I turned 64 today! My favorite cake is the cheap stuff from the supermarket with buttercream frosting, buttercream between layers and big fat roses. I haven’t had a cake in several years, but this time I said yes. Dale and I went to Safeway together to order the cake, because sometimes they screw it up, and after waiting all this time, I didn’t want that to happen.
One year they put red roses on it. Their mistake. Dale knows better. I believe other icing freaks will agree with me – never red. There’s just something about the taste of red icing. Plus, the telltale residue on your tongue …
Another year the roses were flat, presumably because the decorators don’t know how to make the puffy ones. This time I took visual aids. I had a picture of plump roses on my cellphone and asked them if they could replicate. The answer was yes, and I’m super-pleased with the results.
I usually eat a slice or two and freeze the rest in individual pieces, which are gone before spring. Sometimes before Christmas, if it has been a rough year.
Applying the rough year scale, I’m thinking this cake might last until summer. My birthday also marks two years of retirement, and it has been fantastic. Now that I’ve settled into a simple lifestyle focused mostly on exercise, cooking, reading and writing, I find it hard to believe I thought everyone was supposed to reinvent themselves once they retired.
It seems to me there’s a bias for work, as though work is inherently better than leisure, and unless we figure out some sort of livelihood after we retire, we’re headed toward doom and demise. The headlines are all about having no time to retire or reinventing oneself for your next act. I’ve used some of those words in the past. But now I think it’s more complicated than that and have been thinking about different type of people and their relationship to work as they age.
True Believers
They love their jobs and can’t wait to tell you about it.
Worker Bees
People who simply want to work, even at what many of us would call crappy jobs, but they are still jobs that matter, and these dedicated souls are proud to do them without much fanfare.
The Walking Wounded
Maybe they like their jobs OK, but maybe they don’t. Either way, they aren’t particularly happy or unhappy, but they can’t quite let go. What else is there? They will be there to turn off the lights.
Endurance Athletes
Those who keep working partially because their careers are gratifying but partly because they don’t have the financial resources to survive without a job. They do what they have to do.
Happy Retirees
We left the workforce hopefully on our terms and hopefully with enough money to make it to the end. Some of us will find other work because we want to or because we need supplemental income, but some of us are done with paying gigs.
While these archetypes are just simple generalizations, and I don’t claim to have captured everyone’s relationship to work, there’s a broad spectrum of people getting older and thinking about retirement. We all have different resources, different expectations and different personal demands. There’s no magic bullet.
And that is my long way of saying how much it annoys me when people proselytize about working or staying busy or whatever it is they think we need to do with our time.
Busy is not the gold standard of retirement happiness. As an official ambassador for the Happy Retirees, I enjoy a peaceful pace of life that engages my brain and body without a boatload of stress.
I win! No reinvention required.
Happy birthday and enjoy your cake! Totally get you on the red roses.
Thank you! I had a piece for breakfast – yum!
Happy Birthday!!! The cake looks yummy. I should have pegged you for a Virgo. The 3 people I have liked in my life were all Virgos. One I married and actually I love him. For his birthday, we’re getting the Safeway cake that’s kinda a rectangle. Maybe tiramisu? or chocolate!
As a reformed Worker Bee I still have moments when I feel maybe I am “useless” because I am not “working hard somewhere” or “contributing to society..” LOL, after 6 years of retirement! I look forward to your posts and especially this one reminds me that the daily routines, the simple pleasures, are truly the most joyous!! Most of the time, I am in your camp, with reading,cooking,kayaking with my husband, and catching up on some TV series I missed during my working years.. like Rizzoli and Isles— all filling my days with pleasure. I love the previous post with book recommendations..I’ll be checking out many of your suggestions.Right now finishing up a new Harlem Cohen book from the library. Yesterday I enjoyed a free class of Nature Sketching at our local library, one of 3 free classes.. when we slow down, there is so much just all around us, that is there for the taking—simple pleasures that make a life worth living.Bob over at Satisfying Retirement blog also has a similar post today. Fine minds think alike!
It makes me so happy you find value in what I’m sharing on this blog. I guess I’m mostly a Happy Retiree — but sometimes I’m a recovering Worker Bee and was very much an Endurance Athlete for years. I’m glad you mentioned this, because I should have said we do skip around. Sometimes I think, well, I should be doing more. But most of the time I am quite happy enjoying the simple pleasures. I do like Harlan Coben — hard to put down.
I believe my husband would agree it takes a special person to love a Virgo. By the way, I was surprised by all the cake choices at Safeway. You can mix and match cake, filling and icing. How about Tres Leche cake with raspberry filling and cream cheese icing? I went minimalist.
Happy Birthday Donna!
Thanks, Pam. Say hi to Texas for me.
Happy Birthday!! I’m 100% a Happy Retiree. I don’t like that leisure or being unbusy is viewed negatively. I think only those of us who are happy understand why it’s so great!! Enjoy your cake. 🎂
Thanks for the birthday greetings! Maybe it’s easier for introverts to settle into retirement. As you said on your blog, you forget how much work drains you.
Happy belated Birthday from another virgo.
My husband is virgo too, which can be easy and difficult at once.
That cake is beautiful.
Hi Barbara! How beautiful it must be in Germany as fall settles in. I think I’ve read Virgos are rare in that we usually get along with other Virgos. You chose well!
It still takes a few weeks to colour the leaves. Not cold enough. Next is “Wiesn” what does mean the Octoberfest is on the way.
Like you, I enjoy a peaceful pace of life that engages my brain and body without a boatload of stress. No reinvention required. If anything, retirement has allowed me to be more of who I am. I am in the Happy Retirees camp. Happy birthday, Donna. 64 looks good on you.
Thank you so much, Mona. I agree with you, too. Retirement frees us up to be who we are. I honestly don’t think I could go back to the corporate world.