The Amber Years

After the recent announcement that our General Manager would be retiring after 18 years of Leadership, I began to marvel at the wonderful feeling of being able to retire to a life of leisure without all of the stress, headaches, striving to meet goals, compromising, reports, figures, crunching numbers, phones ringing off the hook, site visits, business trips, budgets, proposals, contracts, etc…

After 30 years in the Hospitality industry – not to mention representing the same property for 30 years – you begin doing hypnotic things like memorizing every crack in the pavement between your vehicle and the Front Door, learning that the same plant in the breezeway wilts at the same time every week from lack of water, trying to beat the same employee who always takes the last drop of coffee in the break room, anticipating the capricious winds off the ocean, skirting around the talkative client as you rush in before anyone recognizes that you are late, still dressing as you sprint through the door…all while muttering every Monday, Wednesday & Thursday that this thing called “work” is a bit over rated. Tuesdays are not half bad since you endured the harshness of coming off a weekend on Monday and Fridays are acceptable only because the weekend is only 8 hours away.

As I begin to daydream what retirement will be like, I am suddenly stricken with the news that my oldest daughter has been awarded the opportunity to join some honorary college students on a trip to Morocco. Now this news would come as a great surprise to most parents and congratulations would be in order for remaining on the Dean’s list. However, this is not my first rodeo for the studious child to be awarded a trip abroad. After all, it was thru these privileged experiences that she would determine that she wanted to major in International Affairs. My hesitant response to her announcement, instead, was “when”  and most importantly “how much”? You see, these awards don’t come at a cheap price…what they don’t tell you is that you will have to work another 1/2 century to afford one trip abroad.  The award is the “invite”…not an expense paid trip.

THE RETIREMENT VISION:

WEEK 1

1. Sleeping in – My entire life has always been “early to bed, early to rise”, so this may be a difficult habit to break.  We grew up on Government time and temperature. Thermostat was never set lower than 78 in the summer and never higher than 68 in the winter. Furthermore, everyone was up, dressed, teeth brushed and sitting together at the breakfast table by 6AM during the school week and 7AM on the weekends…discussing plans, school & chores for the day. In addition to school & jobs, there were the tiny humans and animals that would awake when Pallas (the rooster) would crow at 4AM and need tending to. Therefore the average waking hour for me has been 5:00 am. In a perfect world, I would/could sleep until sunrise.
2. Have leisure breakfast & coffee at the café table outside with the Homestead animals while admiring the results of the blood & sweat that have gone into my cherished gardens over the years.
3. Schedule Lunch with friend and/or former colleague you have been out of touch with due to hectic work schedule.
4. Take a nap…not simply a 10 minute power nap b/w obligations but 1-2 hours minimum. You know…the kind where you wake up with a drool pool on your pillow. You feel like your whole body is waking up from a coma…not knowing where you are, what day it is, what time it is, whether you are in the past, the present or the future. Worst of all, you get that sudden fear you overslept and missed showing up for work. Yeah, I don’t know what that feels like either but I very possibly felt the very same sensations when it was described to me.
5. Go to the Barn and actually enjoy a leisure ride instead of the routine auto-pilot you have been set on for so long.
6. Have afternoon Tea & Scones to refuel for the dinner and/or movie that you scheduled earlier in the day with a family member or long-lost relative. Save the afternoon cocktail for dinner. You will need to have your wits about you in order to recognize the dinner companion you have not seen in a while.
7. It is Ok to stay out/up past your historical 8PM bedtime and have that extra glass of wine since you do not need to get up at 5AM the next morning.
8. Read or write until sleepy since the earlier 2 hour nap threw your internal clock off kilter.
9. Still awake…no worries…make plans / prepare “to do” list in preparation  for your weekend “glamping” trip with your sisterhood
10. 2AM – Lights out

THE REALITY OF RETIREMENT:

WEEK 2

1. Repeat of week 1
2. Call physician to make certain there is no reason to be concerned that your blood pressure is lower than it has ever been

WEEK 3

1. Repeat of week 1
2. Purchase box hair color to cover your over populated gray hair, as you can no longer afford the leisure visits to the hair salon
3. Realize you and your bathroom are now sporting more of the box color than your hair and set out to find out which household chemical will best remove the color stains

WEEK 4

1. Modify repetition of week 1
2. Revert back to historical sleeping schedule and eliminate 2 hour naps due to weaving heights of havoc on internal clock
3. DIY mani/pedi since salon prices have become a burden on the limited retirement funds
4. Wonder how the nail salon techs stomached the science projects growing under your nails and toenails all these years.
5. Set out to purchase a bottle of nail polish when you discover that every bottle of polish in your cabinet has dried up from non-use over the years

WEEK 5

1. Find an alternate activity for Lunch since all of your retired friends are still asleep during the lunch hour
2. Realize your zoo is growing complacent with your on-going presence…to the point of resenting the revised schedule you are now keeping with them. After all, they had grown quite accustomed to your occasional visits and sporadic bouts of attention.
3. Realize that your children are MIA a lot more now…after all, handouts are not as readily available on a limited fixed income.
4. Discover you can no longer fit into your riding breeches due to weight gain.
5. Order new breeches at least one size larger

WEEK 6

1. Come home to find children left a sign at the front door reading, “Use caution when approaching…retired lady lives here…and she talks a lot to fill her void time”
2. That sudden awareness that reference to vegetable does not apply to the edible.
3. Call a retired friend to inquire whether or not a glass of wine is acceptable at 10 AM
4. Remember that retired friend is still sleeping and hang up
5. Pour that glass of wine anyway
6. Notice that your bald spots have some baby hair growth from not sporting the hair clip at work as stress levels rise
7. Call to cancel dinner/movie plans since you are too inebriated to drive. Decide you will wait until another round of movies come into town anyway…watching the same movies over and over again is getting old. Besides, the other movie goers will appreciate you no longer blurting out the ending as it has become so familiar to you

WEEK 7

1. Realize that all of your passions and hobbies that were once therapeutic have become redundant chores
2. Consider therapy to help ease the anxiety of the “Black Hole” you were once so excited about
3. After checking on your dwindling retirement savings, you cannot justify therapy sessions
4. Call physician instead to see if they can increase your dosage of “happy meds”
5. Cancel weekend glamping trip with the sisterhood because your glamper has two flat tires after roofers patched/repaired a leak on the overextended lifespan of your roof…and left nails in the driveway upon their departure
6. Pour a glass of wine at 9AM
7. Question why your dog scowls at your halitosis. After all why brush your teeth as long as you are in your pj’s and slippers…even if it is 3PM

WEEK 8

1. Get a job. If you are lucky, your former employer may have an opening for a coffee maid since no one can get past the master mind who takes the last of the coffee and fails to put on another pot.
2. Practice putting on makeup again…may take a few attempts before remembering in what order to apply the pore-clogging cakes and powders. If necessary wash face and start over until you reach that ah-ha moment.
3. Shave the forest you have been cultivating on your legs and arm pits for the last 8 weeks
4. Tread your way thru pajamas, slippers and retirement grunge wear to locate  appropriate work attire that will accommodate 20 additional pounds
5. Look for the anonymous hair clip that will inevitably be installed by 8:30 AM
6. Remove all mobile scarecrow stuffing (horse peeps can relate) before entering the office
7. Greet that talkative client with open arms and a warm smile
8. Notice that former employer has installed an automatic watering system for the struggling plant in the breezeway
9. Count two more cracks in the pavement on your route into the work site
10. Detect a mere slight improvement in the food served to the employees for lunch
11. Welcome oldest daughter home from Morocco
12. View trip photos with her and share in her enthusiasm for the experience, concluding that the financial sacrifice was a worthwhile one
13. Agree to schedule orthodontist appointment for youngest child when she claims she has lost her retainer that did not come with a replacement warranty
14. Remove makeup if you recall how
15. Say prayers and count blessings before retiring at 8PM.
16. Turn out lights as you concede that “LIFE IS GOOD”

Although I have been known to say “I simply don’t have time to go work” on numerous occasions and undoubtedly will have NO problem adjusting to retirement, I am truly thankful that I have had my career for 30 years (even if I do come with the building)… and truly blessed to have my family of colleagues and clients. Without them, I would not look forward to going to work day in and day out. They have become a part of who I am and regardless of future change in time and space, they will ALWAYS remain my family.