According to our good friends at Dictionary.com, the word ‘retire‘ carries the following connotations:
1) to withdraw, to go away or apart.
2) to go to bed.
3) to withdraw from office, business, or active live, usually because of age.
There are others listed as well, but I thought that might give us a head start on today’s discussion. See, I have decided, that for now, I am retired from my career in education. In my retirement, I am raising my kids, and working a couple of nights a week at a local dining and drinking establishment.
Sports fans the world over are debating future Hall-of-Famer Brett Favre’s decision to un-retire himself and try to play another season as a Quarterback in the NFL. His team, the Green Bay Packers, are waffling at having him back, as they are ready to move on. They feel that he was disingenuous with his representation of himself in previous discussions of his desires. Brett feels differently.
In the end, the guy is not ready to stop playing yet. He is not ready to start a new routine.
As a fellow retiree, I can only relate a little, but then, my career mirrored very little that of the legendary Brett Favre.
I feel like I walked away from my career while performing at a high level, and making a good living. I feel like I left for all the right reasons, and on my own terms, in my own time. And I don’t feel like going back anytime soon.
I won’t pretend to understand that manner in which the mind of a professional athlete works. People like Favre, and Tiger Woods, and Michael Jordan, and other great champions, are wired differently than the rest of us. Jordan is another one who retired, only to come back. Some say he was addicted to the game, the competition, the routine. I don’t know him, so I won’t speculate.
I know that although there have been moments since December, I’ve pined for the good days in education; as I’ve missed being a part of a school community at times. In the end, breaking the pattern of work and stress that we were living as a family back in Jersey has been satisfying.
Except when I fell right back into it.
I’d been working at the restaurant 5-6 shifts a week, when I had only asked to do 2-3. They’ve been short-staffed and training a lot of new people, and as tends to happen in the restaurant business, spend five months in a place and you’re a senior member of the staff.
I found myself about two weeks ago putting the kids to bed with the wife, and I could not remember the last time we had done that together. We fell into a pattern of me being with the kids, and then when she came home, I left for work. She’d go to bed and be gone before me in the morning. And just like that, I was right back into what we moved here to avoid. Although I was still spending days with the kids, I was not seeing my wife, and I was not spending time with the entire family. I was simply exhausted, and feeling overwhelmed by the challenges of the work, which had been fun up to that point. I was feeling increasingly irritated, and in the end, unhappy.
Once I realized what had happened, I talked with the manager and told her I needed to cut back shifts, which she understood. And the last week, I’ve taken some extra time off, and my hope is that I’ve learned my lesson. But what is that lesson exactly? Is it that the perilous patterns that we try to avoid can creep up like a thief in the night? Is it that we are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past regardless of our desires? I fell right back into an awful pattern in a part-time job…I’m still irritated with myself.
But maybe it’s that pattern, that rhythm of one’s life that Brett is having a hard time letting go of. He was home for a few months, and with his body telling him it’s time to get ready to play, his head much forced to follow, who knows what drove him to this moment.
For me anyway, I’m glad we caught it and did something about it, as I am not interested in or willing to get dragged down into that cycle again. I was working some weeks 5-6 shifts, sometimes 5 days straight. It’s not that I’m afraid of hard work. I’ve been working harder as a stay at home parent than I ever have at any job I’ve held to date. It’s just that doing that, and then doing what felt like another full time gig on top of it at the restaurant was not what we came here for. So, we had to pull back and reclaim time together.
And we’ve had some good time together this week, be it swimming lessons, or the discovery center, or just playing together upstairs. I’m continually impressed by the manner in which the kids can simply play with their stuff and be entertained for hours. The twins imaginations have blown up big time in the past few months, and they create all sorts of worlds and games in which to play in.
The “littlest houseguest” just came down from bed as I’m writing this and needed help taking out her ponytail, which she didn’t want to wear for sleeping. In addition, I was called upon to give a horseback ride upstairs to bed. That would have been hard to pull off if I were checking on table 7’s Kickin’ Jack Nachos. (New menu item-very tasty.)
Don’t get me wrong: I’ve appreciated the work, and the additional cash, and I have no plans to leave the restaurant. I like the people, and I like the work, and truth be told, it’s usually my ‘quiet time’ of the week. I just got a real hard slap in the face that I was falling back into that perilous pattern of work, work, and sleep. After that, there was little time for anything else.
But as for Brett, and some other people in our lives that are facing retirement, I say, welcome to the club. Take this as an opportunity to make some changes and challenge yourself in new ways. I’ve come to some peace about my life in education, and while, like Brett, I can’t promise I’ll never work in education again, as never is a very, very long time, I can promise that for now I consider that part of my life in the past. I’m retired from it.
I’ve just got to stay extra vigilant about falling into the same routine…Don’t get me wrong-the work had it’s run. But it was time to move on, and this last month of work was a truly moving reminder that I am a parent first, and there is nothing more important than that. I got caught in the pattern of doing the work. And we corrected it.
I can’t imagine putting anything before my relationships with my wife and children. I’m retired from work right now. I’m a family man, and that’s that.
But I made that choice with my family. If Brett wants to play, who am I to say he shouldn’t? All I’ll say is that when you’re really done, be done pal. It will be hard enough to break the patterns once, much less over and over again.
Oh-and potty training continues to go well. We have days with no accidents, and some with 1 or 2, but overall, the twins have rallied in the weeks leading up to preschool, which starts next month, and quite honestly, is really looking like a great, great thing for them and for us. Everyone is looking forward to it, including the little bear, who just might get a word in once they are in school 6 hours a week.
Guess retirements’ not so bad.
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