This is a bit of a reflective post and may not be of interest to anyone else but I wanted to get it out of my head and onto paper so I won't keep worrying about it.
My husband and I have differing views on retirement. Both come from our upbringing. My husband's family had a lot of farmer's in it. To his mind you work until you drop dead as did many of his ancestor's. My husband never went into farming but he has had several businesses over they years. When we moved here 15 years ago there was a lot to do to reclaim the land etc. and although we have dabbled in enterprises our main focus was on our place.
My family all worked in paid employment for a living where they worked until you were 65 then retired and enjoyed what was left of their life. I always had paid employment, never my own business except I did used to prepare tax returns for payment in tax season on top of being employed. When we moved here I worked for about a year then retired. I was 56.
My husband was first diagnosed with heart problems shortly after moving here, he was 60 and had 3 stents placed to open up his blocked arteries. He had already been diagnosed with central and obstructive sleep apnea and neuropathy and after that he was diagnosed with auto immune disease and diabetes. He had two of the stents clog up again and was restented then had another stent inserted. He got sepsis and recovered. Now over the past couple of years these other heart issues have manifested.
All in all, he is not a well man. But will he retire as such.......No! Even though he can not do much physically he is writing books to self publish in a bid to make some money. He has written books before but never published them, some of them are in manuscript form and some are on floppy discs which we may never be able to recover.
I help as much as I can by reading and reviewing and some editing but he is doing most of it.
For me, taking care of him, the dog and the house takes up pretty much most of my time and I have no will to try and earn money on top of that. We eke out our money, pay all our bills and eat pretty well. Actually, keeping my husband fed is almost a full time job. 😀 For all his illnesses he rarely loses his appetite. He likes his three meals a day and usually two of them are cooked.
I doubt he will ever stop trying to earn money or work on fixing the place up and I worry that he will be like many of his ancestors and work until he drops dead. He is 75 now and as such doesn't have a lifetime left but will he ever retire? I doubt it.
I like making things!
Interesting post. Maybe publishing his books has been something he's wanted to do and writing them and publishing might be a bonus of being retired. Making a little extra money is always nice. I think it's always good to have something that keeps you going. My opinion is that retirement means different things to different people. I personally think it gives you time to do a little more of what you want to do and not what is expected of you.
ReplyDeleteYes, that seems logical, he is doing what he is capable of doing in his limited capacity right now because he wants to.
DeleteRetirement is a funny old thing, I have found. I find most of my days are pretty full still and I wonder (like everyone else) how I ever found the time to work, but nowadays it's the simpler things of life. My home has never been in better order (it's not perfect but it's an awful lot better than it used to be), I'm now doing things I choose to do, often when I choose to do them, instead of teaching pressures governing all my waking hours and the stress levels, formerly hitting the sky, are now manageably low. I still tutor a little bit and enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he gets strength from his writing and satisfaction from doing the place up? I guess we all have to do something; life doesn't stop with the monthly salary!
It sounds like you both still have pretty busy lives within certain restrictions and, I should think, find it pretty satisfying too. That's lovely.
xx
That is my idea of retirement too, you sum it up very well. My post wasn't a criticism of him just a comparison of our thought processes and my concern that he will overdo it.
DeleteMaybe try looking at his writing as a hobby instead of work it might make you feel a little better.
ReplyDeleteMy husband, bless him, doesn't do anything in small doses, he goes all out. Today he wanted to re-organise his studio and my sewing room so he could have extra workspace for his manuscripts etc. This involved taking down a bed, moving it downstairs and moving a whole lot of other stuff around. Neither of us should have been doing that, but we did it anyway. It is a bit of a win for me as I wanted the bed back out of my sewing room and I am happy to relinquish the big table to him......for now lol. I still have my desk in there and sewing tables to work on. The table was great for cutting out patterns etc. but not planning on doing any of that until I know whether we are moving or staying. So we are both happy campers today if not a bit worn out.
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