Retiring? Really?

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This is what many of my younger colleagues asked me during the year before my retirement when they learnt that time was up for me. Some even thought I was pulling their legs, they claimed that everybody could see I was still too youthful to retire. Of course, this went down like honey, as the saying goes, but youthful is not the same as young, and I had indeed reached the official age of retirement after teaching for 38 years at secondary grammar schools. The change wasn’t abrupt, I can’t imagine how people feel who’re made redundant from one day to the other. I glided from my summer hols into my retirement, the hols just never ended so-to-speak. When the end of my working life was getting nigh, I learnt a lot about other people. Even people I haven’t got close contact with asked me when I would retire. What was it to them? One day a neighbour yelled across the street, “How long have you still got?” as if I were in prison. I yelled back, “Five years” which was correct then. Another yell, “Oh, my God!” I told her later that I found this insulting. She had been a teacher herself, she obviously assumed that I was suffering like she had done, why didn’t she ask me if I was? When retirement was imminent it went on. “I envy you.” “Lucky you!” “I’m counting my years.” Remarks like these had nothing to do with me, only with the speakers’ attitudes towards their own jobs. Only a tiny minority asked me how I was feeling about the situation, this was a question I could accept, albeit not answer precisely. I was unable to imagine what my life would be like without trotting to school every day. I liked my job, I didn’t feel burnt out, I cherished the contact with young people, the pupils in the classrooms and the colleagues in the staff room during breaks. Would I miss this social interaction? My husband told me to apply to the Ministry of Education to let me stay some more years. He asked, “What will you talk about in future?” My habitual conversation starter after school was, “You can’t imagine what happened today!” But no, deep down, I felt that it was enough. Another series of questions I was bombarded with was, “What are you going to do now?” Fortunately, most people answered them themselves. “Travel, of course”, they said or “You’re such an active woman, you won‘t get bored.” Thanks for the compliment, I thought, but may I first get used to the new situation and then answer? I didn’t have a hobby for which I wanted more time than I already had, more online activity perhaps? But I can’t read more books and write more reviews than I already do. I didn’t want to do anything with my hands, built model aeroplanes or landscapes for toy trains, for example. Men seem to like doing things like that. Gardening wasn’t an option, either, and it doesn’t occupy one all the year round, does it? One thing I knew I’d do and cherish above all else: I’d get up late! For nearly four decades I had lived against my biological rhythm, school starts at 7.35 am in our town. I would have breakfast during the long break after the first two lessons, i.e., between 9.10 and 9.25. If at all. One morning I woke up and knew precisely what I wanted to do, namely to go to uni as a ‘guest-listener’. German unis accept adults who want to listen to lectures and seminars. They’re not allowed to write papers or take part in exams, they just attend. Not all lectures and seminars are open for them, but the ones which are are regular ones, the oldies sit beside the students. We’re not talking special programmes for senior citizens here like Ikebama or Oregami or foreign language courses. The nearest uni is 25 minutes by train away from where I live, rather convenient.