A recently retired teacher explores the joys of a life filled with diverse activities, embracing the 'dabbler's' approach to retirement and finding fulfillment in the pursuit of new experiences.
It’s Monday. I wake early, eagerly anticipating my busy schedule. I will be pivoting from one thing to the next, the pace unrelenting. As I get my morning coffee, my husband eyes me warily. He senses my thrumming energy and keeps a distance as he gets ready to go to work. I am agile and adaptive, flexible in the face of whatever the day throws at me. Today, like so many of my days now, will throw a variety of things at me. To that I say: the more, the better. Bring it on.
No, I am not a high-flying chief executive brokering pressure-filled deals, moving from meeting to meeting. I am not an emergency room doctor, making life and death decisions on the fly. I am no longer a working parent of small children, juggling the daily treadmill of child care, job, more child care, activities, dinner, activities, bed, repeat. So why the desire for an incessant parade of stimulation? I am a recent retiree, with quite possibly a mild case of undiagnosed attention-deficit disorder. This affliction is one that I speculate besets many a new retiree. And it’s absolutely fine. Since bidding farewell to my full-time teaching career, I have taken a chocolate bon-bon-making course, joined and (one broken finger later) quit a pickleball group, signed up for and dropped an introductory guitar course, plunked away intermittently at our piano, started several children’s stories and screenplays with good intentions, and attempted to master baking the challenging and frustrating French macaron, among other things. When it came to the macaron, I tried once and failed. I wondered, should I try again? Spend another precious day trying to whip my egg whites just so, pipe them onto the parchment-lined cookie sheet just so, and ice them with chocolate ganache just so? It was an easy decision. Not a chance. There are many, many other things I hope to try, when I find an opening in my busy schedule: Italian cooking, learning Spanish and American Sign Language, painting, gardening, beekeeping … The list goes on. These activities don’t include the trips I want to take, or the volunteering I hope to do. Of course, I haven’t landed on which volunteer option suits me best, as there are so many to choose from. When I do decide, I intend to commit fully to it – as long as it’s part-time and flexible. Dabbling in activities, I would argue, is just as good as focusing on one or two. Sure, we won’t achieve MasterClass status in anything. But different parts of the brain are stimulated when trying new things – an important task for our older, stubborn cortexes that gravitate toward comfortable routines, especially as we age. Stepping outside our comfort zone is harder to do north of 50, but important in so many ways. You might just discover a hidden talent at line dancing, for example, if you give it a shot. Then again, you might just step on your partner’s toes, but (hopefully) no harm done. Simply by trying, you’ve ticked off on the Alzheimer Society’s list of ways to keep senior brains healthy: being socially active, being physically active and challenging your brain. It’s possible that my pinball-like bouncing from activity to activity is because retirement is still a new gig for me. As a teacher and mother of three daughters, my free time was limited; there was always a sense of urgency to be productive in that 25-minute window between piano and swimming lessons. I haven’t been able to shake that frantic impulse to use time well, because time is still limited. I’m closer to the finish line now and fret that I won’t be able to get through all the items on my bucket list. It will be interesting to see how my husband and I co-exist when he retires soon. He’s not a dabbler, and will likely find my half-finished projects scattered around the house to be irritating eyesores (paint by number, anyone?). I will gently suggest that he is free to focus on projects of his choosing such as getting rid of all the acquired junk taking up space in our basement, or building a new deck – fun things like that. Until then, I plan to continue starting and stopping (or just pausing) those items on my list. Life is short and I plan to sample from its buffet of offerings, even if only for a few minutes at a time, until something else grabs my attention. Who knows? Maybe one of these days, something will stick
Retirement Hobbies New Experiences Dabbling Life After Work Active Lifestyle Aging Brain Health
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