Retirement: Diminished Expectations?

As my Bride and I contemplate What Happens After We Both Retire, we often discuss what it’s all going to look like.  AARP says retired people should downsize.  Money magazine says move to a small town in a state with no taxes on pensions or Social Security.  Forbes basically says to forget about it, you haven’t saved enough money to retire anyway. 

Downsizing, simplification…whatever you want to call it, retirees must face the fact that we are met with what Jimmy Carter so eloquently termed “diminished expectations.”  And while I don’t expect to see masses of Baby Boomers suddenly embracing composting or extreme couponing or trading the Camry for a pair of bicycles, part of retiring is moving from the acquisition phase of your life to the divestment phase.  Cleaning out the attic is a good place to begin.  And the basement…and the garage, while you’re at it.

But there is a fundamental paradox at work here.  While it makes sense to simplify, to cast off that which you no longer need, forty years of working for “The Man” have forged an unexpected and uneasy sense of entitlement…as in “we’ve done this corporate thing our entire adult lives, made the responsible decisions for our families, scrimped and sacrificed to get our kids through school, cared for our aging parents…and now it’s our turn.”  If retirement means signing on the dotted line for the “Last Time Buyer’s Program,” then the purchase ought to be pretty damned desirable.

It’s interesting to contemplate what kind of retirement “life” will make all of the corporate politics, upheaval, backstabbing, glad-handing, late nights, lost opportunities, and missed holidays/soccer games/piano recitals/school plays/band performances actually “worth it.”  Can anything fill that void?  Or are we engaged in what is essentially a Baby Boomer fool’s errand, trying to restart the clock of our best years?

So we encounter a head-on collision of two sentiments:  first, simplification is the responsible thing to do.  It saves money, it’s good for the environment, it’s a good use of admittedly limited resources.  But secondly, there’s this little voice in the back of your head saying, “Go on…you deserve this new house(/car/boat/motorhome/motorcycle/facelift/around-the-world-cruise)!  And by God, you deserve to have someplace to store your Christmas decorations!”

Like many couples in our position (okay, many couples our age), we have our dreams.  We’ve grown fond of the low country salt marsh that stretches from coastal Georgia north into South Carolina.  We’d like to be near a college for the cultural and academic opportunities.  We’d like to stay in the warmer climes, because who ever heard of anyone retiring to Michigan?  We’d like to embrace that sense of community that, due to multi-state/international household moves and the ever-increasing time demands of the American workweek, we’ve never made time for. 

We’ve been poking around here and there, looking at potential retirement destinations.  What we’ve found is this:  downsizing means you don’t have anywhere to store your Christmas decorations.  Small towns in states with low taxes aren’t usually near a university.  And to live in a college town in low country just proves Forbes right.  Maddeningly.

Here’s what I think – we’ve all made our choices, some good, some…not so good.  The best thing for us all to do is to identify that which brings us the most joy – that certain something that fuels our passion, gets us out of bed in the morning, allows us to lose ourselves in the moment.  Then, find a community of people who have similar passions.  And there, I believe, you will have found your ideal retirement location.  The house/car/boat/motorhome/motorcycle/facelift/ around-the-world-cruise won’t matter so much…unless, of course, one of these things is your passion.  If that’s so, go for it.

Forbes might be right, but that doesn’t mean that you have to start composting.