There are two types of retiree I bump into occasionally. Type A is radiant, glowing, exuding contentment and happiness, and buzzing with the things they now have time to do.
Type B is obviously struggling to make the transition between the World of Work and Real Life; and this transition seems particularly difficult if they were employed at a senior level. Type Bs ask me repeatedly for information about projects and gossip from the Town Hall, desperate for any crumb of news. I don't have the heart to say I neither know nor care, and sometimes have to fight the temptation to make things up...
Former Boss came into the office for a brief visit a week after his official retirement date. Life Coach colleague said "oh look, Former Boss is here" and I said (jokingly?) without looking up from my screen "Who? Sorry, I've moved on..."
It is fascinating - and not a little scary - to watch power sliding away from those who once had it. The process begins well before they have left the building - at the point, in fact, when their successor is appointed. In meetings, attention and focus upon the retiring officers visibly wanes; they start being dropped off email circulations; people "forget" to tell them things; and it becomes increasingly obvious that everyone just wants them to disappear! But, rather like those who three years after graduating hang around their university town unable to leave, these officers keep popping up well after their leaving dos - on Boards, and Partnerships, and Trusts, each with some tenuous connection to their beloved Alma Mater.
"Don't make the same mistakes I did, will you my dear?" This from one of the most delightful, warm, impressive ladies in the organisation - another to be unceremoniously "volunteered" for early retirement long before she felt ready to go. "Don't work every hour God sends, and neglect your husband and family, and forget to have a life - because it will all be for nothing".
Whereupon I had one of my goosebump prescient moments, seeing an all-too vivid vision of myself unexpectedly cast adrift, and hence totally unprepared for Real Life. Unprepared to join that drama group, sing with the community choir, write poems and novels, travel to all the places I have ever longed to visit, spend time with my family, go to exhibitions and plays, make my quilt, read a book a day, and join the University of the Third Age....
"Don't worry about me," I said. "I'm starting to prepare for retirement RIGHT NOW".
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