Tag: retirement

Retirement: Living the “Boring but Blessed” Life

by Pam Harris, "blind" writer

Meet my much-loved, wonderful family. I am so blessed to have each one of them, so I want to make it clear at the beginning of this blog that I am very, very grateful for all the good things in my life.

After all, in addition to my wonderful family, I live in a comfortable home, am financially comfortable with all my needs and many of my wants met, and am in excellent health. I do not take and have never taken any meds like blood pressure medicine and other medicines common to “older” adults. My blood work at my annual physical is perfect each year. I have limitless energy (well, until around 9:00 P.M.), and it is nothing for me to log a five-to-seven mile walk on any given day.

But one factor about my basic personality is magnified in my current situation of vision loss and being unable to drive.

I’m bored. A lot.

I’ve always been the type of person who needs to be doing something. Television has not been a big thing to me since I was a teen. Sure, there were shows I enjoyed, but for me to sit for hours each evening and watchTV? No. That’s like telling someone who hates to read that they must sit and read a book for three hours each evening. Torture, right?

In my adult years while I was “watching” TV, I was also doing things like grading papers, doing macramé projects, working on cross-stitch projects, doing jigsaw puzzles, sketching, and things like that. For the first ten years of our marriage, my husband worked six days a week, so I spent much of my free time doing laundry, cleaning, running errands, and things like that. I was busy, busy, busy.

Yes, I got tired. It was a treat to have an hour to relax and look at a Southern Living magazine when the boys were young. As they got older and needed my attention less, I had time to do my craft projects (oh, I forgot about the lap quilts I made), read magazines and books, and other things I enjoyed.

I took care of my parents for years. My dad had major back problems, and I did things like mow their yard or take them places. As they aged, I ended up doing things like cleaning their house, getting groceries, and other things they found it difficult to do.

You get the picture. I lived a very “busy but blessed” life.

I know many of you would disagree with me, especially if you’re still working and just longing for retirement, but retirement is okay. Not great. Just okay.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s wonderful not to have an alarm clock controlling my life. And I’m finally starting to adjust to it after having been retired for seven years. The catch is I didn’t want to retire when I did. I had to retire because of the vision stuff.

Other than the first two years or so that I taught, I always enjoyed going to work. I enjoyed being around the people. I enjoyed having a purpose each day, a goal. I loved the feeling on Friday night (the best night of the week at that time) in knowing I didn’t have to go to work the next day and the special feeling of appreciation that brought to me.

Let me reiterate: I did get tired. And I dreamed about not having more time off and more flexibility in my schedule. Yet, looking back, I did not realize how everything that was going on in my life gave me a full life, not an empty one.

You may be thinking, “But now you’ve got all the time in the world to do those craft projects! You’ve got all the time in the world to run your errands! You can do what you want to do when you want to do it!”

No, I can’t. I’m not complaining, I’m just explaining. I can’t drive anymore, so I’m restricted to online shopping or my husband taking me somewhere or running errands for us. I can’t see well enough, even using my assistive devices, to do many of the projects I used to do. And I sure can’t enjoy magazines other than the audio versions on BARD.

Oh, my, it does sound like I’m complaining, doesn’t it? Maybe I am…a little. Not that anyone can change anything about it or make it better.

I know if I lived in the same town as children and grandchildren, I wouldn’t be as bored. I know I would be even more bored if I were not involved in several civic groups and in church activities.

And I know if boredom is the worst thing I have to handle, I am more blessed than many.

The point of this blog? Or rather, the points?

  1. If you’re failing to appreciate what you have today because you are so tired and looking forward to retirement, realize it may not be what you envision. It depends upon your personality, your financial resources, and your hobbies.
  2. Do what you can to enjoy activities now while you have the physical and mental abilities to do them. There is no guarantee you will be able to do those things when you retire.
  3. Plan for your retirement by investing in a 401K or other retirement plan. You may tell yourself that you may not live until retirement so why plan for it, but believe me, you will regret it if your financial situation is very restricted. I’ve seen too many people struggle. You may want to travel or play golf or any number of things that cost money, and if you don’t have enough money to do those things, you will be sorry you didn’t plan for the future.
  4. Take care of your health. Exercise, Eat right. All the stuff you’ve heard but possibly don’t do. You want to have the health to do activities. That is, of course, unless you’re okay with being a total couch potato and stuffing your face with food and drink and not caring about feeling well. If that’s your preferred lifestyle, you will love retirement and doing nothing, but I would predict your years to enjoy that lifestyle may be shortened considerably.
  5. Do your best to be debt-free by the time you retire. I don’t agree with Dave Ramsey about everything, but he’s right about many things He has taken his own bad experience and turned it into a resource for millions. Maybe you should start listening to his podcast or reading his books.

My husband loves retirement, and I’m sure he’s in the majority of retirees, but even he realizes if not for travel and Pickleball, he would be bored many days.

I maintain this blog because it gives me something to do. I’m learning Braille for practical reasons and because it gives me something to do. I listen to audiobooks. I do knitted cap projects using a loom. I paint occasionally. I go to the wellness center. I’m in three civic groups and two bookclubs. I walk my dog regularly. I’m involved in church programs.

But I still have way more hours to fill than hours consumed by responsibilities. So my advice to those of you who may be energetic and goal-driven as I am, make a plan for retirement. Start a second career (even when dreaming of retiring from teaching, I never wanted to retire completely–I wanted to find a fun job like move to Memphis and work at Graceland or move to Nashville and work somewhere fun or even start my own publishing company).

I realize how blessed I am, don’t get me wrong. I cherish each day of my family being healthy and me being healthy because so many are struggling with serious health issues. I don’t mean to make this sound as though I’m unhappy.

I’m not. I just get bored. And if that’s the worst thing I can say about my life, I’m very blessed indeed.

Maybe you need to count your blessings as well as you begin a new year. It always helps put things into perspective. But I’d be curious to know if there are others out there who are like I am. Am I the only weirdo who doesn’t love retirement?A part-time job would be a perfect solution. I want the flex hours to be able to go help with grandchildren when needed (they live over two hours away). I want the Flex Time to go on trips. So, are there any employers interested in a part-time “blind” Spanish teacher or copy editor or content editor? If you want me to teach, I need an assistant with the vision to keep an eye on the students’ behavior since I can’t see faces or even see if there is a body more than ten feet away from me. Interested?

Hmmm…I didn’t think so. But consider the above an application. You may think I’m kidding, but I’m serious.

As I finish this blog, I’m not sure I’ll post it. I will think about it and be sure I feel comfortable with opening myself up like this. As always, I share my personal journey in the hopes of helping others cope with their own or at least put their own lives into perspective.

I guess I’ll stop now and get started on another knitted cap. Avery gave me some new yarn that will make a beautiful one. Our “Mad Hatters” group sends the majority of them to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and it gives me motivation to know one of the patients might benefit from and enjoy waring a cap that I made. One thing I’ve learned about my boredom issues is that if I take the focus off myself and put the focus on someone else in need, my boredom disappears. Serving others truly is the answer to many of life’s problems, even when we’re going through a valley ourselves.

Happy 2026, everyone. And read my blog about virtual travel this year. It may inspire you to do something similar!

Retirement: the good…and bad

by Pam Harris, "blind" writer

Ah, retirement. It’s what we dream about when we’re burned out with our jobs or feeling stuck or exhausted from the hectic pace of life. We envision how wonderful life will be when we are not controlled by the clock or obligations. The freedom to travel, to sleep late, to do what we want to do when we want to do it. What could be better?

That was how I felt when the above picture was taken at The Outer Banks of North Carolina in 2018. I had retired a week earlier, but the reality of my new situation had not yet sunk in. As a teacher, I was used to summers off, so I knew I wouldn’t realize I was retired until school started back in August.

It was a wonderful feeling to be sitting out by our pool on the first day of school. I thought of my teacher friends and how that first day was affecting them. I remembered my own experiences and was glad those days were over for me. I had signed up to be a substitute at the school where I taught, a perfect set-up for me. I could sub if and when I wanted. I had the freedom to choose.

But the newness of retirement wore off. True, I had freedom, but almost all my friends were still working, so I had no one to do things with. My husband was still working, and he was too tired at night to go anywhere, so life became a routine of…boredom. My vision loss soon declined to the point I could no longer sub, which made it worse, but even if I’d had the vision to keep substituting, I think I would have felt the same.

I know plenty of people who love retirement, and maybe I would also if I could drive and go and do things on my own. Yet I know my personality. I’m high energy, very sociable, and goal-driven.

Six years have passed, and my feelings about retirement haven’t changed. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t miss the 5:30 A.M. alarm, the rushing to get ready, the days so full I’m exhausted at night. I enjoy taking my time to drink coffee, listen to a podcast, listen to a devotional, and get my inner self strengthened before beginning my day. I’m in two book clubs, three civic clubs, and the president of our local retired teachers association. I volunteer for activities at our church.

But there are still many hours to fill each week. TV, especially daytime TV, gets boring. Audiobooks are great–for a while. My hobbies–sketching, acrylic painting, doing crosswords with the use of a assistive technology, playing solitaire with cards for the visually impaired, cooking–sound like a lot, but even those things can get to be more of a chore than a pleasure because I can do them whenever I’d like.

When you retire, you lose something. You no longer have the weekends to look forward to, so every day blends into the next. You miss out on what’s going on in your community because you are not around people on a regular basis. If the weather is bad and you’re stuck at home…well, it gets boring.

My advice to anyone contemplating retirement is to know your personality. If you’re ambitious, goal-driven, and all those qualities I’ve described about myself, you might want to ease into it. See if your employer will allow you to work part-time (ideal for me, if I could) or retire from this job and find a fun part-time job. I used to dream of moving away from our town and living in a city so I could work somewhere fun. Something simple like being a docent in a museum or selling tickets at a place like Graceland or the Country Music Hall of Fame or relocating to the Smoky Mountains and working in one of the many tourist attractions there.

But family relationships and other circumstances prevent those “fun” jobs, so that is why I’m writing again. I’d prefer to have an office to go to where other people are working to do my writing. An ideal work schedule for me would be 9:00 to 3:00 three days a week. Anyone know of a job like that for a legally blind gal? Ha ha!

Like I said, these are just my thoughts. There are plenty of people who love, love, love retirement. Maybe I would if not for my vision issues.

I often say I’m an odd duck. I don’t love chocolate, pizza, or hamburgers. I prefer salads and fruit and yogurt and vegetables. I force myself to eat fish and chicken because of the protein. I enjoy walking several miles most days of the week. Yes, that’s right, I ENJOY walking. I enjoy exercise videos and swimming and would love to roller skate if not for my age and would definitely love to ride horses again.

So if you’re an odd duck like me, you might want to rethink your retirement plants. Just food for thought!