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Retirement
can be compared to one long vacation. It can be a vacation with
a longtime partner. It can become a time of renewal as the couple
has time to break out of old routines, try new things, and see
the "other" in new ways. It can be a vacation with a
new partner, testing the reality of first impressions, discovering
hidden riches. It might also demand adjusting to unexpected angles
of personality.
What is the secret of those
couples who have made retirement into an eternal vacation
together, and who seem to float like the bride and groom that
frequently appear in Chagall's paintings?
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During retirement, as on vacation, couples
float on a cloud of time. They are free to use their time as they
wish. This freedom can be exhilarating, but it can also be terrifying.
A person has to recreate himself on that
cloud of time. A couple has to recreate their relationship within
that freedom. Thrown together without their work schedules, husband
and wife might get on each other's nerves, pull in different directions.
"Time together points up our differences," one friend
lamented. "I talk. He's quiet. I love to explore new places.
He wants to sit and read. I expand in a new place. He contracts."
Imagine these differences and the irritations they create, stretching
over decades of retirement. What a hell that can be.
What is the secret of those couples who
have made retirement into an eternal vacation together and seem
to float like the bride and groom that frequently appear in Chagall's
paintings? How do they do it? My cousins, Norm and Elayne are
such a charmed couple. They enjoy long walks together. They are
in their early seventies and still like to go dancing. Elayne
is an artist and they regularly frequent museums and concerts
together. They have tracked down small local museums in the area
where they live. As many pensioners, they must live within a fixed
budget, but seem to find inexpensive ways to enjoy themselves."
"Last week," Elayne relates, "we went to a nearby
hotel where there's a great piano player in the lobby. We had
a light meal and listened to him play jazz and some of our old
favorites from the forties and fifties."
They are a living example of the fact that
retirement does not have to be a luxury vacation, a first-class
cruise. It's the ability to celebrate each activity, whether large
or small. It's cultivating a retirement relationship together.
Norm and Elayne have a few good friends. But it is clear that
they are best friends to each other.
"It's all very subjective," says
Elayne, who attributes their happy retirement to the background
of their marriage. "We don't take being together for granted,"
she explains. "Norm worked hard in the early years of our
marriage, building up a gas station and garage business with his
brother. He would go out early in the morning, and often come
home at ten or eleven at night. I was very lonely as a young homemaker
raising our three children, and I'm so grateful that now we have
time together."
Norm and Elayne came from the same background.
In fact, they met through a mutual cousin. Elayne feels that this
contributed to the fact that they can share so many of the same
interests, like nature and art. And it is their involvement in
these areas that makes their retirement so rich. But it didn't
start out that way. Elayne also educated Norm to appreciate art.
She is the quieter, more pensive of the two. He's a warm, good-humored
people person. In order to enjoy the "together" each
one also has to have his/her own space. Elayne does her painting.
Norm is handy, fixing things around the house. And three times
a week, he volunteers to repair medical equipment for an organization
that lends equipment to the sick and disabled. "All the volunteers
love him," says Elayne. "He's the life of the party,
and he's accomplishing something."
Good Retirements and Good Vacations
Don't Just Happen on Their Own
A good retirement, like a good vacation,
doesn't just come about on its own. It has to be planned, structured.
Even lying around on the beach doing nothing has to be planned.
Which beach? When? It is often the women who are the social directors,
planning the couple's activities, as in Elayne and Norm's case.
"For years his basic concern was running the business, and
I organized everything else, including our social life,"
says Elayne, "and this has become the pattern in our retirement."
But how does one avoid the nagging pattern
that often occurs when one member of the family, frequently the
wife, creates the social tenor of the retirement schedule, but
then has to push the husband to join her? The husband remains
passive, both relying on her to organize their lives and resenting
it. Norm and Elayne have avoided this. To some extent, it's because
Norm has come to love Elayne's interests. He wasn't initially
interested in art, but he was interested in Elayne, and wanted
to be involved in her life. Slowly, he came to understand art
and enjoy it. He gave it a chance. To a lesser extent, Elayne
is involved in his volunteering activities and the veterans' group
to which he belongs. But she eagerly listens to the stories he
brings home from his activities.
There's a balance between individuality
and togetherness. And most of all, they don't keep score, who's
doing what for whom. An active retirement assumes good health.
Otherwise, all these vacation joys become increasingly limited.
That doesn't mean that one has to be Health Incorporated. It's
natural that there be some health problems at this age. Norm,
for example, has a heart condition, but it is under control. It
would be foolish to think that, in general, Norm and Elayne float
in a problem-free zone of life. There is no such thing. But their
passionate interests and mutual respect have made their retirement
into a true vacation.
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