probably sit around in a pink fluffy bathrobe till 11, drinking coffee and deciding if your program for the day should include going to the gym or tidying your sock drawer.”

And now, here I am; I’ve been cleaned up and put back into circulation.  Limited circulation to be sure, but the point is I have to be dressed and on my way into the perils of the dark winter morning before 7:30.  And how did this happen to me?  I got a very nice email from someone in HR congratulating me on my retirement, and saying how nice it must be to go to lunch any time I want, and then asking if I wouldn’t mind doing a teensy weensy job that would just take 3, maximum 4 days.  Of course I had just bought myself the brand new Iphone 6, with the stunning and extremely fashionable red cover, and hadn’t fully given myself over as yet to the problem of how I would pay for it, so this seemed like a brilliant solution.  What I asked, were 3 or 4 days in the grand scheme of things? 

I was shown by an HR functionary to the minute windowless room full of cardboard boxes that was to be my little office for the duration, with an apology about its size and lack of oxygen.  “Oh,” I said breezily, “I’ll be fine for the 3 or 4 days it will take me to do this.” 

    “3 or 4 days? Is that what they told you? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”  I could hear her later going up the length of the office saying, “guess what they told her??” to gales of laughter from each cubicle she passed.

    So here I am, and it’s terrifying how familiar it all is.  I mean it has none of the glamour that my job as a Principal had, but it’s work, and it takes 9 hours a day, and weekends have gone back to being busy planning days for the week with shopping lists and complete meals neatly written out on calendars.  Wait, I’m kidding, I never planned a meal ahead of time in my life.   But you know what I mean.  Frantic visits to the bank and library on Saturday, because I can’t go on Wednesday morning after all.  And it’s not like I don’t have things to do; the last revisions of my book are due, my underwear drawer is emptied on to the floor and yet to be sorted, and my fluffy pink bathrobe looks at me reproachfully every time I cast it aside in my hurry to get ready for work.  And worse than anything, I’m beginning to hear a sucking, quick sand-type  sound when I greet people at the office in the morning.  It sounds like this, “Good God, are you back?  I have a little 2 day job I just can’t get to.  Maybe when you get that one done….”