Retirement is it what you thought it would be?

I wish I could enjoy it but my time is taken up with caring responsibilities, driving to hospitals, housework, cooking, tidying the garden, shopping etc.

We are away for the weekend but heading home early tomorrow as I have to get my son to chemo at lunchtime. I booked this break months ago when the chemo schedule was sorted. I arranged it so we could stay Monday too but one blip threw it all out.

I imagined long walks on the beach, cycling, eating out, our usual holidays abroad with my husband, meeting friends for coffee but that has all finished. I brought my crochet and a new book for the weekend but haven’t started either! 😥

When I retired, just prior to my 70th birthday - I thought I was well prepared for it. Had attended several courses/lectures.
Tried really hard for a couple of years, but then gave up and it was not working like I had hoped.
When i moved to my flat (150 miles from where I lived previously), at the age of 79 yrs - I decided to give it all second attempt - this time with less advance ideas of what i was hoping for.

Did not work out immediately, as just a few months after the move Covid hit. But once that past I joined my local u3a (very large one with lots of individual groups), volunteered with local library for the summer Reading Challenge (all done sitting down, so suits me). Took on role of Secretary to my own flats voluntary Management Cttee -meant i had to do a crash course in conveyancing law, etc. Joined knit and natter groups, and went onto the local Friends of Museum Committee.

So, now I have so much to do - I wake each day - welcome the fact that I am alive another day, and then work out what i have to do that day. I fell very happy, and useful to others and am really enjoying my life in every way - despite many health problems.

Retirement is wonderful. Peace, freedom and every day is my own.
I've a few hobbies, a home and garden which I love and work hard to keep nice, a car to go out in. I enjoy walks nearly every day, in green spaces when I can.

Living on my own, but blessed with good health despite a chronic sleep problem. Lonely days sometimes, that's life.
Some days aren't great but I have deep gratitude and count my blessings every day.

I meditate, I daydream, I read loads, I lose myself painting, enjoy good TV, enjoy good food, enjoy using my laptop etc. etc.
Seeing a friend or family makes for a wonderful day.

I read health, psychology and philosophy articles, many verses and teachings from the Bible and follow some posters on social media who have taught me a lot too.

I've had a lot of stress, financial pressures, abuse, heartache and painful losses in my life and appreciate the life I have now 100%. I'm 77.

No, not least because Brexit and the pandemic have wreaked havoc on plans! I wanted to take time to travel but DH hadn't stopped being a working man with a career he loved and was good at so the last 10 years have been a process of moving house (now regretted), getting to know each other after a working life of him being in London for 12 hours a day.

We are getting on so well now though and it's been a journey as they say including him getting prostate cancer and my health slowly declining.

OP I have increasing arthritis and I know what a huge difference tai chi and qigong make. If you haven't tried either of these, it might be worth it. They involve slow, calm movement which keeps you going, improves your balance and whole body condition. You have to find the right teacher and a qigong class will often give you the exercise minus the tai chi form which some find difficult to learn.

I recognise loneliness too, it's much harder to make friends, people are busy with their existing set or just don't want to make new friends. Volunteering depends, it might work, U3A are excellent where we are. Take care and good luck.

I was at a conference once where this was discussed. The general feeling was that one must decide to actively do things in order to be happy and to live longer. One suggestion was to look back to your earlier life hobbies and see if you wanted to take one or more of them up again. Another view was learn a language, or revise a foreign language that one once had a smattering or more of. You can also look for and join a local club, whether active (like walking together) or quiet (like a book group). If one has a transmittable skill then see if you can teach others, probably free via some local organisation or other. And finally, as I remember it, it is excellent to volunteer for something, like helping in your local library or charity shop.

Someone once pointed out that volunteering is so good for you one would think the government would make it compulsory...

Few if any felt that going back to paid work in your old job was a great idea, unless one desperately needed the money. Non-paid work usually involved new people and places and this was beneficial and a much better bet.

Me, when I retired I taught computing skills for free for an aged charity, and also relearned French and Chinese which I had done years earlier. In the end and after several years I gave up on all of these. Too old and tired to travel to teach the skills and I finally discovered that with the languages what I learned one day had kind of disappeared the day after, so I stopped the language stuff then. This was maybe two or three years later.

I also joined a book group which made me read a book a month that I otherwise would probably not have found and then enter into the somewhat boozy discussion session about it. I tried to take a walk each day which worked well but eventually it got down to one or two days a week, owing to health problems and my aversion to getting wet when it rained.

Hope that helps.

We love being able to take our time in the mornings now. Whenever DH says we should really get going and do something, I remind him that we’ve had years and years of having to get our three up, fed, dressed and delivered to the school bus a mile away, plus me to work etc etc. Now it’s often midday before we’re really starting on the jobs of the day. But hey, why not?

Witzend, we were the same, I was 64 when our first GD arrived.
babysitting was a joy...

yes, I love not having to get up early, unless I want to. we've been retired fo 20 years now, always had cleaning jobs part time since the children grew up.At the begining I used to feel guilty just getting up later in the mornings...but I soon grew out of that

The first grandchild didn’t arrive until I was 67 - quite a while ago now! - after I’d already been retired for a few years, so I was glad to have the time to help to some extent with childcare.

Dh retired at about the same time, so we really enjoyed being able to go away at very short notice - outside school holiday times! - if we felt like it.

I still enjoy being able to (largely) choose what I do, or don’t do,
and have certainly never felt bored. We still enjoy having the 3 Gdcs to stay for a few days during the school holidays. I don’t think I could cope with very tiny ones for long any more, but except for the fact that they’re all permanently ‘starving’, ours are all now delightfully ‘easy’.

Yes.

I love being retired, the freedom to do as I chose with no real or few deadlines.
Sometimes the pleasures are quite small ones, at other times the chance to do something on the ‘wish list’.

No. I suppose probably because it was pretty much forced upon me, rather than a conscious decision, but I hate it. I seem to have lost so much confidence and 'get up and go'. Now almost every day just seems the same - and unfortunately my deteriorating health means that finding another job or volunteering role isn't really an option.

I'm very happily retired and really enjoy voluntary work. You could volunteer to be a helpline person or to make social phone calls to housebound people. There's quite a call for that.