Life Lesson in a Coffee Cup

This morning, in common with many others this time of year, I was feeling rather glum around the various fiscal deadlines that must be met by Christmas.  I have a lot of anxiety around money and practice jam jar economics by robbing Peter to pay Paul, then slyly picking Paul’s pocket to pay Mary. There is a refrain in a Bruce Springstein ballad something along the lines of, “More bills than an honest man can pay”, which hovers in my mind like my own personal Nemesis.

Anyway, taking up my own advice on coping with unemployment, I decided to go to a local café for a barista coffee, which is something of a luxury these days.  Not only did I order my usual flat white, but treated myself to a luscious Tarte Limon as well. There was a brief internal debate about the cost, as I must do with every purchase but frugality crumbled in the face of feeling so utterly dejected over my financial situation.  Life is constantly about choices and this choice was made on the basis that it wouldn’t hurt to have my homemade Basil and Broad Bean Pesto over pasta for a second time this week.

I hadn’t been seated long when a group of ordinary looking women, up to a decade older than myself, sat down at the adjoining tables.  I had seen them in the café before, at the same time of day and guessed they were a walking group by their dress. Yes, they were and called themselves the Silver Sneakers.

I engaged by a couple of them in conversation. I learnt about U3A, (http://www.u3a.net.nz/) and all the courses it offered, and spoke with another member who is about to have a novel published through Amazon and how effective their online self publishing arm is. I told her that I didn’t regard myself as retired for I worked for myself although I had recently taken up volunteer work.  Apparently by doing this I am “transitioning” into retirement, she said.  I had never thought of it that way, though I was conscious when I committed to the training that it would give some structure to my life when I did eventually retire.

I was in awe of their vitality and experience. As one of them accompanied me to the library afterwards, I thought how being engaged in a stimulating life hadn’t stopped for any of these women upon retirement from the paid workforce. I am certain a few of them had had stellar careers. They had no doubt, like myself, found fulfillment in various roles determined by their lives as daughters, wives, mothers and grandmothers but now was the time to fulfill their own expectations.

When people retire there is somehow this idea that the person’s previous life was more valid than their life now; a curiosity to be preserved under a glass dome on a dusty shelf. Something to be seen as a remembrance of a life once lived, but with usefulness to society now over.  Retirement, particularly as portrayed in advertisements for Viagra or retirement villages, is shown as existing in a perpetual sunny, soft-focus haze.  It is shown as a time when one slows down, (though obviously not if one takes Viagra), joins the usual clubs, takes a cruise, prunes the roses or walks along a deserted beach hand and hand with a partner.  Nothing wrong with any of that but I have often wondered if it would be enough for me.  However what I saw this morning told me retirement offers way more. It is up to you.

The outcome of following my intuition and allowing it precedence over my inner Scrooge put me in a frame of mind equal to almost anything.  What I learnt over a cup of coffee was invaluable.  Choose to shatter the glass dome of public perception about older people, leap off the shelf and always wear silver sneakers.