Retirement IV Post Retirement-blues Re-visited

Eight months ago, I wrote about some of what I was experiencing ten months after retirement. The intervening time has given me more opportunity to reflect on what retirement is after 18 months.

I think, for me, not having an occupation where I had to go out and find customers, or make things to sell to earn a living, or even to be a salesman, probably had its downsides. On one hand, it made life easier. For a physician, there were always more patients. And the government always paid. Unfortunately, health in this imperfect world being what it is, there was no sign of loss of ‘material.’ One never had to advertise one’s services.  The downside perhaps is that what I did was always in a way because someone expected something of me. The demand came from outside; it was external. I had the call, the training and did what I could when called upon, but there a lot of expectations of others’ to meet.

Retirement is different. To a large extent, you have to create your own purpose. That is not something that comes automatically.

To be sure, I have registered for things that do provide somewhat of that external call. They are all voluntary though, and some more so than others. In the latter cases I don’t always have to do what is put out there as a call. There might be others who are willing.

But these things do not occupy my time fully. Those things I looked forward in my pre-retirement days to doing in my new free time once retired, I now find myself struggling with somewhat. Perhaps those pursuits were deemed more precious before because I had little time to do them. I refer to things like art. I have done some drawing. I started on painting. I do spend time while watching or listening to the evening news colouring in adult books I have bought or got as gifts.

I can refer also to music. I have tapes and now even some mp3 versions of my own compositions. However, I always wanted to get the many songs I have written recorded, ideally by a good studio band. Or, I wanted to lay down tracks of guitar, piano and voice, all of which I could do myself, on my electronic keyboard or with a program like Apples’ Garage Band. It hasn’t happened and the older I get I seem to have less interest in doing so.

Then there’s photography. I still take too many pictures, especially when travelling. But that leaves too much work labelling and organizing them after. I do work at it, but with less enthusiasm, as I have begun to accept that all my pictures seldom get viewed, apart from Facebook and the odd e-mail missive, so what’s the use. Until the end of 2014 I pretty much kept up printing photos and placing them in albums to continue my life’s pictorial record. With the onset of the digital camera, and the veritable exponential multiplication of pictures one seems to take with that, most stay on the computer or a backup drive though, and who ever gets to see those? So, what’s the point. I did print off 60 photos and perhaps a few more, to fill one small album for 2015. However, although I have started a folder for 2016, I have not completed that, let alone print anything.

Then there is reading. I do continue to read, fiction and non-fiction, but mostly only for the last minutes before going to sleep – an old habit from when ‘daytime’ reading was kept for work-related print. I read on areas of interest, such as First Nations or Israel-Palestine issues, and the Church.

There is also writing. I thought I would work more on a novel I started years ago, but that has seen little action. I have this blog and my other one, Reflections from Lulu Isle. I have never made a commitment to write in either on any kind of regular basis. However, once when starts on this experiment of blog-writing, a funny thing happens. You discover you have readers. You really don’t know who they are for the most part.  You just see numbers of viewers for your postings, at least on Google’s Blogger. Somehow that makes one think – oh – people are reading. I need to keep it up, the writing that is. So, there is some external reinforcement or call to action there. At the same time, one doesn’t want to write for the sake of writing or one might produce little more than drivel.

Yes, 18 months into retirement, I do find myself wondering a little more often – what should I do now. Is that a sign of post-retirement depression? Sometimes I just don’t feel like doing much at all. Other times I will accomplish something and feel like, well, that’s it for today. I’m done. I suppose it’s a natural development at this stage. Maybe it's a bit seasonal too. In the winter I have been doing more teaching and leading of church small groups etc. and that means studying to prepare. There are church-related committee meetings...

I am realizing that to make my days meaningful still requires discipline, although now it really has to come more form the inside, as no one out there is expecting much any more, or so it seems. Funny thing, my wife never seems to have that problem.  And she often has tasks for me, which I am generally happy to assist with. And hey, she just said, let’s go for that 2-for-1 e-mail coupon McFlurry treat you had [at the newly re-opened McDonald’s at the end of the block]. Hey, there is relief from the blues. Let’s go!