By Jo Prouty

Author Jo Prouty retired as an administrative coordinator in the Department of Applied Economics. This article is condensed from a longer essay she wrote for an anthology of “Retirement Stories” published by the UMRA-sponsored Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays (JOIE). Her chronicle of Tasha, “The Love of a Dog,” is available from Amazon.

I remember the first day of retirement when I tossed the alarm clock into the trash. The sense of freedom I felt I had not experienced in many years; no scheduled time to be anywhere and no lists of things to do.

But habits are hard to kick, and before long I began making lists. My husband, Bob, laughed as items on today’s list moved to tomorrow’s list and then the next day’s list. Sometimes items disappeared altogether. I vacillated between needing to get things done and thinking I had forever to do them. Bob loved having a day of seemingly infinite possibilities, and we negotiated the day between my list and his possibilities. It was fun. It reminded me of our first days together, before children and all the responsibilities of being sensible adults.

Days of the week became identified with routines: laundry, groceries, library visits. I’ll be forever grateful to our black Lab, Tasha. Her insistence for exercise took us to state and local parks. We tracked the flowers in bloom and the birds we observed, and birthed a new hobby, which I turned into another form of list-making.

We rode our bikes on local trails and I remember thinking, “It can’t possibly get better than this. It’s 10 in the morning and I’m not at a desk.” The physical exertion felt so good.

Seeing the world from a different perspective

We canoed on a lake and enjoyed seeing the world from a different perspective, drifting quietly along the shore so as not to scare the birds singing in the cattails. After a couple hours of bliss, we paddled back to the dock. I struggled to stand and step out of the canoe. Every muscle screamed. Wow, this was new!

We paid attention to messages our bodies sent. Trips required more planning, and now we needed contingencies. Our tent-camping days ended; I couldn’t sleep on the ground even if I wanted to. 

Not all the changes were physical. Our beloved canine companion died a year into retirement, and accepting her loss was harder than accepting any physical limitations. Finding balance took time: treasuring the arrival of spring and new birth, the never-ending cycle of life. 

One day Bob found that walking the golf course required more energy than he had. We rented a golf cart. Okay, one more adjustment to make. His aortic valve had calcified, and he wasn’t getting ample oxygenated blood. Open-heart surgery was the gold standard for replacing the valve, but he qualified for a new procedure using a catheter through the femoral artery.

On one of the coldest days in January, our son and his girlfriend and Bob and I entered St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester. “See you in a little while,” Bob waved from the gurney as they wheeled him away to surgery.

Three of us left the hospital bereft, carrying only a plastic bag of clothes, seven hours after entering that hospital with a vibrant human being. My life ended; not as his ended, but the life I’d known and the retirement we shared for six years was over. I had to conceive of a different life, an impossible task for many months—or maybe it was years. Retirement alone is nothing like our shared retirement was.

The Chinese have a proverb: Great loss, great gain; small loss, small gain. What have I gained from my great loss? New perspectives, new friends, visits to new places, classes to learn new things, opportunities and experiences I never imagined. I don’t think we should call it “retirement.” I think we should call it “metamorphosis.” It’s a time to transform ourselves, to become our best selves, to contribute, to be an example, even an inspiration, a time to look forward to what’s next.

If you would like to share a first-person account of something related to aging, whether it’s a sobering or a humorous reflection or a snapshot of what you’re doing in retirement, please contact JOIE Editor Kris Bettin at [email protected] or me. —Kristine Mortensen, UMAR News editor, [email protected]