On Retirement

I recall that the first time I ever thought about retirement was somewhere in my late teens. I had just formulated my educational and vocational plans, and I was thinking about where, when, and how I would pursue the adademic career I envisioned. And then it occurred to me: if it all came to pass, and it went as I hoped, then someday it would end. Then what? Retirement, I guess! “Ah, that was far, far in the future. No point in thinking about it now”

So, I thought little about retirement for the next 50 years. Until it came! About 14 years ago! Yes, I have been retired from the University since 2010. I am a 14-year veteran of the retirement game. I’ve had lots of time to pursue it, perfect it, evaluate it, and to mess it up occasionally.

It is my purpose in this essay to explore:

• My retirement plans: Fessing up – I really did think about retirement – especially in the ten years preceding it.
• My actual retirement activities in the last decade and a half.
• How these activities matched – or deviated from – the plans I formulated.
• How it came about that I’ve actually had two retirements, and to explain how they differed dramatically.
• Actually, I’ve had three identifiably distinct stages of retirement, as I will explain.
• The moral of the story: You should think about retirement before it occurs. But expect that it might not go as planned – you need to be open to making some adjustments.

The Plans. As I had hoped, I had a long and successful career in academia. That success was due in no small part to the fact that my educational/vocational plans came to fruition. I managed to earn a PhD in Mathematics from MIT, after which I pursued a university career involving teaching, research, and administration – primarily at the University of Maryland. At the time of my hire, the University (really the State) had in place a remarkable “Defined Benefit” Retirement Plan, in which I was enrolled during my entire career. (Alas, such retirement plans no longer exist – at least not with the robust benefits of the Md state plan.) My plan yielded excellent benefits, even if I retired “early.” In fact, I had put in 41 years when I retired at the age of 67. I was keenly aware of the fruits of the plan, and so I could plot my retirement activities free of worry about needing to work or otherwise supplement my retirement income.

Truth be told, I didn’t think a great deal about what I would do in retirement. It always seemed so far in the future. But as it approached I vaguely, and somewhat incoherently, hatched the following plans: (i) I would continue to teach Mathematics in some fashion; (ii) I would do some “meaningful” volunteer work; (iii) I would substantially increase my involvement in my synagogue; (iv) I would continue my normal exercise activites (involving mainly cycling and swimming); (v) I would develop a web site on which I would post essays (by me) on politics, religion and culture; and (vi) my wife and I would do some travel.

Well in my first retirement, those six plans came to fruition in the following ways:

• I taught one Math course per semester at the University. I also taught college-level math classes to brilliant high school students at one of the County’s magnet schools.
• I volunteered at the Montgomery County Police Department – doing different things from writing the crime reports that appeared in the Washington Post to doing financial tallies for illegal loot accumulated by the MCPD undercover unit.
• I began to read Torah and Haftarah on the Sabbath at my synagogue. (Not so simple for me and requiring many hours of preparation.)
• I did a lot of cycling and swimming.
• I created and maintained a web site com, on which I posted numerous essays on the topics I envisioned.
• My wife’s health was not so great, which forestalled the travel plans.

Overall, I was very busy, engaged in myriad interesting and enjoyable activities. I had little free time, so was not bored and had no time to rue the fact that I was no longer engaged in a profession – one to which I had devoted 43 years of intense and dedicated work. More generally, I had no time – despite some inclination – to spend on ruminating about my life’s achievements, failures, adventures, and progeny.

But, alas, then the roof caved in. Five years after my retirement, my wife of 51 years (my teen heartthrob and the woman with whom I shared a happy home for five decades) suddenly fell gravely ill with pancreatic cancer and then died three months from the date of her diagnosis. I was crushed, depressed, adrift, borderline catatonic. I ceased all my retirement activities and remained in a morose funk – for about two years. I have little memory of what transpired during that period. I’m fairly certain that I didn’t do much of anything except go to the grocery store and stare at too many Netflix screens. I can’t recall a single cogent thought I might have had in that period – in particular, I gave no thought whatsoever to my retirement activities, all of which went into abeyance.

But eventually I came out of the funk and began what I think of as my second retirement. Its main features:

• I no longer taught at the University, but I resumed the high school courses.
• I no longer did any volunteer work.
• I resumed my synagogue activities
• I resumed cycling and swimming. (Actually, I think I continued them during the funk – but I am not sure.)
• I resuscitated the web site, but my heart wasn’t in it, and I posted little.
• I started to do some regular, solo travel – primarily to spend time with relatives and long-established, but out-of-town friends (in Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and Florida).

My days were not nearly as full as they were in my first retirement. How did I fill the extra hours? I spent much more time reading, doing puzzles (jigsaw, crossword and Sudoku), taking long, solitary walks and a lot of time thinking – about my life, my kids and grandkids, my friends, my “story,” and how fate could be cruel. I was not nearly as happy as I was in my first retirement. I spent too many hours alone with my dark thoughts. Was I “clinically depressed? Perhaps. I just know that I had no preparation for the drastic loss of the love of my life.

But then, an amazing thing happened. I met a remarkable woman – also a widower – with whom I was instantly comfortable and compatible, and it didn’t hurt that she was beautful, kind, thoughtful, empathetic and generous. We “courted” for two years. In fact, we have been married for the last 5 years and so now I am very happy and content  in my third retirement — whose components are as follows:

• I am no longer teaching, but I am mentoring several outstanding high school students, as well as one of my new wife’s grandchildren.
• I am no longer biking – my knees are giving me too much trouble to permit that. But I am swimming as much if not more than ever. I also work out with a trainer several times per week.
• I have an incredibly robust social life – my new wife has an amazing roster of long-term, close friends. We do a tremendous amount of socalizing with them.
• The web site is limping along. I post articles occasionally, some joint with my wife – but no politics or culture; mostly autobiographical stuff, like this piece.
• My new wife has no motion sickness problem, and we have been doing a lot of traveling – both domestic and international; including California, the Rockies, Nashville, Ashville, Boston, Cleveland, Anchorage ….and overseas to Israel and Canada.
• We are both active in the synagogue.
• Even more jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, etc.

I also spend a fair amount of time thinking about my life, my family, my friends, my career and colleagues – both the good and the bad – and I feel fortunate to be able to recall so many wonderful and (even not so wonderful) moments in my life a second and third time. I don’t dwell on the past excessively, but I enjoy remembering: beautiful and exciting times spent with my first wife; the births and childhood of my children; how my grandchildren decided, purposefully and in unison, to call me ‘Papa!’; memorable days spent with dear friends – on the tennis court, on trips, celebrating milestones. I am extremely fortunate to have lived a happy, healthy and prosperous life – and it gives me pleasure and fills my time to spend some minutes each day remembering it. That activity was present in my first two retirements – but not nearly as well-developed as in my third. So, if I may, the…

Moral of the Story. (1) Plan your retirement — even if only vaguely or scantily. I have seen too many instances – typified by my own father – of those who have no plan, don’t do anything, and fall quickly into illness, even death.

(2) Be flexible. Sometimes – actually, often — things just don’t work out; or don’t go as planned; or new opportunities arise. Also, don’t let a cataclysmic event, or a new physical disability; or unforeseen behavior or attitude by a close family member or friend, derail your plans. Of course, that’s easy to say; hard to follow through on. But it should be a goal.

(3)  Don’t be consumed by the ‘story of your life.’ Don’t be frustrated by thoughts of “if only I had done such-and-such instead of what I did;” or “Boy it’s a good thing I did that instead of this, or things might not have worked out for me;” or “damn, I never caught a break;” or “if only, if only….” There is no point. Your life was what it was. Both for good and for bad. Revel in the good parts – that’s what you should dwell on in your intimate thoughts that you enjoy in your free moments of retirement.