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AARP? ARRGHH!
I have tried for many decades to figure out why people retire.
Yep, for years I thought to myself intermittently, “Why would anybody want to retire?”
I equated retirement with indolence, with bored married couples dining at the local cafeteria each night, night after night. And rarely speaking a word to each other.
Retirement meant watching too much TV and grimacing all the while, taking the garbage out a bit too often, and becoming obsessed with small patches of grass that must be trimmed at all cost. I felt that retirement would mean the end of all meaningful brain activity. Ossification would set in and I would find myself slowly becoming something horrible, like a far-right-winger or a Neighborhood Watch captain, walking around the neighborhood in khaki shorts and flip-flops and giving neighbors with noisy dogs the evil eye.
I figured I would wind up watching the ‘hood all the time, waiting for something to complain about, gazing much too much at the Weather Channel and announcing loudly to all who would eventually not listen, the latest weather possibilities, “They say we might get snow next week!”
I pictured retired people as people who had given up the good fight, stopped believing they could change the world, resigned themselves to spending way too much time spoiling grand kids and in so doing, irritating the parents of grand kids. I vowed I would never join AARP. I said I would never wear a bad toupee or say, “The kids these days!”
I even pictured retirees as people who not only had stopped making love but who had ceased even having sex.
My biggest fear was that I would be treated the same way I had inadvertently treated older people much of my younger life. That pudgy little woman with the cane could not have anything interesting to talk about. She had never been young and beautiful and full of dreamy dreams. That comb-over guy wearing the 30-year-old sports jacket had not had
anything new or interesting to say since he bought that sport coat. Those folks who needed assistance in getting over the obstacles we all placed in their way—stairs, curbs, restaurant menus with small print, poorly lit movie aisles—those folks just got in the way sometimes.
I would never be like them! I would take care of myself and make sure I did not get bald or dumpy or out of shape.
Well, you know the end of this story, and you know, in the recesses of your mind, that you will reach the end of this story just like I have.
I have become a Senior Citizen, and if you are lucky (?), you will, too.
Now, I can accept all the hilarious little bad jokes that nature has played on me, my mind, and my body. What I have not been able to adjust to, until recently, is the giving up of projects that might have changed the world.
I have learned that you can do wonderful things as a volunteer, but I have also learned that it is difficult to get other volunteers to do things your way. My rant about this is oft-repeated:
“Volunteers! You cannot discipline them. You cannot make them do anything. But once in a while, they will decide to do something good and you will have to remember to be grateful for what they do. You also have to remember to thank them.”
This should be displayed on plaques in every volunteer organization in the country.
I have learned that I no longer have to strut or try to look younger than I am, because it is perfectly obvious to everybody that I have achieved geezer status. Some of that is kind of nice. True, most younger people look right through me, as if I could not possibly be important to their lives. But some of them, a few, actually realize that I do know stuff and can help them think through things. Those who take the time seem delighted with my company, and I draw hope and ideas and energy from being with them. Something else: I no longer shun older people, because I know that, to them, I am the younger person and can learn something from their added weathering. In turn, they seem to get a kick out of my attentiveness.
So, I guess I have obtained some good from becoming elderly.
There are not too many advantages to getting on up there in years, but there are some nice perks:
1. I am no longer expected to lift heavy objects or fix things or help people move. I do not get dirty looks when I sit down before everybody else. I even feel un-self-conscious enough to quietly excuse myself and go read a book.
2. I can see things in cycles now—something you cannot do when you are young. When you are young and having an anxiety attack, you just know the world is coming to an end and that you will not last the day. But when you are my age and are having your 421st anxiety attack (yes, you will never stop having them!), you suddenly say to yourself, “Hey, I have survived 420 of these…click!…I think I just might survive this one, too!”
3. When you are my age you are no longer suspected of having naughty thoughts, so this frees you up to have all the naughty thoughts you want, and not feel guilty about it.
4. As an S-word Citizen, I can enjoy the impatience and impertinence of younger drivers. It is fun to take my time and watch somebody else’s blood pressure go up for a change. The more that young whippersnapper honks his horn at me, the slower I am going to drive. And he will blame it on my age! Heh, heh, heh.
5. I can also pretend to forget stuff in order to get out of doing things I do not want to do. They think it is because my mind is going. Little do they know that my mind went a long time ago and I am just having fun now.
I am officially a happy old geezer. But I still do not understand why people retire
© 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed