The Law of Retirement

Dear Old Friend,

I'm pretty sure that my letters to you will now primarily chronicle this new journey I have embarked upon called retirement.  This is actually week one of the “new normal” because immediately after my last day of work I took a road trip to attend my littlest grandson’s first birthday party which was exactly the kind of thing I looked forward to being able to do once I was able to choose what to do with my own time.  So, now that I’m back I decided today was the day to sit down and do some planning, some restructuring, in keeping with my new life.  I came armed with a calendar for a schedule and my plans. 

I had a plan for the daily upkeep of my house; a more detailed plan for sorting through each room and each closet and drawer in each room; a separate plan for attacking the laundry/storage room, which holds all of the accumulated treasures/junk from several generations of my family; a plan for writing; a plan for correspondence; a plan for handling finances; a plan for adding to my finances; a plan for grocery shopping; a plan for cooking; a plan for spending time with friends, which includes social media; a plan for spending time with my husband and extended family; a plan for spending time with God.  The idea was to work out a schedule which included time for all of that stuff, preferably making the things at the end of that list the first things on my schedule. 

Sheesh!  I was overwhelmed before I could start.  Every one of those things is important to me, but seeing them laid out before me as the expectations I had for myself, I immediately felt inadequate and demotivated.  Why? Because they stopped being the things I could hardly wait to do and became The Law of Retirement.

So, sitting at my dining room table with all of my good intentions spread out in front of me, I pondered my abrupt change of attitude.  The first question I asked myself was why I felt the need to make all those plans and put them on a schedule to begin with.  I had some logical reasons.  I wanted to be organized, not haphazard.  I thought I needed an overview of all I wanted to accomplish in order to prioritize and allow time for each of them.  In theory, my plan was to ensure that I would be able to do the fun things as well as the not so enjoyable things.  But, in reality, I discovered that lurking beneath my logic was my need to justify my decision to considerably reduce our income by becoming a stay-at-home retiree; which I recognized immediately as being amazingly similar to my need from decades earlier to justify being a stay-at-home mom.  

In our ‘you-are-what-you-do’ society, retirees don’t count for much.  The first question I got every time I told anyone that I was going to retire was, “What are you going to do?”  At least people know what stay-at-home-moms are going to do, even if some people absurdly view it as a menial unpaid position.  But, what purpose do retirees serve?  What gives our lives value?  We are supposed to have an answer ready which proves our worth and I was determined to have a schedule full!

That line of thinking also seemed an awful lot like the Christianity I grew up with:  Christians expecting other Christians to justify their existence.  ‘Your salvation cost Jesus his life, so what are you going to do in return?’ was the question, and we were supposed to have a ready answer to prove that we were not just freeloading off of Jesus’ grace.  I labored under that burden far too long until, blessedly, I learned that I already had all of the justification I needed in Christ, and that he never asked for or expected me to pay him back for his free gift.  He simply wanted me to live from the position of joy and relief at not having to fulfill some Law of Reimbursement.  And, the clearer and more real that became to me, the freer I was to share that good news with others and to do the things I actually wanted to do.

This brought me back to my Law of Retirement which, as laws always do, was accusing me before I even got started, placing me under its rules and obligations, making me its slave; at least that’s how I felt. So, I decided to apply my freedom in Christ in this situation, too.  I am not going to labor under the burden of trying to prove my worth or justify my existence, and I am pretty sure that the clearer and more real that becomes to me the freer I am going to feel to dive into everything I was going to do all along.

I feel better already!

Love Always,

Bonnie