Joyce Wayne: Retirement Matters

For so many these days, a one-career life is no longer the norm. Many older Canadians who have retired —or been retired —retain loads of energy and are searching for something to do.

The challenge facing Canada is to try to ensure that the doses of COVID-19 fighting vaccines arrive in the country according to schedule and that the provinces distribute them quickly and efficiently. If so, Canadians could be looking at a much brighter summer than expected.

On that 1966 Saturday night in Detroit, gas was 39 cents a gallon, a pack of cigarettes about double. A Coney Island hotdog (a downtown Detroit specialty) covered with chili sauce, yellow mustard and chopped onions was less than three bucks. Both cities, Windsor and Detroit, were booming, riding the immense wave of the post-World War II culture based on fast cars, endless cheap oil reserves, big unions, burgeoning wages and the opportunity to make good if you worked hard and played fair.

We’ve all been waiting for good news about vaccinations, and now it’s finally here. The wait has been more arduous for some than others. Older adults are particularly hard hit by the pandemic, both those living in their own homes who are self-isolating, and more so for those living in long-term care facilities.

Being members of the older generation, we’ve learned not to complain or at least not to complain too much. On the weekly Zoom happy hour call with our friends my age, we try not to focus on our ailments or aches and pains. Still, we inevitably fall into rehashing our worries about illnesses during each virtual get-together. That’s what happens after turning 65.

In his new book Retirement Heaven or Hell: Which Will You Choose? Mike Drak describes what he calls “the three stages of retirement” and how to escape from the second stage: Retirement Hell.

I worry about them, and by extension other Millennials. Just as they are beginning to put down roots, develop their careers and basically decide what kind of life they wish to lead, the rug has been pulled out from under them. When we talk about the future, it’s difficult for them to see their future, how they will work, support themselves and possibly raise children together.

Retirement might be the perfect time to begin a journal, to start recording your thoughts as you grow older. Or it could be the moment to launch a creative project, the painting or writing you’ve always wished to try, the musical instrument, or the potter’s wheel you have a hankering to master.

For many of us with underlying conditions, our lives have changed dramatically since March 2020 when the WHO declared the virus had become a pandemic. Since then, we’ve been living differently, but if we remain healthy, there are ways to weather the tumult and keep our emotional balance.

Older adults are often anxious about winter. When there’s ice and snow on the ground, walking is treacherous, so we spend more time indoors. The pandemic has only increased our hours inside our homes. This winter, it’s more important than ever that we create a safe environment for ourselves and our loved ones.