Retirement means different things to different people. Most of us look at our retirement time as an end to our work life, our career path or our chosen vocation. After several decades of holding our noses to grindstones, changing from a vocation to a vacation seems like wonderful idea. No more setting of alarm clocks to wake us up when we would rather sleep.
Throughout the last forty-two years of my life, I have been a wife and mother. While it is true that I have worked outside the home in various jobs, I have never settled into just one career path, except for being a wife and mother; these two things have been the constant of my life and have required me to stretch and grow and change in ways that I never dreamed possible.
I have often marveled at the difference between men and women in regard to how life changes us. For instance, when my husband and I first married, we both worked full-time jobs. Following the marriage, I took on cooking meals, shopping for groceries, doing laundry and keeping a clean house, all while still working a full-time job. My husband continued to work his full-time job and tended to routine yard work, usually once a week. I realized pretty quickly that my life was changing a lot more than his.
Once our children came along, my life changed even more. The guarantee of a full night of sleep was a thing of the past. Caring for babies is a full-time job in itself. Patiently and lovingly caring for an infant and watching that infant grow into a toddler is marvelous thing. Spending time with a toddler as he explores his world under your watchful eye, simply cannot compare with any other job or career path. Teaching and training a child to discover who he is as a person and helping him discover his own talents and abilities is a powerful thing. Now, there are no more diapers to change, no more midnight feedings and no more colicky babies to comfort and rock to sleep. I am retired.
As rewarding and demanding as motherhood can be, we soon discover that once a mother, always a mother. There are no days off, there are no paydays or pay increases, or retirement programs available to us. I worked full-time outside the home for a number of years throughout the growing up years of our two sons. I juggled their school hours as well as possible, and worried about them when my hours and theirs didn’t match up very well. All the time, my husband went to work, depending upon me to do my job at the office and attend to the needs of two small boys. It was how things were done in those days. A man’s work was somehow weightier and a man could not leave his job to go pick up a sick child from school. Mom had to find a way to incorporate things like that into her life while continuing to work. It was never easy, but those days are gone now and I am retired
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When my husband retired from his place of employment in 2008, I considered myself to be retired as well. Both of our sons are grown and our nest is now empty. There are no school bus schedules to monitor and no more prompting of two little boys to finish their homework. School days are behind us and I am retired.
These days, in our retirement, there are many things we no longer must do; but as we have been discovering along this journey, there are also many things we can no longer do simply because of our aging bodies. Oh yes, we feed our bodies healthier foods and even exercise them in order to maintain better stamina and flexibility, yet our bodies are aging and that truth cannot be denied.
My life has made another important change in recent years. My husband has a number of health issues that require special foods and medical care. In my retirement path, I spend even more time in the kitchen preparing foods that are appropriate for his health conditions as well as healthier food choices for both of us. Even so, we have weeks when we seem to spend more time in doctor’s offices than at home. This too, is all a part of retirement.
Life is always changing and we must change with it. Life has its seasons which bring both joys and hardships. My husband and I are fortunate to live close to our two grown sons. They remain the joy of our lives and they are without question our greatest accomplishment. Our relationship with them has changed as well. We respect their time and their privacy while still maintaining a rich relationship with them. Our sons are our greatest treasure on this earth and now that we are retired, we appreciate that fact more and more. The investment of time, energy and finances are all well spent when it comes to rearing children. The career path we have chosen fades away into shadowy memories of the past, but the children and grandchildren we have are living treasures to be enjoyed throughout our lives, especially in our retirement. Yes, we are retired.
Source: Personal Experience