Retirement by the book

A friend recently told me she is thinking about taking the latest retirement incentive but isn't sure what she'd do with herself all day if she didn't have the job to go to. She didn't ask my opinion, but I am claiming Retiree's Privilege to tell her what I think anyway. (Said privilege is like a senior discount that never expires.)


Kiddo, heed my advice: take the incentive and run!


From the vantage point of being blissfully unemployed for almost five years now, I can assure you, you will soon become one of those tiresome people who are so busy after they leave the workforce, they wonder---often at length and vociferously---how they ever found time to hold a job.


Naturally, this takes planning, so get yourself a nice, new day planner, preferably large and leatherbound. (If you hint broadly enough, your staff may give you one as a going-away present.) Enter every single appointment, social engagement, upcoming trip, and holiday you know of for the foreseeable future. See? You're busy already.


Bear in mind, you will still have to pay bills, balance your checkbook, take the car in for service, buy groceries and presents for people's birthdays, mow the lawn, do the laundry, and clean the occasional toilet, so you really won't be doing much thumb-twiddling.


Next, arrange to have a major home-improvement project start on your first Monday of official retirement. A few mornings of rolling out of bed at dawn to move your car so the builder and his helpers can park their trucks in your driveway, making them coffee or iced tea, then cleaning up drywall dust at 5 p.m., may make you wonder whether you really are no longer employed.

Besides, going to Lowe's or Home D to look at paint samples and lighting fixtures will get you out of the house for hours at a time.


Don't forget to enter this information in your day planner.


Before some eagle-eyed acquaintance on the lookout for new volunteer talent for his or her pet organization can snap you and your professional management skills up, choose your own favorite places to help. (For me, it's the public library and a local group that raises funds for an AIDS orphans' school in Kenya; for you, well, only you can answer that one.) Enter all the dates you will be a docent or attending planning meetings or setting up for the fund-raiser in your book.


This will be a built-in defense against the aforementioned eagle-eyed acquaintance---unless, of course, you really want to slave over the grill at the fire department pig roast. At all costs, avoid what a friend calls "right arm syndrome," an affliction in which your right arm goes up automatically when someone asks for volunteers.


Find someplace you want to/have to be at a certain time every weekday morning. It could be on the stationary bike at the gym, on a stool at the counter of the local diner, on your own couch watching CNN, or at your computer reading the New York Times. Put those events in your planner, too; after the first time the guys at the diner or the gals in your yoga class ask where you've been the last few days, you won't have to pencil it in anymore.


Get yourself a bicycle, preferably one with fat tires, one speed, and coaster brakes. The idea isn't to do time trials, wind sprints, or pentathlons; you just need to get out and pedal around the neighborhood for a while. Or, go to the local pool for a swim. Walk the dog. Deadhead the fading tulips. You probably don't need to put these events in your book---unless, of course, you find yourself skipping them because something supposedly more important has come up. Then, you do need to write them down and you need to keep the date!


Finally, every day block out time for yourself to indulge in Guilty Pleasures and enter the times in your book with the notation "GP." For me, the sacrosanct hours are after lunch, when I complete at least one Sunday crossword puzzle or logic problem; in the late afternoon, when I ignore the phone and read until visions of what I plan to have for dinner interfere with the print on the page, and Sunday mornings, when I read the papers till noon. I have been known to watch an HBO movie in the middle of the day.


I like to poke around thrift shops, crafts supplies stores, and the local used book store. In the summer my lunch might be an ice cream cone with a book on the bench outside the Red Caboose. On some days I might have a long lunch with friends---or no lunch at all because I'm too absorbed in what I'm doing.


Don't worry; you'll get the hang of it. As the quotation goes, nobody on their deathbed ever said, "I wish I'd spent more time at the office."