Friedman: Life after retirement can be rewarding
I was nervous. Make that terrified.
When my husband announced his intention to retire 19 years ago, after a long and fulfilling career in law, I wondered, “What now?” After all, we were a two-career couple for three decades and it had worked quite well.
To some extent we both felt defined by what we did out there. I was a freelance writer. My husband had his law practice, and then his years as a Superior Court judge. Both careers brought us enormous satisfaction. But one career was about to end.
There were plenty of sleepless nights. I pondered how it would feel for me to wake up to the pleasures, pressures, and perils of life as a working journalist while Vic woke up to—what? That’s where I was stumped.
What would he do? How would he spend the long days that were once filled with meaningful, important work?
If you like your endings at the beginning, I can tell you that this one is a modified happily-ever-after. We have finally almost figured it out. We’ve adjusted, as we knew we must, to a whole new chapter in our lives and our marriage. It hasn’t been easy. But like most challenges, it’s been worth the effort.
When Vic announced to me shortly after his official retirement that he was planning to take a sculpture course, my immediate reaction was that my dear husband had come unglued. Never once, in our long years of marriage, had he expressed an interest in sculpting. Never once had he gone to a sculpture exhibit. Yet here it was. A pronouncement that seemed well thought-out and even researched. He found a class at our local arts center and he enrolled.
Who knew that the man I married when I was barely out of college and thought I knew so well by now, would turn out to have some sculpting talent? Who knew that he would trudge to his studio class in fair weather and foul to stand on his feet and mold clay for hours on end?
It was a lovely, soul-stirring surprise for both of us. And there would be more of them.
My husband began studying course catalogues from local colleges almost as soon as he put away his judicial robes. But I honestly didn’t think he’d do much more than survey those catalogues.
Surprise number two at a stage when he could have been just smelling the roses, Vic was driving in rush hour traffic to the University of Pennsylvania, where he enrolled in undergraduate classes in a special program for seniors. He took history courses the first semester, then went on to anthropology, Judaic studies, folklore, and to my astonishment, women’s studies courses. And this man, who had been glued to a chair most of his life then joined a gym. Yikes!
Retirement can be a time of astonishment. Nobody knows that better than the spouse of a retiree.
Despite the disparity in our routines, we have discovered that there is life after the “R” word. We are not poster children for retirement harmony. We squabble probably more than before, because Vic is now back in what I had come to think of as my domain.
He’s there when I’m tossing the salad (and thinks he has a better way). He’s there when I’m gossiping on the phone and I feel embarrassed. But these are such tiny blips on the big radar screen. After years of a challenging professional life, my husband is decompressing, and it’s wonderful to see.
He smiles more. He worries less. And he’s got a twinkle in his eye that wasn’t there before. Is it a perfect adjustment? No. That would be too easy.
Vic misses his colleagues on the bench. It’s lonely sometimes to eat lunch alone when once he ate with others who shared his passion for law and could spend their entire lunch break dissecting a single legal principle.
Yes, my husband is out of the mainstream and feels it. His professional years are behind him now, not ahead. Most days, my husband’s retirement rests easily on both our shoulders. It’s lovely to have a companion who not only eases the burdens of daily life in an uneasy world, but who is also willing to remove the dishes from the dishwasher and do all of the grocery shopping.
It’s a pleasure to sit down to dinner and listen to the highlights from Vic’s classes. Sometimes he even reads his class notes to me so that we are both learning.
Yes, my husband has retired. We have survived and are certainly enjoying this new stage of life.
Sally Friedman is a freelance writer. Contact her at pinegander@aol.com.
This article originally appeared on Burlington County Times: Sally Friedman: Life after retirement can be rewarding
