Facing the "What Ifs'

I looked at my first property before I actually moved the date of my retirement up a year.  It was Labor Day weekend and I was staying with my friends, Tom & Mary, in their old farmhouse that happened to be almost across the street from my brother’s group home. It was kind of a lark. Mary had mentioned that the house next door to them –which really WAS across the street from my brother’s home – was having an open house that Sunday, and suggested that we just walk over and take a look. Why not? I was game so we ambled over cross lots at the appointed hour and saw the house. My fantasies began. Wouldn’t it be cool to live next door to them and across the street from my brother?? Would it be foolish to buy that house even though I wasn’t planning to retire for another year and nine months? The house had some very positive aspects – mostly its location – but several negative ones. It was way overpriced, it needed a lot of work, and it smelled like a litter box.   I ended up going back two more times before I reluctantly moved my attention to other properties.

Meanwhile, Mary was playing devil’s advocate. Although excited at the possibility of my relocation to Batavia, she cautioned against impulsivity and wondered where I saw myself in five or ten years. Could I really see myself leaving New York City? And what about my daughter? How would I feel about moving away from her?

I rarely do anything without thinking about every possible angle and examining what my gut and brain are feeling and thinking. Usually when contemplating any big change, I start by spending a few days living as if I have made up my mind already and see how that feels. Does it “fit” or does it feel “not quite right”? That approach has worked for me again and again. I responded to her queries.

The five and ten year plans were primarily about retirement. I had met with a representative from my retirement plan at work during the previous winter. She had asked me what I wanted out of retirement. As I listed for her the things I wanted  – to dance, write, play my guitar, make jewelry, read, see movies – I realized that it all came down to time. What I wanted from retirement was time to do the things that made me happy.  I had already thought about the possibility of moving away from NYC due to the expense involved in living there.  Although I loved the city and had taken advantage of its cultural opportunities, I knew that if there was something I really wanted to do or see there, I could always visit. Although I had met a great many people over my 30 years there, there were relatively few with whom I was very close. Those people would always be in my life, wherever I ended up. The rest were acquaintances. I am philosophical about the nature of relationships, having long embraced a piece by Jean Dominique Martin which talks about people coming into one’s life for a ‘reason, a season, or a lifetime.’

  

I also don’t believe that any change of lifestyle has to be forever. The best you can do is make decisions based on here and now and the foreseeable future (which isn’t that far ahead)  – and know that down the road, for whatever reason – there might be a different here and now that necessitates further change.

My daughter was (and is) busy leading her own life, working crazy hours, with lots of weekends. Recently married, when she did have free time, which wasn’t often, naturally she wanted to spend it with her new husband. We often go weeks without seeing each other, although we text each other most days. I suspected that having a grandchild was not in my future so there would be no reason to stay close by to help with a baby. 

The plus side to relocating was being closer to my brother and better able to monitor his living situation in addition to already knowing many people in the area.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have a yard and a garden? Wouldn’t it be nice to not worry about making noise that bothered upstairs, downstairs, or sideways neighbors? Wouldn’t it be nice to be free of co-op rules that prohibited grills on balconies, wreaths on doors, or doing anything to attract birds? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a second or third bedroom for house guests? 

Were there negatives? A few. Chief among them were snow and super long winters, filled with gloomy days. I was very aware of how depressed my mom used to get from day after day of cold and gray.  But there were options there too – like leaving town for the worst of it. Florida. Arizona. Or there were lamps that simulate daylight. I could stock up on them. 

What if something happened to my brother? Would I regret having moved under that circumstance? The reality is that someday, something WILL happen to my brother. I just hope that he doesn’t outlive me. If I were unable to reimagine my life here without him, well, there are other places I could relocate. I did not see that eventuality as a deterrent.  Life is fluid.

I also recognized that it was a very real possibility that my own health could suffer as I got older. I determined that were I to get to the point health-wise where my daughter was stressed by having me across the state, I would willingly go wherever it made her life easier. I would not want her to feel tortured by my needs, made worse by a distance of almost 400 miles. 

As Mary and I talked all of these considerations over, the “rightness” of the relocation plan emerged, along with a commitment to make it happen on an accelerated schedule.

Retirement Journey

Life got in my way. I look at my blog and cannot believe that my last entry was in January of 2015. My entries had been sporadic at best for a couple of years. That was because I had landed in a place where the thoughts that were front and center were such that, I knew if I wrote about them -- wrote my truth, that I risked alienating people in ways I sensed I would regret. A writing coach might have egged me on but I wasn't ready to go there.

There was also a lot going on in my life with elderly relatives who needed my time and attention. That's a subject for another entry. 

In May of that year, I turned 62. Although I had not anticipated that this particular birthday would have any impact on my internal state, it did in a very big way. Suddenly, I had options relative to the workplace. 

I. could. retire. 

The recognition of that was riveting.  My job in a university, as director of a department that was integral to the functioning of that school, was very, very stressful. While there were elements of the job that I very much enjoyed and many people with whom I worked that I valued, increasingly I felt just plain worn out.

There were many external factors at play -- the withering of needed resources as a result of the economic climate, increased competition from at least a dozen other schools vying for those limited resources, the constant demand to produce more with less and years of walking on eggshells with someone at the top that had demoralized me in ways were not healing. 

I felt in a constant state of agitation. I had stopped answering my office phone because I desperately needed to insert time and space between myself and those on the other end who were always demanding something from me. I had begun to look at everyone who walked into my office with a battle-ready wariness, expecting to be accosted and dumped on. A particularly horrifying painting from junior high art class kept coming to mind – The Flaying of Marsyas by Titan.  I felt like I was being flayed… that people were picking away at me a little at a time.    

Previous to turning 62, I had planned, kinda, sorta, to retire in the summer of 2017. My second-in-command, who had been by my side for 15 years there, and for 6 years in a previous job, and I dreamed about exiting at the same time -- neither of us wanted to imagine life there without the other. I soldiered on. Two years to go and we would jump ship together.

A series of life-altering events transpired during that summer with the afore-mentioned elderly relatives. And summer is traditionally a very, very busy and stressful time in my workplace. Preparation for the upcoming academic year typically requires very long days and nights (not to mention weekends) and generates significant anxiety and sudden deluges of tears. There is too much to do and too little time in which to do it, even when one is efficient and competent.  The calendar is a relentless task-master. September is coming. Students are returning. We must be ready.  

One particular week, returning from a weekend of attending to my relatives’ needs, feeling like the air was being squeezed out of me by invisible hands circling my throat, I had a realization. It was:

I don’t have it “in me” to do this more than one more time. 

Could I possibly engineer an earlier exit? My mind spun in its characteristic way with a new idea. Money would be the biggest issue. I had quite a bit saved for retirement, but I also had a co-op with 13 more years of a hefty mortgage and monthly maintenance fees that were about to be higher than the mortgage. And like many co-ops, the board was threatening a series of capital improvements that would require extra assessments for owners. On a fixed income, that could be catastrophic.

So for the first time since I had moved there in 1984, I contemplated leaving my beloved NYC.  After considering and rejecting several options, my swirling brain landed on moving back home to the small town where I grew up. Previously, going back had been less likely than, oh – say, my becoming a brain surgeon or rock star. But my perspective about the place had slowly been undergoing a change. “Home” was no longer the stifling prison without possibilities I had fled. Now, I could imagine living there and being content. 

Moving home would also eliminate another huge stressor by rendering unnecessary the twice-monthly trips I was making to care for my brother, David. For ten years, since our mother died, I had been on the road at 2:30 a.m. on alternate Saturdays, arriving in Batavia in time to pick up my brother for breakfast. And then, without skipping a beat (or taking a nap), we would go on about our day -- running errands, going bowling, seeing movies, eating out, doing things for our aunt/uncle. I would collapse late that night, sleep like the dead, and get up on Sunday to take him out for breakfast again and another round of activities, before driving back to New York City late in the afternoon. I was exhausted. I had so many close calls drifting off on the road that I am convinced I am alive today only because my mother in heaven whispered WAKE UP in my ear a dozen times every trip.

I started stalking realtor.com. 

Stay tuned for more of the journey.