Retirement – continued

I wrote recently (‘Retiring but not retreating) about what a strange experience it was when I found myself taking my grandson to school for the first time and what it was like ‘on the other side of the fence’ as a carer rather than a teacher. As we have reached my first half-term break from the unfamiliar perspective of outside of the school gates, I have experienced other sensations, no doubt common to other retirees.

Pool and pints

I met three former colleagues socially for a game of pool and a glass of beer on the first evening of the break. I enjoyed their company and the competitiveness of the game but I felt strangely ‘out of it’. I wasn’t especially weary – they commented on how fresh and relaxed I was looking – and in an odd way I envied them their tiredness. I felt they had earned their pints and pool whilst I had not. No doubt this is my usual warped Calvinist work ethic coming out, but therein lies a message. I have given up one very tiring, stressful but fulfilling job – schoolmastering – and have yet to take up another cause. It’s good to rest, to be reflective and to feel refreshed, of course, but I am experiencing some restlessness and need to take on board the advice in Adam Mabry’s book, The Art of Rest.

The art of rest

The subtitle of Mabry’s book is ‘faith to hit pause in a world that never stops’ – and he is primarily writing for those still in regular, paid, work. Whatever your faith position (the author is a Pastor), Mabry’s advice is universal. He cites one of Mother Teresa’s pearls of wisdom: ‘Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin’. And so I am learning ‘to begin’: to sleep for a decent stretch of time by going to bed not too late and rising not so late either – routines for retirees are important, too, and perhaps more so when there isn’t the urgency of staff briefing, registration and lessons. I’m learning to read more and not to feel guilty about reading a book when it isn’t part of a bedtime routine or a holiday luxury. I am trying to be more reflective. I wrote blogs weekly as a Head and these, I hope, carried some thought and reflection. The motivation then, however, was partly marketing and partly highlighting events in school whereas now, I hope, I can be more objective in my blogging.

As a Christian pastor, Mabry is also advocating more time for a proper Sabbath rest (and not simply on a Sunday) as well as less hurried times of prayer and Scripture reading. I’m trying to be more proactive in this area, too, but I am also taken with his emphasis on taking on an avocation. I wasn’t familiar with this word until I read it in his book – essentially something one does which isn’t your principle vocation – but I am enjoying the concept and the practice. I have played more golf (as mentioned in an earlier blog) but I am also enjoying doing things with my hands: gardening and, recently, re-painting a sad looking and elderly garden gnome (acquired at some point in my university days)!  He now looks happier, more colourful and refreshed – as I aspire to be.

There is more for me to ‘do’ as I take this sabbatical and learn how to establish positive rhythms and routines, but I hope that I shall actually learn that ‘doing’ is not always the same as ‘being’. My worth does not lie in what I do but in who I am and so the next time I play pool with former colleagues I hope I will be more gracious in accepting their comments about my rejuvenated state and prepared to accept that ‘yesterday’ has indeed gone (but valuable times for all that). And as for ‘tomorrow’…that depends on how I learn to rest and reflect ‘today’!