how to deal with retirement - read, end of a busy-feeling-indispensable phase and moving into a slow-nothing-to-do-hardly-moving-not-so-indispensable-after-all time of life.
The reason for this rumination is that of late I've been coming up against instances of women who are crumbling - allowing themselves to crumble - getting crumbled - because they are either in or about to step into retirement.
It's a total myth when working women, and that includes women who all their lives have run their households, say they are waiting for retirement, or for the next generation to take over. All kinds of plans are made to read, travel, go on pilgrimages, and generally do all the things that one dreamt of doing. And yet, it just doesn't seem to work out like that....often, that is....
What most women come face to face with is that all of a sudden they feel left out - left out of life as it were. Everything she did, is being done by others, quite seamlessly, and merrily; everything that drove her, seems to have disappeared; it doesn't seem necessary anymore, it seems, for anyone to take her opinions/permissions/views......
While the world around her revolves at its usual breakneck speed, she's fallen off into another orbit......and is not required to make the world go round....
And then comes the floundering, and turning to this and that and the other to find something to grasp - even if it's just a straw.
Seeing this happen again and again, and sometimes it's very close, it got me wondering - Why Women?
Could it be that in some crazy, inexplicable, way we link our sense of self-worth and hence self-esteem and well-being to being 'occupied'? Therefore, take away the 'occupation' and we are left with only an empty shell. Could it be that somehow, retirement gets linked to feelings of uselessness or worthlessness and no-one-has-time-for-me-anymore? Could it be that all of a sudden we can't cope with the fact that the kids have flown the nest? Is that it?
I'm learning that no matter what anyone around you says - positive or negative - only we can do something about feeling good about our own selves. I'm also learning that this is something we have to do - non-negotiable, in fact. You don't really need anyone's endorsement or support, though they do help greatly.
Instead of enjoying our hard-won freedom after a life of toil, we crave to be in bondage; we want to feel rushed; we want to be at the center of things...and life's not happening that way....!!!
All that we read about building your girls' support group, learning to step back and take time out when still in harness, picking up a hobby, etcetcetc all go right out of the window when faced with the reality of - 'Don't have to go to work tomorrow', or 'Someone else is running the home' or whatever......
There are many women who have great support from their daughters, sons, husbands, families, and there are those who have no support. In both cases, some hang in there, and make a success out of the new phase, revelling in the change, and some end up feeling completely unable to cope with this change, and go under. For all that we read that we must/should/can take reality checks and strong decisions, fact is there are many of us who find it difficult, but seeing as there's no way out, maybe we really need to make this concerted effort, knowing we are not alone, to learn to accept, delight in and relish the new status quo in which we find ourselves.