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A New Year, A New Life
R. Alex Whitlock
The man to the right would be my father. The shirt is new, but the yellow object on the mantle behind him has been around for the last few years. It's called a retirement clock and it counts down until, you guessed it, he retired. It's been interesting watching that thing wind down. While the retirement date been in the works for months now, I'm not sure that I believed it would actually happen until it actually did.
Right now he's en route to California to attend the Rose Bowl or already there or preparing for the trip. I can't remember the schedule exactly. But when he gets back, he will come home to freedom from the shackles of employment, a nice retirement plan, and a laundry list of chores that he's going to start doing since he doesn't have that whole "gainful employment" excuse anymore.
Something is telling me that Mom might be the one coming out a winner here...
Observations
Good to see he has plans. Seems things don't go too well when men retire with just a vague notion of "taking it easy." (Not the same for women, my psych. sister tells me -- apparently, either we're more resilient, or we just can't take it easy!)
Adrianne, what happens to men when they have a vague notion of "taking it easy"? I can think of a few things both physical (lower testosterone) and mental (an attachment of identity to one's job and the loss of that identity), but I wanna make sure we're talking about the same thing before I comment further...
Largely the loss of "I'm an accountant" identity, loss of a clear purpose in life (supporting the family), lack of interests that will provide enough time to fill every day (for some men, they can garden or golf enough to keep occupied, but most retired men, apparently, can't), and tendency to become a couch potato and then go into a decline. Sister's read me the stats on life expectancy for men after retirement, and it's not all that hot. My grandfather's done well for twenty years, though, so there are always exceptions!
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