ON MANY occasions, the subject of how one felt during the very first day of pasture came up among a few of my tennis buddies who’ve retired from work.
To those not among us, their knee-jerk impression would be to picture the image of us with continuous playtime, under the sun with drinks afterwards until it was time to head home.
A part of that may be true but let’s not forget: playing tennis everyday is not for the weak of knees and retirement age is usually in the 60 to 65 range.
No graceful gazelles these, and definitely not all fun and games anymore.
A late friend, when talking about having a go at it daily, had once said, it was no picnic. “Akala mo lang.” Then when pressed for a translation, he quipped, “My thoughts exactly.”
Quite seriously, beyond the sports we have passion for and anything else, the slowly-rising chug-chug of starting to work, without our knowing it, takes a toll.
Almost immediately after college, for the ordinary workingman, one runs up and undergoes all the varying stages of routine and almost always struggles at the first go.
As the years progress, when the smoke has cleared, one’s older now, building a family, until one eventually finds your tiring frame suddenly attending golden jubilee celebration with former classmates who have accompanied you at the starting gate.
A batchmate once said, there exists a deep-gray haze separating boundless energy during one’s first job and one’s first day of retirement.
Those fuzzy in-betweens, although often captured in photos and deeply imprinted memories, will feel as though they never took place as time goes on.
What’s worse and most often, during one’s first days of retirement, you’ll be asking yourself the first of two life questions: What the hell happened?
More than we know, the daily schedule of a nine-to-five, repeated over a forty-year period (give or take) is not toll-free.
It significantly does something to a person. In a sense, it’s akin to finding oneself suddenly in uncharted territory and you’ve to stop by the roadside and ask the second question, “Where to now?”
There are some whom I know who have acted like they’ve already had it well-planned. The template goal reads: retire in a farm one has saved for, grow warrior chickens, and then live the rest of your life in peace. Sadly for others, life may have had other plans.
It’s not accurate when one says reality bites. It actually takes a chunk and one has to do with leftovers….meaning, not everything goes one’s way and your dreamy peaceful farm existence may turn out to be played in a different pasture environment, such as a retirement home or worse, a hospital bed.
Even as it’s senseless to say back to square one, and start from where we left off, the deep-gray haze, fuzzy in-between or not, let’s all reboot with this carefree thought, “It is what it is.”
After all, what we really have now is a shorter journey. Just take to heart whatever good we’ve learned along the way and then strive to live out a pleasant life.
Finally, as a noble add-on, help others to do the same. Muhammad Ali has been credited to have said: helping others is the rent you pay for the room that you have here on earth.
While it might be a lot of process when we get that ‘retirement-is-a-Saturday’ feeling again, at least you’d have already answered the two questions. Pass your papers, finished or unfinished.
