Dunkirk NY – After all these years of thinking about it and anticipating its arrival, it has finally arrived. As of last Sunday, April 9, 2017, I have completed all the obligations I had left at work. My final show was struck on Sunday, and I had a cast party for the students afterwards. I’ve no further official obligations. While not officially “separated from service”, I am retired. Nothing left to do.
It feels both good and disorienting at the same time. There is a certain suddenness to it all that is disconcerting in some ways. I check my inbox, and while it contains a few emails, none really require any immediate response. Over this past week I went to New York to check on my old college roommate and see how his health is doing, staying on Long Island with my brother, who owns the house we both grew up in. This morning is very pleasant, with a morning temperature of 71°. It’s Easter Sunday, the day of resurrection and new life. I’ve refilled the bird feeder. I do get a sense of starting something new. The thing is, I don’t know what.
I have decided simply to learn to live with that for awhile. Naturally I always get the question, “What are you going to do in retirement?” The answer is I don’t know, but I do know that I am going to take a “gap year” to figure it out and learn to let retirement become my way of life. I also refer to the coming year as my “decompression” year, a time to let the daily pressures of the working world slough off and fade away. I feel that before I can really determine what I might do in retirement, I first have to let my working self go completely. I am giving myself about a year to get that done.
Travel will help, I believe. I currently have four different trips lined up. The first occurs next week, when I head to Puerto Rico to be with my parents for part of their annual vacation. Their anniversary is coming up, and they have been going to PR for maybe the past 10 years. For the first time I can join them! It’ll be a great way to spend a pleasant time with them.
Then over May and June I have a “decompression excursion” planned. I guess you could call it a walkabout. I’m getting in my car and plan to drive to the Florida Keys, which is the only destination I have in mind. Once I see the Keys, I plan to simply drive each day and see where I land up at the end of the day. I love driving, and I’ve planned this to be a couple of months that will give me a sense of freedom. No obligations other than to discover the next place I’m going to be sleeping.
In August I have a quick trip planned with the wife (who will also be retired by then) to see the coming solar eclipse in Grand Island, NE. Why Grand Island? It was the first place I came to that wasn’t raising its rates 300% to spend a few nights there. I was astonished in January to find how hard it was to secure a place to spend a few nights to see the eclipse. Campgrounds, RV parks, motels were all booked. So when I came upon the Grand Island location, which is smack dab in the middle of the eclipse’s path, I grabbed it. I’d better pay attention to lodging on the way back as well.
And then the fall trip in the RV with the wife. We have no definite travel plans as of yet, but I think we are going to criss-cross the eastern half of the country and follow the changing leaves in the fall down to the south. After that, we are thinking of spending the winter in a warm place and exploring the possibility of snowbirding. By this time next year, we should be back home and settled. And that’s as far as I’ve gotten.
And you know, I’m OK with all this. Every time I try and think of what I am actually going to do in retirement, nothing pops up. Yes, I have ideas, but frankly, none of them feel so compelling to me that I have to start them now. Many of them are probably far-fetched. But I will take a year to figure all this out.
My favorite aspect of every show is the strike. It’s the day when the show’s set is destroyed, the lights are stripped, the costumes are either put in storage or sent for cleaning, the stage floor is painted black, and the theatre is returned to neutral. The neutralness of an empty theatre is very exhilarating, as it represents infinite possibility. In an empty theatre, anything is possible. I’ll be spending the next year striking my life, and returning to neutral. Anything is possible. -twl
