Even before Covid hit, retiring catapults one into a new world. At least that is what happened to me.
Initially, in the first few weeks of retirement, I felt I arrived into an unsettled environment. There were so many changes, and I was new at it.
I retired on a Friday. The weekend was pretty much normal, as I had the regular commitments and scheduled events. It was during the following work week that the real changes happened. I was up early Monday morning out of habit, and then after a short while, I felt an odd sensation… Where are all the people?
In my working life, I was around people much of the time. When I lived in a big city, it was the commute. But regardless of location, any office I was employed in had numerous people with whom I would interact all day long. I would see people, I would talk to whomever it was appropriate, people would come to see me, I participated in meetings, and so on.
But once retired, all that social contact just evaporated. It was not that I had no one in my life. I saw friends regularly, interacted with people at various social activities, I was home with my wife every day. But when I had experenced was the volume of contact with other declined greatly. And so I now relish ongoing contact with friends ever the more so.
Looking Where?
Looking back, I can definitely point to the situation I have found myself upon retirement. I am in a new world. I barely remember all the tension and anxiety I had when working. All the deadlines, all the pressure, all the annoyances of commuting and working, all the difficult personalities, all the technical difficulties… that is all gone, barely in my memory. What is in my life now is the life I am leading now. The past is gone, like a barely-remembered set of special effects of a movie I saw long ago; it is as if I was born the day after I retired.
And Then
The Covid lockdowns were a complete shock to so many. We are no exception. The quarantining has shook up everyone. For me, it was an even more drastic reduction in social interaction. Instead of the people that I would casually interact with at various venues, now it was just at home with my spouse. Oh, I retained some email connections, a few Zoom get-togethers, and phone calls, but all in all, it was quite a reduction in humans that I interact with now.
The After
It seems everyone is anticipating the “After Covid” life, as if things will get back to “normal.” I doubt this will happen. I believe that many things will finally ramp back up once a majority of the population accepts the vaccine. But I am of the opinion that we are heading once again to a new world. Will new pandemics affect us? Will the economic boom that preceded Covid finally end? What new crises will send us off in new directions? I cannot predict what will happen, but I know that new and unexpected things will inevitably happen. They always have, and they always will.
What is your experience? You can tell me know here.
The illustration “A Map of the Old World as it appeared before God destroy’d it with the Waters of the Flood” appeared in Gentleman’s Magazine, London (U.K.), December 1736.
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