By: Revanche

Thinking about retirement, part 2

October 18, 2022

Continuing on from part 1:

There’s the journey and planning…

This quote from the Fioneer’s interview with 1500Days has stuck with me. This isn’t a new idea, Carl’s been saying this ever since he retired: “FIRE won’t necessarily make you happy, and this was the case for me. My life was better, but not happier.” I bear this in mind as I navigate this whole thing.

I’m not counting on FIRE to make me happy. I have quite a few ways to enjoy my life already. Mainly I’m looking to remove obstacles. Removing fuel from the stress fire to use a very CA analogy. Getting back that 20/30/40+ hours a week and headspace to let me focus on the things I will continue to juggle: our money, our kids, hobbies we don’t spend time on now.

I’m thinking of Jim’s 2016 thoughts on how to transition to early retirement, and how he might have done things differently, and his updated thoughts on the matter in 2021 since he has a second chance at this retirement thing. The main point he raises is one that Tanja’s been talking about for years as well: retire TO something, not just FROM work. I think a lot about the things Tanja writes about – like our holiday plans that will be $$$ if they happen but I’m choosing them anyway because I don’t want to forget and let life pass us by. That’s something I’m very likely to do. I’m also contemplating how a friend was even busier for the 30 years of her retirement doing passion projects than she was during her intense career and I would be surprised if we didn’t have a similar shift to working hard on things that we care about, whether or not it pays money.

Like my friend, I doubt any of our efforts would yield income, that doesn’t happen to be a norm in the kinds of things we are interested in. It’s far more likely that we’ll be spending our own money to support others.

Maggie asked me if I really honestly think we won’t make any money after retirement, and really honestly? I thought we’d work a lot on things we care about and we won’t make money from it. But also really honestly, I’ll want to make money. Not enough to support a whole lifestyle maybe but enough to matter.

Originally this post wasn’t about retirement

I started a draft three years to ask: Where do you find your fun and fulfillment? I was thinking about how some days, it’s hard for me to remember what I did for fun when I could do almost anything, health and money permitting. The kids are holding me back! But so is work. So is my decrepit body that can’t remember the vitality of youth.

Anyway, chatting to Nicole and Maggie about what one might do in retirement made me think more about what I envision long term. Medium term, I have 17 more years of children in the house so if we retire anytime between now and 17 years from now, we still have at least one kid at home. Hawaii Plan gives me an idea of what the latter half of that range might look like as older kids need us less.

In that event, I have days, nay weeks, of short term things to do. My dream is that upon retiring, I’d sleep for a week. Then I’d go to the library, fill a backpack and tote bag full of books, and read for a week. I’d stop only for meals, walking the dog, bathing and getting into bed to read some more. Then sleep for another week. Maybe two.

Then I’d have some sort of routine of reading, binging shows, thinking and writing, grooming and walking the dog, growing more than just one container of food plants, learning to cook more of the delicious foods we get at restaurants now for lack of time (soondobu!). Of course I’d continue my giving projects and maybe pick up something activism related that my body can handle. I’d love to pick up more frugal activities, couponing and maybe even a spot of eBay reselling a la Katy Wolk-Stanley. I enjoy a bit of that but not when I’m extra pressed for time and energy. I’d love a first year something like Purple’s first year of retirement.

PiC wants to do more cooking, outdoor sports, and hiking. Things we already do in a very small measure.

Once the kids are largely out of the daily routine picture, maybe we’d need more. He doesn’t think he needs much more, and if he gets to go outdoors every day and then come home and cook dinner, I guess he’d be right for a while.

The things I loved 25 years ago: eating good food (SO MANY CARBS), playing with dogs and horses, horseback riding, running, hiking, doing other competitive sports, grooming dogs, reading, reading, reading, the occasional glass of wine or beer or a good cocktail.

What I love now: cooking and baking for my family, petting and playing with our dogs (I rarely see horses anymore, so sad), reading through my painsomnia. Writing this blog. Connecting virtually with friends. Some travel when that was possible. Sometimes I still love eating. My relationship with food isn’t the love affair it once was.

My world narrowed so long ago because of my health. Without a pandemic in play, I’m pretty happy!

I once said that there’s a ton more I’d like to take up but can’t for lack of time and money. I wish I’d written them all down at the time I said that just so I could review and see if I still want to plan for them. But since they’re lost to the hazy mists of memory, I’m pondering what kinds of projects would be meaningful.

There are lots of activities I want to do:

– Learn how to sew and knit, just for my own enjoyment and convenience. I’m unlikely to ever do anything serious with it. That’s something I’m practicing being ok with – not needing to justify a hobby as being useful before I’m allowed to enjoy it.
– There’s a chance taking up calligraphy OR just learning to write with fountain pens might make its way into my life. That also would be just for fun.
– Get in good enough shape to get back on a horse regularly.
– Traveling for food experiences. Surely someday in the years ahead, it’ll be safe enough to travel and enjoy delicious food in other countries. I want to hang out with Maggie and Donna in Alaska. I want to go back to Thailand. We must visit Japan and Indonesia for the first time. I have friends in DC I haven’t seen since JB was born. Friends in Pennsylvania we haven’t hung out with since before the pandemic. Friends in Arizona and Louisiana and Tennessee and and and. There are actually a surprising number of places and people I would like to see.
– Learn three languages. Or five. I’ve got a smattering of Spanish and Italian. I’d love to be conversant in both, plus Portuguese (I hear Portugal is expat friendly if it ever comes to that), Japanese, and Mandarin. Also if I ever reach fluency, that opens up even more new worlds of books to read.

These are all just for fun things. I’m divided on how to assess my level of fulfillment with this thinking exercise because I have a worrying habit of equating self worth with productivity. It’s time to flex the muscles of doing things for enjoyment and not only because they can bring in income.

If I keep working at it, I should be able to pinpoint what I want to do for true fulfillment and not just to scratch my codependency (need to rescue or caretake) itch. Fostering kids and dogs may fall into that category but until I know I can handle it in a healthy way, it’ll have to stay at the bottom of the list.

It occurs to me that I should include, for the sake of remembering that it’s part of my list, volunteering with the local CASA chapter if I can handle that in a healthy way. That remains to be seen. In that category, I also want to try to volunteer to be an adult literacy tutor (not sure if I would be any good at this) and volunteer to help refugees settling in the States.

:: What would your plans for retirement or semi-retirement look like?

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