Letting go of the past in a retirement state of mind
Eighteen months ago I left teaching, and since then I’ve thought a lot about the state of ‘‘being retired’’. Despite leaving the profession of my own free will, in the beginning I found retirement a bit like standing on the edge of no-man’s-land, looking at the empty stretch of cratered earth in front of me and wondering how I’d negotiate it.
I’d climbed out of the figurative trench in which the working world, exists but my exit had delivered me to an uncomfortably exposed position.
Teetering on the edge of freedom, I could hear faint cries: ‘‘What about a bit of relieving work?’’ the voices petitioned me. ‘‘Are you interested in some tutoring?’’
Way over on the other side of no-man’s-land, I could just make out the established retirees. They climbed into their motorhomes, tended their immaculate gardens, walked their dogs on Tahunanui Beach, met at River Kitchen for coffee, cycled towards Rabbit Island in their hi-vis vests. They seemed cheerful and resolute, but from where I was standing, I couldn’t be sure.
People often asked: ‘‘And what exciting plans have you made for your retirement?’’
I was tempted to make something up, so I appeared as busy and useful as I presumably was when I was working.
It seemed I must justify my existence by joining a choir, volunteering for the Red Cross, writing the great New Zealand novel, walking from Cape Reinga to Bluff, cycling across America, finishing that patchwork quilt I started in 1982, or any other of a hundred activities that would earn me social approval.
But I didn’t want to do any of those things. When I stopped teaching, I was tired, very tired.
After a while, I began to reply that my plan was to have no plan for at least a year – and this is how I stumbled across the best way to get myself across the uncomfortable space between paid work and retirement.
I gave myself permission to do anything or nothing.
I played snap and big bad wolf with my grandchildren. I listened to good podcasts and watched a lot of bad television. I went for walks or I didn’t. I looked at the garden and made plans I never carried out. I sat on the verandah, watched the lawns grow and listened to the birds. And then I went inside and made another cup of tea.
Eventually, I realised that what I was actually doing was exorcising 30 years of rule by bells: teaching’s daily treadmill of obligation and expectation divided up into 60-minute slots. A relentless routine that allows no time to reflect, let alone stop and smell the roses.
Time stretched out in an almost luxurious manner. It didn’t matter if I didn’t repot my begonias on Monday. I could do it another day. Cleaning the windows would keep, too, probably until next spring, and so would sorting out the linen cupboard.
Now I could choose what I did and when I did it. Sometimes I read for the whole afternoon, losing myself in the lives of Rita Angus and J Paul Getty, re-reading all 12 of Winston Graham’s Poldark novels and Mazo de la Roche’s Jalna series, first read when I was a young teenager and just as satisfying 50 years later.
At times I felt a bit like a criminal. What was I doing selfishly ‘‘wasting’’ all this time? But this long period of unfocused and dilatory behaviour had another serious purpose.
Day by day, I was throwing off the constant, excoriating weight of guilt that all teachers carry: the ever-present knowledge of that long list of things left undone that ought to be done: making phone calls, answering emails, marking homework and assignments, preparing resources, planning, keeping up with research, keeping up with IT, organising classroom displays, and so on and on and on. There is always more a teacher can do.
The job has no limit except that imposed by your skills and your ability to cope. And students, their parents and your managers will not help you impose limits on your efforts; indeed, quite the opposite. No wonder teachers burn out.
After 18 months of retirement, the residual guilt that I’m not doing enough to justify my existence has eased.
I’ve learnt that the planet won’t fall off its axis if I spend an unstructured day doing almost nothing.
At last the world outside that full immersion experience that constitutes the teaching profession is coming back into focus, and it’s a more balanced and much less relentlessly paced place.
I’m not at all sure I’ll be joining those campervanners or hi-vis-wearing cyclists, but the prospects are wide open.
What I was actually doing was exorcising 30 years of rule by bells: teaching’s daily treadmill of obligation and expectation.