Retirement Discoveries

At this point I’ve been retired most of one summer from July 1 on.  (see additional note for a five-year update) On the scale of retirements, not very long, and certainly for a former school administrator the time frame creates a bias.  The kids have not returned to school yet.  Fellow administrators have been taking vacations.  I took one for two weeks in Maine, so I guess even retirees get to take short vacations.

My spouse is still a superintendent of schools, and she will continue for the upcoming year before she too retires.  As I see her prepare to launch one more school year, I tell her, “Remember, you only have to do this one more time,” and at the same time I whisper quizzically under my breath, “Wow, I will never have to do that again!”  What I have discovered involves new circumstances with so many  unscheduled options and long-denied opportunities that it’s like revisiting my 8^th grade summer – about the last time a paying job didn’t matter.  Both rewards and challenges are arriving from different sources.  Here are 10 of my most recent findings:

1.     My school district, like every other educational bureaucracy, has chugged right along without me.

No beats missed, no pistons misfiring—at least that I know of.

I am grateful no longer to be the whipping boy for every single-minded critic.  But I am no longer the boss of anything educational.  No one needs me to be an executive decision maker, to solve their problems.  Someone else appears to be  doing that just fine.  There was a lot of satisfaction ultimately from making a final decision I knew was right, or from enabling others to understand or excel, or from being an executive orchestra leader.  I still hear good music, but the orchestra has a new conductor.

Five years later:  Perhaps taking some cues from my wife, now retired for four years (to my five), we make virtually no effort to stay in touch with the people or events of our school districts.  The one exception is a shared commitment to mentoring one or two administrators who are seeking superintendencies.  We have long since put the school district experience beyond us.  We don’t miss it, really, at all.  We have moved forward!   

2.     Life is more pleasant—and surely less stressed--when you don’t have to report to a board or team of any kind.

My job as a superintendent largely focused on getting things done by delegating tasks to an administrative team, and by means of a biweekly climactic event known as a “regular meeting of the board of education”.  Boards and administrators are unpredictable groups.  Their commitment and dedication are variable.  Praise and positive feedback for what superintendents do is startlingly rare.  The job is publicly, egregiously misunderstood.  You spend lots of time being a referee, a mandate manager.  There is precious little time for acts of real leadership.

Five years later:  No longer “managing” a school board continues to be a stress reliever, no, actually a joy!  I am president of Healthy Community Alliance, but have no real executive stake in it.  I love the absence of accountability to others, and do not feel at all dependent on praise or reinforcement from others for anything education related.

 However, now I can delegate to myself and report to my spouse.  Relationships are less complicated.  Fortunately, I like myself most of the time, and my wife gives me lots of encouragement.

3.     Tasks that were hard to find time for now stretch out to fill whatever time I choose to give to them.

 Yard work, washing the car, grocery and prescription pick-ups, doctors visits, exercise, computer fiddling, getting lunch – all are mysteriously affected by Murphy’s laws.  Tasks that seemed mundane before now seem to plug a hole in my retired life.  Especially if I put them on a check-off list, just as was true in my professional life, I feel satisfied for having accomplished domestic chores.  The bonus is tangibility.  You see your handiwork, know it’s really done, and usually it doesn’t come back to bite you.

Five years later:  The flexibility and choice of how I spend my time, including being able to focus on things that are fun, really enjoyable, make the changed dimensions of time one of biggest bonuses of retirement.

4.     Some pursuits have clicked into gear.  Others have not.

As yet I am unmotivated by volunteering, charitable service, or visits to our grown-up children.  Usually my wife and I do these things together, and at least for now she is otherwise occupied.   I am finding time to pursue hobbies like reading, writing, and music.  Before I always squeezed such activities into limited spaces between work obligations and physical exhaustion.  The squeezing seems to go on.  Despite retirement, I find myself in sort of a strange waiting mode, expectant but hesitant to commit.  Time beckons, but also threatens because you need so much of the damned stuff to turn corners at new intersections.

Five years later:  I have mastered all kinds of new photography related technology and spend substantial time playing with it.  Hillary and I do other things together, like working on the gardens and riding bikes, and traveling either to Europe or the Caribbean, but Lightroom and Photoshop Elements are my private hobby preserve.

5.     For retired school district leaders, allegedly there are plenty of selective opportunities to contribute to the field:

teaching courses in university schools of education, consulting on special projects, or serving in interim positions.  Despite having distributed resumes to these schools, having declared willingness to consult, and even applying for one interim position, I am hardly convinced that opportunity is rampant.  Did too many administrators retire 10 years earlier than I did and want to do this work?  Maybe the field is starting to flood with baby-boomer retirees.  Or maybe neither universities nor school districts have enough extra coin to fund retirees’ teaching or consulting.  To be sure, a couple of workshop presentations have come along this summer.  I have over-prepared for them, and they have stressed me out – enjoyment and satisfaction notwithstanding!  So the bottom line so far on this score sheet is ambivalence.

Five years later:  No longer do I seek additional education related responsibilities.  My ego doesn’t need it anymore.  But I like staying in contact with the research, the ideas, and I have maintained a contract to evaluate and mentor a charter school principal.  It is enough.

6.     I appreciate – no truthfully cherish -- the physical and mental health that I have managed to preserve into retirement years.

So many individuals are in danger of falling apart at the age of retirement, often because they failed to take care of themselves over the years.  Cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, tragic accidents, or physical incapacity spawned by obesity—what frustrations and pain these must cause for the victims and their families!  The damage caused by family disintegration can be just as discouraging when retirement presents so many options to renew family life. I have been incredibly fortunate to remain healthy, able to exercise religiously, and to have a peaceful, compatible and loving family life.

Five years later:  Hillary and I have become closer than ever, true lifetime friends and mates.  We have worked on diets together, and we work out faithfully, maintaining our health so we can travel and enjoy a favorable quality of life into our 70s.   

7.     Financial well-being represents one of the big and obvious issues of retirement. 

Unlike so many individuals whose retirement savings have dwindled, who may never be able to retire as a result, or who cannot afford health insurance coverage let alone the mortgage or daily living expenses, I benefit from a rock-solid, state-constitutionally-guaranteed pension from a state retirement system in combination with Social Security.  I earned this; it’s not charity.  In some ways I thank myself every day for having had the foresight and persistence to put myself in a financially stress-free retirement mode.

Five years later:  I have not bought an abundance of new things with all of the available cash that retirements has preserved.  I did buy an updated Corvette and some new technology.  But more has been spent on trips because they are stimulating, provide new friendships, and many opportunities to take pictures.  We are really into travel because you need breaks from this location during or after winter.  Also, free from obligations, we can meet new friends and see things we never thought to seek out while working.  Guilt kept us in our school districts.

8.     The transition to retirement involves tools – ones you need, and ones you don’t, and ones you can adapt.

Throughout my career as an educational researcher for a state association, and as a district administrator, I depended on certain tools of the trade.  I needed relevant literature, research studies, periodicals and professional development publications.  In other words, I needed supplies for the mind and practice.  Communication was a priority of course, and accordingly a land-line phone, lap top, I Pad, and blackberry were all essential.  Yes, I harbored certain peculiarities – like a massive and constantly growing collection of pens.  And pads of paper to use them on.  Nowadays I depend on a dehumidifier to keep all those pens,  books, and supplies dry.  There they sit, unneeded, unused, and largely symbolic.  Communication is still paramount, so I have purchased and have spent hours learning to use a new aggregation of electronic tools – a new lap top, and a droid hand-held device with a new email address.  I love the new tools, but their purposes have morphed.  Today I keep track of caloric intake and weight using my droid.  Two months ago I kept track of parental complaints and board members’ questions on my blackberry.  Keeping track of the weather will remain a lifelong habit.  However, I am no longer so fixated on radar.   

Five years later:  Mostly all of the above is still true, though I don’t need the pens or pads anymore.  Communication is definitely still a priority for me.  There has been a big increase in my use of facebook, email for pleasure, and reliance on the internet to learn about many new things.  I have thoroughly enjoyed writing pieces now and then for My View in the Buffalo News. No longer do I feel confined to educational topics.  I like to write about the many other things that now impinge on my life.   

9.     Retirement requires a change of costumes.

I have about 800 ties, 30 suits and sport jackets, 15 pairs of dress shoes, and so on.  I had a 12’x12’ walk-in closet built for them.  No longer is this a working walk-in closet; it’s really more of a museum.  I wear casual clothing nearly all the time.  Dressy clothing always made me feel special.  At least in shorts and t-shirts I can do yard work with sweaty abandon.  But I don’t have much occasion so far to wear a costume that makes me feel special.  I feel very practical and comfortable.  Not bad.  I wonder if I can ever bear to part with those dress clothes.  For better or worse, they all fit because I kept weight off, and nothing ever seems to wear out.  Taking care of what is mine is a lifelong habit.

Five years later:  I have discarded about a half of my dressy clothes, Hillary has rid herself of even more.  Now I enjoy stretch pants, nylon t’s, and other casual wear including dungarees.  Very seldom do I dress up anymore.

10. Beauty becomes more discoverable.

When working, I seldom found time or gave attention to the beauty of nature’s routine.  I was always reacting, putting out others’ fires, or ones I ignited myself.  Now I have more time to observe what goes on around me in nature – of which there is an abundance right around my house.  I see and feel the rituals and realities of nature more than I ever did before.  Three humming birds compete for nectar.  The young geese practice formations and fall into disarray.  A fox captures a crow for her cubs’ dinner, but then gets killed by a car and eaten in stages by turkey buzzards.  The lawn growth slows down as August wanes, and the nights are a bit longer and chillier.

Five years later:  My photography has verified the above in spades.  Probably my preferred subjects are still animals and natural landscapes rather than people.  The quality of life out here in the country continues to keep us contented, and wonderfully unstressed.  Our retirement is surely a healthy one, mentally and physically.

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 Maybe you have noticed, not once have I mentioned a “honey-do” list.  That’s probably because I make them up myself and thus far have restlessly pursued their completion.  Perhaps it’s because I thrive on routines.  Perhaps I am afraid of losing purpose. Perhaps I need to feel I am accomplishing something useful.  Perhaps I need someone else to validate what I am doing.  My spouse advises me, “Ease off!  I like mowing the lawn, too!”  Still, I notice she appreciates everything I have done and unstintingly praises it.   

Jeff Bowen

Retired Superintendent of Schools

August 2011 and March 2016