Choices, choices!

It’s been longer than I’d like to admit since I wrote on my blog. We are all creatures of habit, and once we establish a habit or get out of a habit, it’s very hard to break a pattern, wouldn’t you agree?

In August, I went back to work part-time. I am teaching two sections of French at the local university. With the number of hours I am required to be on campus plus the number of hours I spend in preparation for class, I no longer have the luxury of long expanses of time in which to ruminate, cogitate, reflect and write on what it means to be a retiree. I miss that luxury, but I keep telling myself that this is only a brief return to the world of work, and that soon enough, I will be back to my preferred schedule which means lots of time to read and write and study the craft of writing.

The subject of this blog is retirement. For more and more of us, not only is the retirement age moving upward, but the desire and / or need to increase our monthly income is causing us to wonder if we shouldn’t work a few more years, add a few more dollars to our social security benefits and save a few more dollars for our inevitable retirement home expenses.

I was offered a position that I thought I could handle without too much stress. In fact, it has been a pleasure to return to the classroom. I get a real kick out of teaching French and of seeing the light bulb go on when a student experiences an “aha” moment, and of also seeing them find out what fun it is to express oneself in another language. Recently, the lesson focused on expressions of surprise or disappointment. I loved it when they wanted to keep repeating idiomatic expressions such as “chapeau!” or “mince!” Literally, “chapeau” means “hat” and “mince” means “thin.” This led us into a great discussion of word origins and colloquial language, one of the many hidden benefits and joys of language study.

Another anecdote about going back to work. I haven't been in the classroom for a few years and having easy access to instructional technology has been both fun and a challenge. My students laugh at me (lovingly, I think) when I accidentally use words like "typewriter" instead of "keyboard" or when I can't find the correct drop-down menu to change the size of the screen we are viewing. I tell them it's just another example of "life-long learning."

I am definitely getting rewards, both tangible and intangible, for this decision to go back to work, but I am also very aware of the things I am giving up-- one more example of how everything in life boils down to choices. Choosing to do one thing means you are choosing to not do something else. I take decisions and choices very seriously. When I was young, I just went where life led me, taking whatever opportunities popped up for me. In my adult life, I have probably been too serious about this issue of making choices. I want to live my life deliberately and to know that for every decision I make, I have good justification. The gifts of life and time are too precious to squander. I have friends who get annoyed at my seriousness of purpose. I even annoy myself sometimes.

In reality, life is a combination of choices and just plain old-fashioned luck—whether it be of the good or bad kind. No matter how hard we try to make good decisions, we can never fully see into the future and some of our best decisions can turn out to be our worst mistakes. But, we take these events and learn from them. Right?

Going Back to Work Redux

Newsflash! Breaking news! Margaret is considering going back to work!

Well, it’s only for six hours a week—but it’s teaching—and we all know that for every six hours of teaching, it is necessary to put in at least double the number of hours for preparation and grading of papers. Add in the mandatory office hours and we have roughly the equivalent of a half time job—20 hours a week, at the minimum.

Some of you may be thinking to yourself right now, didn’t she say in an earlier posting that she would never go back to the work environment? Isn’t this the lady who preaches ad nauseum about finding out what makes you really happy and then doing it? Is this the same person who says “indulge yourself, you’ve earned it!” In my posting in March on the topic of returning to work, written after a brief three-week assignment in the public schools, I wrote the following:

“ . . .I wouldn't trade my retirement for anything.”

I also wrote, “. . . if you are considering a return to the work environment, I encourage you to think long and hard about your long term goals and the pro’s and con’s of giving up what you now have as a retiree.”

I have not changed my mind about what I said then. I wouldn’t trade my retirement for anything. And I have carefully examined the pro's and con's of giving up the lovely wide-open schedule that I am now enjoying.

First, the con's. Throughout these first two years of my retirement, I have embraced the joys of being the master of my own schedule and the thrill of spending a day doing nothing more challenging than doing some writing or reading, watching a classic movie on TCM and mowing the grass, if that’s what I chose. If some of the time was wasted, I figured that I had earned the right to do so. Nothing has made me happier than being able to wear jeans / shorts and a tee-shirt every day of the week. With this decision to return to a part-time teaching job, I will now have a schedule to adhere to. I won't be free to attend every lecture of the Elder Study Program that I have joined at the university. I will have to be more deliberate in planning times to go to the Y to get in my work-outs or walks with my girlfriends. I have thanked God every day for this two year respite from the pressures and stress of my full-time job. But now, I'm ready to take on the obligations of a slightly more rigid schedule because of the benefits that I see accompanying it. And, right now, it's only for one semester. If I don't like it, I won't do it the second semester. It's not a life or death decision. I like to think of it more as an “experiment in living.” This time last year I would not have been ready to take on this commitment. But now, I’m ready.

My primary goal in retirement has been to practice the craft of writing. Along with my regular monthly activities such as reading clubs, church dinners for the homeless, and writing club, and my daily tasks such as gardening and exercise, the time required for teaching will definitely cut into my writing time. But in a paradoxical sort of way, it is possible that taking this time away from writing just might give me more of a sense of urgency and might make me apply myself a bit harder to my writing projects. I will explain this more later.

The positive reasons for accepting this challenge are varied. I always loved teaching French. What I didn’t love were the bureaucratic hassles and all the non-instructionally-oriented paper work associated with the job. As an adjunct in a university, I think those two areas should be minimal to non-existent.

In regard to my writing, how can this job be a positive? Truthfully, I have been disappointed in myself in the amount of writing that I have produced this year. In order to write well, one needs to spend time writing every day. Picture me and the computer and my imagination sitting together multiple hours every day. This is a rewarding but solitary way to spend a life. However, it is also true that writers need a rich variety of life experiences to provide ideas and inspiration for writing. This solitary vs. engaged lifestyle dilemma is one of the great contradictions of the writing vocation. Engagement is the juice which powers our writing--the energy source which fuels our production. This week, for example, I am super- charged and full of ideas for blog postings and for stories. I can’t help but wonder if it is because I just spent a very hectic two weeks helping to plan activities and entertain 60 French people who are visiting my town? Was it the break from writing that is giving me renewed energy?

And, of course, there is always the issue of money. On my retirement pension, I have plenty of money to meet my daily needs and obligations. However, if I want to have my twenty-year-old wing-back chairs re-upholstered (which I am doing this month) or buy new furniture for the screened-in back porch (which I did in June) or take a nice trip (which I hope to do in the near future)—all of these diversions require that I supplement my income.

Can life in the world of higher education be any harder or more frustrating than the world of public education K-12? I’ll let you know as the semester progresses how I feel about this decision.

Going Back To Work: Things I Learned

Today, many of our fellow boomers have different approaches to the idea of "work" after retirement. One of my dearest friends has decided that she wants to stay in the field that she worked in actively for 35 years, but now she wants to use her expertise by working as a free-lance consultant. Others I know retire from their jobs, only to start off in another whole new direction by taking on work that is radically different from their earlier chosen vocations. When I retired, I felt the need to leave behind that particular world of work that had been my life-long passion in order to have an opportunity to pursue what some might call less "serious" pursuits and to develop areas of knowledge that remained uncultivated for many years.

I did go back to work for about three weeks this winter. My motivations for doing this were to help out my former employer and also to make a little extra cash that might be used either to help finance a trip that I otherwise couldn’t afford or to pay for the unexpected costs of an emergency home repair, i.e., digging up a portion of my front yard to replace a sewage pipe that had become clogged with roots and that caused my washing machine to back up and flood my basement. Isn’t there always something or someone waiting to help us spend our money?

My obligation to work was only for about 13 days plus one half day of training and so, even though I had a perfectly dreadful time getting out of bed at 5:30 a.m., I knew that this was only temporary and therefore, I could stand it. However, I was more than a little surprised to find out how totally exhausted I was the first day back to work, working all day, non-stop for seven hours. I guess that tells me something about my new “cushy” lifestyle as a retiree, doesn’t it? I came home that first day and literally crashed. My mind and my feet were numb and I was totally unable to focus on anything more demanding than removing my shoes and my clothes and sliding into my soft, warm, welcoming bed.

Eventually, as the days progressed, I was able to leave work and still accomplish personal tasks such as doing some grocery shopping or going out with friends for dinner. In other words, my body did re-adapt to the work environment. And I did earn about $1,600 that will come in handy in accomplishing those home repairs and / or travel plans that I mentioned earlier.

Beyond the financial rewards, the more interesting aspect of my return to work is the observation I made of less concrete but equally noteworthy positive outcomes. The first thing I can say is that my brief sojourn back in the work world definitely validated my decision to retire in June 2008. I am so much happier since the burdens of work-related responsibilities have been lifted from my shoulders. The freedom afforded by retirement is one of the greatest gifts I have ever earned and something I have frequently spoken about in this blog. Yes, I definitely enjoyed seeing some of my former colleagues and reconnecting with them on a social level. It was comforting to share in the joy of new babies that had been born as well as in the grief of the loss of family members. We were a team in many ways and I liked the feeling of being a part of a team that is working to make a difference. Retirement is a much more solitary lifestyle. However, I knew immediately that I no longer belonged there in an administrative or supervisory capacity. That was simply too taxing and I felt like I’d been there—done that! What I did enjoy most was the one-on-one contact with the students with whom I was working and the satisfaction of helping them to perform academically. This was a very positive validation of my 34-year career in education and a reminder of the good fortune I had to spend my life working in a profession that I loved.


I'm sure that I will go back again next year and put in my three weeks' worth of work (if they still want me); it was satisfying and engaging. But for the remaining 11 1/4 months of the year, I wouldn't trade my retirement for anything.


In closing, if you are considering a return to the work environment, I encourage you to think long and hard about your long term goals and the pro’s and con’s of giving up what you now have as a retiree. Share your thoughts and experiences with me and other blog readers if you desire.