Wednesday, November 28, 2007

I keep thinking....

I keep thinking about the conversation I had with my friends at book club last night. They are about my age – maybe a few years younger – and both are professional hard working women – one a doctor and one a writer. And both don’t want to stop working. In fact, they are looking for future careers if they do retire from their current work. Like me they are afraid if they stop they will fall apart – emotionally, intellectually, physically. I know that working every day, getting up to exercise, getting ready for work with the makeup and the hair straightener and the Maxmara suits, then working with hordes of people, and continually making decision after decision keeps me young and with it. It keeps me up not only on the technology involved with my job but with what’s going on around me in my town, my state, my country, my world. I listen to the news on the way to work, I read my New Yorker or listen to the news at the gym, I talk to people about music and the movies and what’s the best place to buy a piece of salmon for dinner. If I stayed at home I wouldn’t have those contacts and opportunities. Like my friends said last night, we’d have no reason to get up and get out and find out about what’s going on in the world. We’d become ignorant and irrelevant. I can’t let that kind of life happen to me.

4 comments:

Dara said...

I totally know what you mean about feeling out of touch with the rest of the world when you're not working. Going to work makes keeping up on the world so much easier. But the beauty of life is that when you leave your routine behind you're often confronted with parts of the world that you'd never encounter in your "normal" day. That's the thing I'm most excited for you about. You'll get to see the world from a whole new perspective and find out all sorts of new things through that perspective. It won't necessarily be about what your hearing on the radio on your way to work. Maybe it's more about what you see on the news at the end of the day. It won't be about what your coworkers are seeing at the movies or listening to on their ipods. It will be about what your new writing group is reading or what the guy running next to you at the gym is hearing through his head phones. Leaving your job will open up your life in totally new and unexpected ways. It will open you up. And that's totally cool.

madeline40 said...

Well, yes, you're so right. However, your prospective is from a 20 something person, not a 60 something person like me. Life gets harder and slower as we age so that we're less apt to get out among them and look for new adventures. So, having a daily routine and ready-made contacts helps keep things together longer -- at least that's how I see it.
But, I love your confidence in me. And, your comments. Please keep them coming.

Dara said...

I guess I don't see you as being 60 something! I think of you as being so capable and such a self-starter. I can't picture you just sitting on your laurels even without a routine. :)

PS thanks for last weekend! I had so much fun.

madeline40 said...

Here's what Gail wrote in an email:

"It is interesting to contemplate the years left. I was fascinated
to find several of us thinking retirement might not be an end in
itself I find much stimulation at work that I am not willing to give
up yet. A little more free time would be nice."

So, I know I'm not alone in these thoughts....