Brace Yourself!

Remember all of that time that is going to free up once you retire? 

Well, I have something to tell you.  It’s not pretty, it may not even be decent, so send the children from the room.  And those of you who are medically prone to light-headedness when gasping deeply – sit down now and brace yourself.

For one word.

Housework.

There, I’ve said it. 

Housework.

While I was gainfully employed on a full-time basis, I employed a cleaning service. 

I live alone in a one bedroom, six-hundred-square-foot condominium. 

And I employed a cleaning service.

Every two weeks, first thing Monday morning (Tuesday morning on long weekends) my cleaning service magically appeared, just like a fairy godmother, and scrubbed my condominium clean to within a hairs’ breath of its existence.  I had only to write a cheque. I luxuriated in the arrangement, for you see – I am the world’s laziest person.

It’s the one character trait of mine of which I am inordinately proud.

That I am inordinately proud of my laziness is not something of which I am inordinately proud, but there you have it.

But we all know from our extensive reading of Greek mythology what goes before the fall.

Pride.

And then the fall.

Retirement.  And a dull thud of a fall it was.

Suddenly, well not all that suddenly, there was no money in the retirement budget for a cleaning service.

And I was somewhat horrified to discover that housework in all of its inconvenient forms, still needs to be done.  Bathroom and kitchen floors still have to be scrubbed.  Mirrors still need to be wiped down.  Carpets need to be vacuumed and absolutely every chacha in absolutely every nook and cranny has to be dusted.

And all on some kind of a regular basis.

And grocery shopping.  Well, that’s a rant for another time. 

And then there’s laundry.  Don’t get me started!

Try inviting friends over for a house cleaning party and you soon discover who your friends really are.  Sure, those friends are more than willing to share a cup of tea or a meal with you.  Pop a loaf of homemade bread into the oven and watch the line-ups start to form on your front porch.  But suggest that it might be fun to get together and tuck in to scrub a toilet or tackle all that grout mold and see who drops who from their calling circle.

So back to my original point. 

All of that time that is going to be freed up once you retire ….

Add housework to your “to-do” list. 

‘Cause housework doesn’t retire once you do.  More’s the pity.

And it’s not any easier or amusing to do housework when you’re retired.  In fact, as time inevitably marches on, housekeeping, even in its most basic form, is actually going to get more physically difficult.  The only bright note – you can do all of your housework in the middle of the week instead of trying to cram everything into a weekend afternoon.  Or on a rainy afternoon.  Or after you’ve been trapped inside for who knows how long during the coldest, snowiest winter Toronto has seen in many a long year!

On the upside, you can “count” housework as an activity accomplished on your daily schedule or to do list.

The downside, guess what you get to count as an “activity accomplished” next week ….. and the week after that …. and the week after that ad naseum.  (And I do mean naseum.)

As a recently retired friend lamented while staring down the business end of a mop, “what happened to all of that free time I was supposed to get when I retired!”

Networking, n (1940) – the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions (Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary)

Remember all of those networking skills you developed and polished during your years of full-time employment?  That annoyingly thick stack of business cards and/or rolodex of names and numbers you collected from all and sundry who dropped into your office?

Well, here’s another tidbit of retirement bad news. 

Don’t throw any of those networking skills or business cards out with the preverbal retirement bathwater. 

‘Cause your gonna be surprised at how much more “networking” you’re going to be doing now that you are retired (or gainfully unemployed as I like to think of it!)

Because remember, retirement isn’t simply ceasing to work full-time.  Heck, retirement isn’t even really retiring.  It’s just changing careers.  And the networking skill set you honed keeping your career moving forward is going to come in equally handy in helping you to keep your retirement career moving forward.

And networking to keep your retirement career moving forward is no different than the networking you did when you had a full-time career.

You just get out there and meet and talk to “industry” folk who have the same interests and motives that you have.

You go to all the industry trade shows and talk to all the industry reps.   You subscribe to all the industry journals.

Only now the “industry” you’re interested in is “retirement” ...

So whenever you go into your local library branch, community centre, etc., you peruse the brochure rack and check the bulletin boards for events and activities.

You regularly check your local parks and rec and local municipal government web sites.

You regularly check the web sites of groups and organizations that interest you.  And keep checking the sites of any industry groups you were involved with.

You subscribe, either by e-mail or by old fashioned postal delivery, to the newsletters published by your local library, your local municipality, the arts and culture groups in your area, the sports and recreation organizations in your neighbourhood.

You read the “upcoming events” calendar in the local newspaper (in my case, The Mississauga News).

And you’ve been keeping in touch, if only occasionally, with friends and former work mates, either retired or still working full-time.

And then, when you eventually find an event or group or activity that interests you …

... you do what you always did when you met new people in the same line of work as you.  You shake a few hands and start talking shop!  Basically, “what’s there for a nice retiree like me to do in a place like this?”

Trust me on this, read a few newsletters, peruse a few brochures and bulletin boards, meet a few new people and you will be amazed to discover exactly what goes on in your neighbourhood at two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon! It’s positively indecent!