Calm down, I tell myself, just calm the fuck down. My retirement eligibility won’t kick in for another eight or nine years, but having made it through more than two-thirds of my working career part of me understands that it’s not too soon to plan that far ahead, particularly when it comes to such a major life-shift. And retirement is something I’ve longed for since the day I first started as a Data Entry Machine Operator in a year that still had titles like ‘Data Entry Machine Operator’. I’ve always joked that I’d retire yesterday if it were a financial possibility, but at this point working has become part of the fabric of my existence, and I’m not entirely sorry that it has become so.
There is noble work that my agency accomplishes, and I’m proud to be part of the HR force that supports everyone doing that important work. Still, I’m starting to feel the earliest tinges of burn-out, and I’ve noticed the slow slump of either age or cynicism that seeps into my walk into the office in the morning. It’s the state worker slump, and no one is immune. In a few years it will be time to retire, so when I was recently afforded some unexpected time alone in Boston, I decided to plunge into what a day in retirement mode might look like.
Part of my retirement plan is to spend more time in Boston during the week, something I don’t get to do right now. It would allow me to simply be in Boston – and by ‘be’ I mean to simply live and exist – without having to jam-pack a billion different things into one wicked tiny weekend. I did that once in my youth, and I’ve missed it. That would also give Andy a break from me when I get a little too extra. (One thing that being home together during the early months of COVID revealed was that we very much appreciate our own alone time.)
Most of the weekends I currently spend in Boston are filled with shopping and eating and the occasional show – and all of those require money. Fine for the visits that happen just a few times during a year, but not something sustainable for retirement purposes. What would I do when the paychecks dwindled and I had nothing but hours to fill? Would I get bored or long for something to do? I set about in the morning to see how it might feel, and how I might navigate or plot out what will hopefully be the rest of my life. As I opened the door and stepped outside, I studied the shadows of the handrail on the steps – this shadow has followed its same trajectory for over a century. I felt myself approaching some sort of realization of the scope of time, then backed quickly away from dwelling on it. This was not the day or the moment to start tackling that kind of philosophical conundrum…
