Category: Preparing for Retirement

Mary’s musings about preparing emotionally for retirement – in the 10 months before I retired.

Time for health

Hello! Glad you are back! I hope you are stirring with our own ideas by now to help make every day, whether in retirement or not, full of joy and purpose!

My trip to Roatan was really an eye-opener to me for my retirement preparation journey. I suppose that is in part because I finally got to start writing these blog entries, so my thoughts began coming clearer and faster. By the way, writing not only your list, but perhaps writing or dictating an actual journal, might be good for you to consider too, to sort out your swirling thoughts! If you don’t like it after a couple of weeks, no worries. What helps me may not be your cup of tea, and that is OK!

But one other thing that was rather eye-opening is related to my health. I am “generally” healthy, and I like to learn about and implement natural methods of health maintenance and healing. But, I know I have a lot more to learn, (and some issues and bad habits to break) and so my list contains learning about essential oils, herbalism, healthy eating, exercising and other health-related topics.

When I arrived in Roatan, I had a large amount of swelling in my right leg. I thought it was just leftover from the plane ride. But on our 3rd full day there, I was walking around and found not only was my leg swollen, but I was having pain in my ankle and foot. As I got back from my walk I thought I would just stop by the nurse’s office, figuring she would have an ace bandage for me for a sprained ankle. As she probed, no evidence of sprain, but she was concerned about the one-leggedness of my swelling. Since I had a small blood clot history, she was concerned, and through a lot of rigamarole, I ended up going to a clinic where the local folks go to get an ultrasound. Not my favorite day of the trip, but I was happy to hear no evidence of a blood clot. I was advised to drink more water, eat a little more protein, but nothing real definitive otherwise.

I decided to really observe my leg and how I felt generally, which I don’t normally have time to do. I largely stayed off of it the next morning – while swelling had gone down overnight, it swelled back up pretty much immediately after I got up. In the afternoon I tried a short walk, and my ankle started hurting again. I wanted to do a tour at the end of the week, and I feared that was out if I couldn’t walk.

Then, I decided to experiment. I am not one to wear flip flops generally, but I had to get some because the sandals I had brought were not working since they were too tight due to the swelling. I decided to try my tennis shoes again and took a walk. Voile! No more ankle pain! Apparently non-support plus holding onto shoes with my toes does not agree with me, causing foot and ankle pain! Swelling was still there, but at least I could walk…and do my tour at the end of the week! All because I had the time, and made it count, to observe my own health and symptoms!

Do you have any health issues, or at least things you would like to improve, that will benefit from mindful observation of yourself? Make sure to put it on your list…and preferably start doing that now as much as you can, even before you retire if you aren’t there yet…so that when you DO retire, it is as healthy as it can be!

Take care, Mary

Time to notice and enjoy things

Hello and so glad you are here!

I hope you read my June 26, 2018 blog because I learned another lesson that stems off of the one I talked about there. That is, while as I said I do need some structure, I am enjoying the ability to stop and notice things! My working life right now is mostly hurry up and get one thing done, and another, and another, with a bunch of interruptions from e-mails, phone calls, meetings and “drive-bys” as I try accomplish the things I need to do. That has created for me a challenging career which has kept me interested for a lot of years, but now I am ready to ratchet down from that. While still in Roatan, as I went out to the gazebo to start writing and walked across the board walk, I looked down at the water and saw at least 5 different kinds of fish! I have looked a bit when I came here before but didn’t see what I saw today! VERY COOL! Now I would finally get to join the divers looking at the fish charts in the dining room to get the names of my discoveries!

I also met a woman who was on her morning “walk-about” as she put it – and after we talked for a couple of minutes, I watched her walk, look, enjoy, and that reinforced my realization that, in spite of my need for a structure, I need to be sure to “look up” or “out” or wherever is beyond my nose, so I don’t miss the wonders around me. I don’t want my structure to be my ultimate purpose, but I want enjoyment of life and appreciation and thankfulness to the Lord who provided it all, to be my purpose!

Everywhere there is nature’s beauty in some form; or people to talk to, or thoughts to ponder, or conversations with God to have. Be sure to include those things in your list…they are what make things worthwhile!

Take care and take time to smell the roses, as they say!
Mary

To have structure, or not, that is the question!

Hello, everyone! I promised something a little lighter this time, so here goes!

As I mentioned earlier, I am writing these initial blogs from Roatan! Dave is a fish, er, uh, a scuba diver! I am, well let’s just say I definitely am NOT! This particular trip is at a resort that is diver centric…the resort has its own boats that go out twice a day, every day, all part of the package! I have to admit when we first arrived, I was a bit disappointed…it isn’t as “posh” as some of the resorts we have been to, and, knowing I would be hanging around entertaining myself while Dave was diving, I kind of wondered what I was to do. Getting out to do other activities is possible, but not quite as accessible as in other places we have been.

However, after a couple of days I melded into the diver lifestyle…not as in actual diving (remember, I do not put my head underwater!), but in the culture of the people here. This isn’t a place people come to impress each other with their cute wetsuits and model figures. These have turned out to be real people, mostly middle- to senior- aged people just having fun (my kind of people – one thing about being close to or in retirement age for many people, I think, is freedom to be yourself and not have to impress or compare…probably another blog topic!). The only younger people are teens who are very polite and well behaved. The staff are all so friendly and there are beautiful spots for me to walk, take my computer, and write, read and research and just watch the beautiful ocean.

But, in spite of all of this, I am finding that while I am definitely enjoying the temporary respite from the stress of my job, and while I love having the time and freedom to read, write, etc. as I want to, I think I need more structure than this. Especially while I am waiting for Dave to come back from his dives, I am trying to make my plan and choose my spot from among many lovely ones (I know, tough problem to have!) to do what I am going to do. Then if I get done or get tired of that activity sooner than I expect, then I am trying to decide “now what?”

So, I think this is God’s way of showing me that I will still need some level of structure at least most of the time when I retire.

I have a few things on my list that I think should help me in this (if you are just joining this blog, please go back and read at least the May 20 and June 1, 2018 blogs (See “Previous posts” link on this site) so you know what “the list” is, because I don’t want you to get lost in that question! LOL!).   Those things I would like to do include:

• Every other week, each of my husband or I will plan for some particular activity for us both to share
• Cooking meals as a joint activity, with each planning some of the meals (perhaps we can even take a cooking class!)
• Exercise plans, including walking and weight work outs at least 3-4 times a week
• Planned Bible study and devotionals both together and individual.

I guess the key to these things is some level of consistency but with lots of room for spontaneity too, individually and as a couple. However, one thing I know I do NOT want is a schedule so full I yearn for the good old days of work!  I want…just enough!

Think about your own needs – do you like total spontaneity every day, or do you expect you will like some structure?

There’s a lot of detail to think about to this retirement preparation thing, isn’t there?!  And, as we talked about in the blog on June 5, 2018, also in planning what we want to do in ALL phases of our life! But it is fun to think about and plan…that is why we are on this journey together!

Have a great day – see you next time!
Mary

More on kids and grandkids

Welcome!

Last time, I talked some about one of my retirement ideas of more purposefully spending time with my daughters and granddaughters.
I wanted to delve into that one a little bit more because I think it is so important. In this day and age of crazy schedules, families going 10 different directions at all points of the day and night, and everyone just trying to make a life and a living, I feel that this connection is essential.

In the craziness of everyday life, we can all tend to feel isolated, afraid to admit uncertainties and outright fear. I remember feeling that way often, even though I did have a fantastic Mom who was always there for me until she passed away when I was 35. I am so glad to be here for my girls and grandgirls and try to be for them what my Mom was for me. I want to be there to listen, offer them hope and perspective from my longer time at this living business. I want to be open to them about my experiences in preparing for, and actual, retirement, both from the financial preparation perspective AND the emotional and expectation perspective, so that hopefully they learn from my positive and negative steps toward that phase in my life, and from all phases of my life.

I know how much I miss my Mom even now, and how much I wish I had more years with her. My family is not extremely long-lived, so I don’t have many expectations of living to 100. Therefore, I can’t be waiting and putting off these opportunities to make sure my daughters and granddaughters know their history and their strengths, hearing some suggestions on handling adversity and just knowing they aren’t alone on the journey. But, definitely to one reader’s point, getting those times together can be tricky, just due to the craziness of life! I think our best bet is to be very intentional and plan ahead as much as possible…even then of course, flexibility will be key!

Today was a little heavier than most blogs…but I felt this was important food for thought. I think it is our responsibility to provide a listening ear along with imparting both the good and bad of our experiences to our children and grandchildren so they can look back when something is going on for them and know that someone understood.

Next time, a little lighter, I promise!
Mary

Purpose with children and grandchildren

Hello again! I am glad you are back!

I thought today I would home in on another “purpose” idea that is big for me as I am sure it is for you if you have children and/or grandchildren; that is, being more engaged with them when I have more time.

We have two adult daughters and two granddaughters, one about to leave her teenage years, and one just entering them. First of all, how in the world did that even happen? LOL! I don’t believe I am old enough to have an almost 20 year old granddaughter…but I digress…(bet some of you wonder this same thing!)

We are lucky to have both of our daughters and granddaughters and son-in-law live close to us. We do see each other every little bit, and I go to my granddaughters’ events as often as I can. I communicate with my daughters at least by e-mail or text every day, and phone calls at least a few times a month. We all get along great, and I now consider my adult daughters to be my best friends. That is such a blessing because well, truth be told, while they were great kids overall, a few years were rough for us…and I am grateful we all came through it with the close relationship we all have with each other!

But, I would like to be able to actually SEE my daughters more often. Together and one-on-one. Family gatherings are wonderful, but it is hard to really talk to any one of them in depth when everyone is all together. They do seek my thoughts on many  situations, and I appreciate that…but actually being together individually will really help to home in on that ability so it isn’t as forced. I feel like I now have a bit more wisdom to impart, but it doesn’t come out well, and doesn’t get perceived well, when it is all a data-dump of ideas all at once. So, I intend to intentionally have more specific face time get togethers with them.

I would like to do the same thing with our granddaughters. Being 6 years apart, the are definitely in different worlds from each other, so again, one-to-one will definitely be more fruitful. I look forward to just hanging out, talking, doing some things together, and helping them to talk through their “stuff” and hopefully being able to learn from my own story. After all, while it is a different world I grew up in, I was a kid and a teenager once! And sometimes us grandparents can have an influence that parents can’t. I want to help support my daughter and son-in-law in their goals for their daughters.

So, my “purpose” will include more intentional relationship growth with both our daughters and granddaughters. Whether your children and/or grandchildren are local to you or not, I encourage you to think of ways to communicate with them regularly, face to face as often as possible, and through text, e-mail, phone and even perhaps Skype in between times. We have a lot of good experiences to share, and we need to pass along our family heritage to them.

So far, this “purpose” thing is looking good, but more ideas are bubbling in my head!

Have a great day!
Mary

Learning about Us

I hope you are enjoying this blogging journey! I welcome your thoughts, questions, feedback, cool ideas you have come up with, any roadblocks you have experienced in getting your notebook list going…or just anything! The fun of these blogs is in the exchange of ideas…everyone’s experience is different, and everyone has valuable input, and I want this to be your journey, too! Please remember, though to be respectful of each other’s thoughts even if you disagree (and to mine too, please!) Thanks, and looking forward to your input.

Today I wanted to begin talking about my need to still have purpose in my retirement. I have always been goal-oriented and I don’t expect that to change just because I am not driving to a job every day. My goal is not just to have time fillers, but to accomplish something for myself, for my husband and me as a couple and for my children and grandchildren, and for my church and friends.

That should keep me busy! Lots of places/ways I want to continue to have purpose!

For today, I want to start homing in on “purpose” for Dave and me as a couple, since I believe this will be very important to pay attention to so we both have a fulfilling retirement. We have spent a lot of years together, but most of them started out each day getting up, getting kids ready to go, getting ourselves ready to go work, coming home, getting dinner together, getting kids to activities and making sure homework was done…etc, etc. You know the drill! Except maybe on vacation weeks, there wasn’t a lot of just time to be together…to talk about US…to realize who “US” was.

When Dave and I are both retired, our schedule will be completely different. Actually, Dave just retired at the end of 2017, so he is working through his own change of circumstances even now. I will talk about that in a later blog. But it is different for me…it is hard for me right now to be the only one who “has to get out” in the morning first thing. Some of the house chores are in flux as we try to figure out what makes sense now. So, our very basic “who are we as a couple” discussions have started, and we have had interesting conversations from the “just retired and figuring it out” perspective, and from the “I can’t wait till it’s my turn” perspective. But, who we are is about more than who does what chore…so I am excited to see where those conversations lead us. Not surprisingly (at least, I hope by this point in our blogging journey together you would expect this), Dave and I getting to know each other more deeply especially in this new and upcoming phase of life, is one thing on my list. It is something I am both excited and perhaps a little nervous about! Excited because I see a richer depth to our relationship. Nervous because change and baring feelings is always a bit nerve-wracking, no matter how close you are to someone!

If you have a spouse, I hope your list includes learning more about each other during this new and exciting period in your lives! If you don’t have a spouse, I hope  your list includes further-developing your closest relationships!

Till next time,
Mary

My WHY

Hello! I hope you have been having fun brainstorming, and adding to, your list of things you want to do when you retire. Remember to not judge anything that pops into your head…go ahead and write it down! You aren’t committed to anything in that notebook….but you never know just what idea(s) will be golden for you!

Today, though, I am going to switch gears away from creating our list, and talk about the reasons why I, at least, realized I NEEDED my list.
As my mindset started to shift into “this is getting real, now…I think this is only about 2 years away!” I was excited! The fact that I expected to retire in less than 2 years at that time, came up in my conversations with people. Some of those people were already retired, and they said “oh that’s exciting!” Some of those people were farther away from that milestone than I was at the time, and they said “oh, that’s great…” with less enthusiasm. As I said last time, I know that is because they were wistfully wishing they could be saying the same! I get it! But then the next question almost inevitably from either of those types of people was, “So, what are you going to do when you retire?”

Wow that was a loaded question for me! Because that is when I realized it wasn’t just that I wasn’t going to be going to a job every day… there was going to be a lot of time to fill up!

So, I usually came up with the lame, standard answers of “travel more, see my grandchildren more…” etc. All worthy goals, but really, I did NOT expect to travel to exotic places every other week and see my children and grandchildren in the weeks in between! I love my children and grandchildren, but I don’t want to wear out my welcome with them by clinging too much, either! I want us all to be excited to see each other when we get together, and not have anyone thinking “here we go again!” LOL!

That is why I realized I wanted better answers to give people to that question “what are you going to do?” I needed to get beyond my brain freeze when I couldn’t come up with those fleeting thoughts I had had over the years, but never wrote down. That meant I had to think about it and take an action to preserve those thoughts and keep on doing that, so that those thoughts were ready for me when it was time to IMPLEMENT!

And now, I am only a few months from that time, so my excitement is REALLY growing now!

I hope my sharing this reason will help you find your reason to brainstorm!

Take care,
Mary

Social Media

Welcome back!! Today I wanted to talk about one specific “to do”, OR perhaps I should say “not to do” from my retirement list. I am talking about social media and other forms of media.

My list says that at least one day a week I will “fast” from social media…in my case, Facebook, as well as online researching or news sites. Ideally, I would like eventually to make that only 2X per week that I DO engage in these online activities. This may or my not be a problem for you, but I can tend to start looking at Facebook and at my e-mails with links to all sorts of news-related articles, and before you know it, I have lost 2-3 hours. I may not have a full schedule when I retire (though I suspect it will fill up faster than I imagine…that is a topic for another blog!), but I don’t want my free time to be all sucked up by being online, linking from one thing to another.

My goal is to keep informed but not feel I have to be “up to the minute” all the time. Unfortunately, much of what is out there online is bad news…and I don’t want that to be what I dwell on when I am trying to have an interesting, active, enjoyable retirement!

So, this short blog is just food for thought for you. I actually don’t think this is a bad goal even if you aren’t retired yet…there is just too much other stuff to do than to fritter away valuable time in cyberspace!

If you disagree, that is A-OK! Remember, this is all about having the freedom to do what YOU want to do!

See you next time…take care!!
Mary

My Revelations!

Hello! I had some revelations this morning! Seriously!

As of today, I am only 4 more months from my expected retirement date. It has been a long road…looking back over 40ish years of working, raising a family, triumphs and tragedies, it is kind of hard to realize this milestone in my life is about to come to fruition. We have worked hard, planned financially and otherwise, and now I am very excited…and, to be honest, a little scared!

As I have communicated these past few months with my manager and team at work and shared plans with family and friends, I realize that, while they see me get ready for this moment and are happy for me, there is some bit of wistfulness about some of those I know…those who have from 1 year up to probably 40 years before they too reach this milestone. I understand that since I have experienced it too when seeing others retire ahead of me.

But, here is what my real revelation this morning was…whether you are 1 year or 40 years away from your own retirement time, NO ONE has to wait till then to do what we have been talking about…that is, everyone could benefit from our “notebook of ideas” we have been talking about, to dream and plan for next week, next year, or whenever, to list things that you want to do! And, I don’t mean just things to do when you retire, but RIGHT NOW!  I realized I needed to tell this to everyone before we proceed too far down the line in this blog, not just those getting ready to retire or retired, but all of us who are living life in EVERY phase!

Life is busy…no revelation there! LOL! But sometimes it gets SO busy, just keeping up with working,  the daily stuff, relationships, meaningfully engaging with family and friends, that we don’t realize we can make time for at least some stuff that we would otherwise think of as only for “when I retire.” WHY? It is fantastic to look ahead to the “golden years” as they are called, but why can’t where we are right NOW be golden, too? I know some things just take more time, so when you retire is ideal BUT not everything you want to do takes so much time that you couldn’t do it NOW if you thought about it and planned for it!

If we don’t think about and plan for the things we are interested in doing, they won’t ever happen, whether that is in our retirement years, OR….right NOW! 

Of course, some of you may never actually “retire” in the typical meaning of the word, whether by choice or by need; or your retirement may look very different from the typical definition (e.g., a second career, your own business, foreign missionary work, or whatever!)  So that makes it even more important not to let time fritter away till there is no more, to make plans for yourself, for your NOW, and also for your typical retirement, your non-traditional  retirement, OR your non-retirement!  There’s no right way to get to this point, but everyone has a NOW we  should make the most of!

So, if you are in your twenties, thirties, sixties or anywhere in between or beyond….I challenge you to think today about the things you would really like to do or accomplish! Get yourself a notebook and brainstorm, just like we have been talking about! Check out my previous blogs to get yourself started.  Goals and plans that don’t get written down don’t happen.

EVERYONE can have fun with this, and if you start now, by the time you retire in whatever form you choose (or don’t retire!), you will be on such a roll with your habit of incorporating plans and goals into your life that your  ongoing future will just be OVERFLOWING with purposeful ideas!

I hope you take this challenge and continue to follow along with all of us on this journey. Even though this blog is called “RETIRE with Joy and Purpose”, it is really “LIVE IN ALL SEASONS with Joy and Purpose”!! We only have one life – be sure to plan now to live it joyfully and purposefully every day!

Take care, Mary

Retirement notebook ideas!

Welcome back! I hope you all got your notebook or other way to record your retirement ideas, and that you got to have an actual brainstorming session with yourself to get it really rolling! Did you have fun? Did you start to feel some excitement? I hope so, because I know I sure did! If not, put it on your schedule – you will be glad you did!

Keep that notebook handy and continue to add to it…now that those wheels are greased, the ideas will continue to flow – no more “up in smoke” ideas for you!

My notebook contained ideas like this blog, as I told you, plus:

• individual topics for blogs
• see my grandkids more and travel more (yes, I did put in those generic ones, too)
• learn more about using essential oils
• research ways to get and stay healthier so that I can really enjoy my retirement
• take some classes I would like to take (and not have to worry about tests and grades if I don’t want to!)
• more in-depth personal Bible Study than I have time for right now
• participate with my husband Dave in his workout routines and ask him to be my personal coach (he loves working out…not my favorite, BUT I know I need to and we are lucky enough to have some equipment at our house, but we could also go to the city recreation center).

And, on and on…I don’t want to make my ideas yours, but I do want to help you realize the freedom to flow from one idea to the other…they don’t have to be connected…and you won’t have to do any or all of these every day! If you change your mind when you actually retire and say, “What was I thinking!?” then toss it! This truly is “your way”!

So continue on with your list…I hope my partial list above gets your creative juices flowing to help you with YOUR list.

ON to more fun stuff next time! Take care!

Mary