Retirement?

A few days ago I mentioned two words that I was looking forward to - retirement eligible. Lately, I have been thinking about retirement in general. At one point in my life, when I was much younger and more naive, I looked at that stage in life very differently than I do now. I thought that one got to the magic retirement day, was awarded the proverbial gold watch, and slipped off into a life of relaxation and perhaps travel, and that may be the case for some.


My grandma (the only grandparent who lived long enough for me to get to know) never retired. She was widowed and left alone with three young children, destined to live a life of hardship as she struggled to raise her children in the Great Depression years. She lived in the same tiny house for the remainder of her years and there was never a formal retirement time.

My father never really retired because he was forced to stop working due to illness and the few years he had left after that point were filled with hardship. He had planned all of his life for retirement, carefully saving and planning, but in the end what should have been his "golden years" were not to be.

My mom, a housewife for most of her life, never retired. During the years that she should have been enjoying life with Dad, she was taking care of him and visiting him in hospital.

My own dreams of retirement are most definitely not of a life filled with leisure. In the same way that young people attend post-secondary school for a number of years to prepare them for the life ahead, that's how I'm partly considering my experiences right now. I see writing as something I'll spend a lot of time on in my retirement years, so now I'm taking the time to practice and learn and prepare myself for the day when I can call myself a full-time writer. (Sounds good, doesn't it?!)

Gerry and I also are spending a lot of time talking about what we what those years to look like. We envision a simpler, more self-sustaining lifestyle in a rural location where our children and grandchildren can spend time with us. I've just started reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and I'm vowing that my grandchildren will understand that their vegetables come from farms and gardens not from perfectly manicured displays in a supermarket. I want them to have the opportunity to eat organically grown meat that isn't pumped full of hormones.

The point is that when I say I am looking forward to being retirement-eligible in four years, it's not so I can ride away into the sunset and live a life of leisure. Lord willing, it's so I can begin the next chapter.

Tell me, what does retirement mean to you?

The Power of Memoir

This morning I had something in my mind that I planned to share, but I decided to save that for another day after I came upon the following.

It is an act of courage and personal power to dare to write the truths you hold, to carve a space in the vast realms of time and dive in, using only words as ballast. To enter into memory, to find the body of the child you once were and to dare to listen to him or her–that is courageous, and in this act, new tendrils of self are launched across the abyss from past to present. As we balance on the fine lines of truth, memory, and story, we discover ourselves, we uncover layers that we didn’t know existed. The writing is the key, writing that comes from soul and heart, writing that launches us out from our comfort zone, and into the unknown. There we find wisdom, there we find who we really are.


These words were written by Linda Joy Myers speaking about her newest book The Power of Memoir.  Even if I hadn't read some of Linda's earlier work (Don't Call Me Mother and Becoming Whole) I would be compelled to pick up her newest book just based on this one quote. It inspires me to continue the work on my memoir which is, at times, difficult work.  As I've slogged away on this over the past year I have uncovered new truths about my experience that I had no idea existed before.
I will have the good fortune to meet Linda Joy next week at the Stories From the Heart conference in Austin.  Just one more reason that I'm counting down the days before the conference begins!

Birthday Milestones

Yesterday was my fifty-first birthday.  It was as quiet day, no fuss and no muss, just the way I wanted it.  Gerry bought me a big comfy manager chair for my office, there were birthday greetings from family and friends, and a special piece of turtle cheesecake after dinner, but all-in-all it was a day just like any other. 

My fiftieth birthday was similar in some ways, but it felt significant in that I was crossing over into a new decade.  There was a bit of apprehension as I considered what being fifty meant. Now that I've passed that milestone, I expect that birthdays will be fairly insignificant until I reach the next milestone.

Sixty, you're thinking?  No, fifty-five.  Why?  Two words: retirement eligible.

Conveniences

I'm working at home this morning. I've got some things to do for the upcoming Stories from the Heart conference, some personal paperwork to tend to, research to do, phone calls to make, and of course I'll be working on my book.

It's quiet up here in my office, where the click click of the keys on my keyboard is the only sounds I'm aware of. I just returned from downstairs with a fresh cup of coffee; down there it's not nearly as quiet as it is in my writing sanctuary.

Downstairs the washing machine bumps and grinds through it's cycle (we will never buy that brand of machine again), and the dishwasher hums quietly doing it's own work. From outside I heard the sound of the garbage truck approaching and when I glanced outside I saw all the green bins lined up on the street like silent soldiers standing at attention.

As I thought about how much was happening while I sat upstairs oblivious to the all of the activity, I realized how blessed I am to be living in this particular place at this particular time. A hundred years ago, my grandmother would have done her laundry and dishes much differently than the way that mine is done today and her trash would not have been disposed of quite so easily. A morning spent only on activities dear to her heart would likely have been impossible.

Certainly circumstances are not perfect in the way that we live our lives in 2010, in fact I dream about a simple farm life where I can grow a garden, have a few chickens, and hang my laundry outside in the sunshine. For today though, I'm thankful for the conveniences that allow me time to follow my passion.

All Consuming

It has taken over my life.

The book that I am working on has begun to consume almost every waking moment.  When I wake up in the middle of the night, as I'm prone to do, I find myself thinking about where in the story I am working and where I'm going with it the next day. 

When I'm in the shower in the morning, I am often reflecting a personal truth relating to my adoption experience.  When I'm driving I'm writing (Not physically, heaven forbid!  I'm planning and thinking.)  When I'm taking a walk, I'm writing.  When I'm cooking dinner, I'm writing.  When Gerry tells me he'll be late coming home, my first thought is that I'll have more time for writing.

I'm learning a lot about myself through this process that I started early last year, some of which I will share as time goes by.  My point this morning, is that writing a memoir is not for the faint-of-heart.  For me, it's not a once-a-month Saturday morning activity.  The experience of writing this memoir has become an all consuming task that I am constantly working on.

I hope that the finished product will be something worthy of all of this effort!