THE TRUTH ABOUT RETIREMENT, ACCORDING TO AN ATYPICAL SENIOR

A year into retirement, am I having the time of my life?

From the depths of my heart, I wish I could say: "Yes.”

I thought I owed a happy answer to Princess Parungao who once thanked me for making her feel it was "perfectly alright to retire and get old." And to Gibbs Cadiz who called me an “inspiration for seniors” to embrace (computer) technology and who assumed he wanted to live his life the way I do mine when his “time” comes. I thought I owed it, too, to a handful of others who think I am still one hip and groovy and hot babe -- regardless I no longer hot-flush – and that I can still pull and tickle and rock and kick ass -- in spite of impending muscle atrophy.

But on second thoughts, Princess, Gibbs and company deserve a more honest answer, don't they? And I want to be a harbinger of hope, yes, but not of the false kind.

There are days, in fact, I cope magnificently and days I do miserably, but more days I feel so -- uhmmm – so so.

Taking time out to smell the flowers is great but you do it a few whiffs at a time and not make a fetish out of it. Getting fixated on sunsets is okay, too, except they last only a few minutes and are precious and few and elusive these rained out months.

And can one really make a career out of grand mothering? I love my Apo Andeng to death and it is terrific to be loved unconditionally in turn and be at the receiving end of milk-laced kisses and chocolate-coated hugs. Sure, I get all soft and gooey when Andeng climbs into my lap or thrusts out a hand trusting me absolutely to lead her where it is safe and happy. But those are the good days, when the Apo has woken up on the right side of the crib. Andeng, like most brats, I mean, toddlers, has horrid moments as well, capable as she is of throwing the most spectacular of tantrums, and -- oooh, see if I’d dare come within 10 meters of the Apo when she’s in the middle of one. Yes, thank heavens for the freedom of choice grand moms are entitled to.

I sometimes make much of virtual pleasures. Can you blame me? The online trove is a rich and enchanting wonderland that can suck in any unsuspecting Alice, Dick, or Mary. There’s e-mailing, scrabbling, blogging,YM-ing, G-talking, Face-booking, Farm-towning, plurking, twittering, photo-bucketing, You-tubing … with more digital delights out there one can never fully explore in one’s lifetime. One has to be cautious about living one’s life online, though. The dangers are many and real; and I don’t just mean back pains, butt sores, head aches, detached retinas, and cabin fever. Worst, all the logging and clicking and buddying and chatting can -- uh-oh-- put one in indefinite quarantine from the real world – not too unlike living in an opium-induced daze.

Sure, there is more time at post retirement for the things one has always enjoyed doing. Like baking, cooking, going out with ladies who lunch, reading, bookstore browsing, writing. Pingpong, badminton, walking. All these, in measured doses.

What I am trying to say is one still has to fill one’s days with a balanced fare -- enjoyable and dutiful ; fluffy and solid; physical and cerebral. What I call the three Ps: Poetry, Purpose and Play. And, not to forget -- Passion!

Purpose pre-occupies and fulfills. Play distracts and tickles. Poetry ennobles and recharges. While passion overwhelms, consumes, sends one outside oneself.

To me, smelling the flowers and marveling at sunsets are poetry. Baking, cooking, and gardening are usually purpose. Scrabble and Farmtown are unadulterated play. Reading and writing can be both poetic and purposeful -- and for now the closest to being my life’s passion. And Apo Andeng can be all 3 Ps, alternatively or all at the same time.

I guess I am getting more than the poetry and play I can use or am entitled to. What I need is more purpose and, I guess, passion. More sense of urgency. More deadline-chasing and “gosh , I’m gonna be late” get- up- and -go -- staples both of my working life. Also some sharing. And some paying back and forward. I am looking for these. I am going to find them soon.

So – once again now -- how am I coping these days?

On top of the heap today, groveling at the pits tomorrow, and neither here nor there most days.

Which, come to think of it, is the exact same way my pre-retirement days used to zig and zag.

(TO NGOs and PVOs who might chance upon this blog piece – would you have need for a volunteer writer/editor/proofreader/publicist/website coordinator/promotion person to work part-time? Please contact the author at myrnaco@gmail.com if you do.)

Over the Hill and Blogging

On the edge of retirement, I became a blogger.

When I began my blog, I thought I’d write about the truest thing of myself I could think of -- that I was growing old, miserable, and afraid.

My first blog pieces rankled with pre-retirement jitters. I made fun of my fears at best, fed on them at worst with dramatic flourishes.

My sister, a government lawyer, died 10 months after she retired. Technically, it was a conspiracy of diabetes, asthma, hypertension and depression that did her in. But virtually, she stopped the clock herself with her own obstinate refusal to live empty days with husband gone, work done, and children flown from the coop.

I had reason to be paranoid, hadn’t I?

As I kept blogging, I was surprised the negative vibes eased.

With its requisite introspection, blogging could have put me in touch with higher wisdom, an inner guru that tells me I would have arrived exactly where I am now without worrying – and more pleasantly.

With its requisite raising of external awareness, blogging made me watch out for opportunities to try new things, meet new people, and to look at experiences with a sharp eye for the instructive, comic, unusual or O. Henri-esque twist, with which to hug, tug or at least nudge the reader.

Can it be true that once you put down toxin on paper or -- uhrrmmm -- onscreen, it stays put there?

Most obviously, blogging became a hedge against my fear of a life bereft of purpose. It was something I could do with a passion well into antiquity, as long as rheumy eyes can still peer and squint and gout-stiff fingers touch-type.

I have since retired.

My blogs no longer brooded as unrelentingly as before. From one day to the next, I could be distraught or upbeat or just lackluster, and the temper of my blog pieces could swing with my inner pendulum. By turns, I reminisced about lost youth, paid tribute to someone important to me, philosophized about my losses, made mountains out of little mounds of achievements, laughed at my spotty record as mom-wife-sister-worker-friend-neighbor, celebrated the first- time wonder of being grandmother, vented disappointments and frustrations and leftover dreams and aspirations. I also narrated stories of women who confided in me their hurts for an aborted book project a decade ago.

In short, I blogged chunks of my life and pieces of my mind.

Two and a half years into blogging, I have yet to discover the secret to being old and happy. Nor am I that convinced that the best is truly to come. But I now know without doubt that when I learn to love myself, I wouldn't care how old I got. I am getting there both in years and in self- esteem.

I also know now that much like youth and the middle years, old age is what we make it. Getting old does not take away our capacity to laugh (or cry), to be passionate (or nonchalant), to get involved (or stay detached), to grow (or atrophy) . And it does not completely disenfranchise us from making the usual life’s choices.

We can choose to be old and hopeful.

Sometimes, I still forget. But as I blog on, I am constantly reminded.

(Draft intro to a prospective book that's half reality and half in the realm of dreams)

If I Didn't Take a Walk

The things I would have missed if I didn't get out of the house and take a walk.

It is not just the walking, but taking in, breathing in the surroundings. Paying attention to the houses and gardens and roads and byroads and commercial places. And best of all, squinting-- voyeur-like -- at the folks that animate the spaces.

The subdivision in Pasig where I live is typical of a lower-middle income community. No uniformed man stands guard at the unprepossessing gates that are always flung open. There are no truly majestic homes, neither are there too ramshackle shanties. Upward economic mobility is, however, apparent in a house being expanded here, another being repainted there, still another being landscaped further down the street. And the vehicles, ah! The buying of cars cannot seem to keep up with the building of driveways so that night after late night, one sees the no double-parking ordinance being blatantly ignored.

Folks here dislike being cooped up inside their homes.

Women visit each other's yards or meet halfway across the street to talk about, I would imagine, the knock-out terpsichorean style of Aling Dionesia (or Dionisia) Pacquiao, the latest medical advisory on swine flu, the bumper harvest from their avocado or cayomito tree, or -- God forbid -- that strange woman who never went out for years except to go to work but have now taken to daily walks ("Weird!"). In my paranoid, self-absorbed moments, I am thinking that would be me.

After five or thereabouts, when the stabbing summer sun begins to relent, children and children-at-heart would tumble out from their doorways to do their thing alfresco. Badminton rackets with or without nets, balls with or without baskets, monobloc chairs and tables with or without San Mig bottles on top would make their appearance on spaces that one would hesitate to call sidewalks, so precariously close they are to pedicab routes.

Around this hour, too, I put on capri pants, padded sandals, and wrist bag to take my long walk -- well, long in minutes but short in distance-- from my door to what I call the community mall and then back.

There will be others taking it with me, most of them more purposefully. Guys with a leash on hand at the end of which is a frisky beagle or an imperious-looking dalmatian. Housewives out to get some fresh stuff for dinner. Children scurrying to get their mother's errand over with. Senior citizens, about my age, taking a slow, effortful step at a time, doubtless complying with some therapy regimen after a stroke or some other medical episode. Obscenely fit for my years, I am sometimes loath to overtake them. And when I do, I occasionally whisper, when I remember to, a prayer for them in lieu of what I really want to do -- gloat I am still somewhat lithe and limber on foot.

Sometimes, when I walk, I ask myself over and again what I am walking for.

I walk to put some structure to my post-retirement life. I walk to treat my eyes to a break from a computer screen or a book. I walk to savor the breeze blowing my hair. I walk to keep from losing my mind or getting cabin fever. I walk to make sense of my life or parts of it. I walk in lieu of a boring 30 minutes on the treadmill or the 500 crunches I have wearied of doing.

Lately, I walk to see a guy.

This special person -- I do not even know his name. I began to notice him years ago, usually on the way to my office. He was always sitting on the pavement, deep in thought, asking for nothing, giving nothing, and bothering no one.

On the way back home, I would sometimes see him again, in almost the exact same place, as though he had not moved.

I have wondered about him then. My sons couldn't tell me much except that he was a fine basketball center they used to play with who got hooked on drugs. Apparently, substance abuse has addled his mind.

Someone must be taking care of him -- or used to -- because he looked well scrubbed and well fed -- or used to.

Nowadays, he looks grimy, emaciated, and hollow-eyed. His long, curly hair is untrammeled and his beard unkempt. When I asked around, I found out he had a kind sister who used to keep an eye on him and feed him but that she died a few months ago.

He no longer sits quietly at the usual spot. I see him dredging canals and scavenging trash cans in search of who-knows-what. Once, walking close on his heels, I watched him bend down again and again to pick up some stuff to put into his mouth.

I think I will call him Danny. By giving him a name, I might figure out what to do for him other than dropping a small bill by his side when I pass him, which he would acknowledge by looking up, his soulful eyes almost smiling. Then he would mumble what I could only make out as -- "Manang, Manang."

The Scarlet Letters

For months before R-Day, I walked around with scarlet letters virtually seared into my forehead. It's nothing like the “A” – for “Adulteress"-- which the Hawthorne heroine was fire-branded with to flog her for her femme-fatale ways. Rather, mine was an insipid “A” and “R” – for “About to Retire.”*

For a while, “A.R.” defined what I was. AR slowed down my walk, gave pause to my talk.

An example:

Office friend: Hey, have you heard the news?

Me: What?

Friend: The new UP Charter has been approved.

Me: So, what?

Friend: We’re no longer under SSL (Salary Standardization Law)

Me: Oh, wow. Will we get a raise?

Friend: But of course!

Me: Oh, finally, ha? Goodbye, starvation wages. Goodbye … Teka, when will it take effect?

(‘BOINK-TOINK” – the scarlet letters blink.)

Me: Uh-oh. About to retire na nga pala ako.

I got mushy over things. Events were prepositioned with a “last.” My last Christmas in the office. Last lantern parade. Last sunflower season. Last outing. Last ExecCom meeting. Last Christmas bonus/clothing allowance/productivity pay. Last project. Last hurrah.

But then, it made me look at things with a fresher, keener, more thankful eye.

More than ever, I savored the tree-lined campus, the old but trusty building, the lush landscape, the murals on the ground floor atrium, the airy second floor plaza, even my topsy-turvy room.

I relished how fortunate we all were who work there: cubicles for everyone, one computer-one-telephone per person, flexi-time, kitchenettes, and lounging places.

It is here where I found the unbossiest of bosses, freedom to take initiatives and make my own instructive mistakes, opportunities to lecture, write, research, get computer-savvy, train abroad, earn honorarium.

It is where I made fabulous friendships that sometimes teeter under the weight of office intrigues, committed myself to our development mission, fought – and sometimes went into hot water -- for what I believed in.

As I walked about with the blinking virtual letters, I thought it would really be hard to let go.

I didn’t know the office wasn't about to let go, either.

The other day, as I signed a retainer contract prepared by AO Din .....

Clink, plink!

Ooops, there go the scarlet letters.

*An allusion to the classic "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Paper Chase 1: THINGS I WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN IF I HAD PAID A FIXER AND HADN'T BRAVED THE LINES AT NSO

·

That people density and air humidity tend to increase in direct proportion to one’s proximity to NSO.

·

That NSO doesn’t have a car park for its public but a block away is a gasoline service station with two or three spaces that seem to be (miraculously) always available.

·

That NSO has bred, around its vicinity, thriving micro businesses that deal in sama-lamig, snacks, ball pen and abaniko, as well as – don’t ask me why -- vegetable and plant seeds, all of which I bought (yes, including the seeds); but that there’s a market demand yet unfilled for smelling salts, tranquilizers, and – now seriously -- “how to transact at NSO” information manuals (hmm … teka nga).

·

That you might really need an abaniko as the old and decrepit and frail have been known to collapse inside, in spite of misting devices at areas where crowds are densest.

·

That going to NSO can sharpen your cunning, resourcefulness, and information seeking -- for how else would you know how to proceed, without information posters, handouts, or desks you do not have to line up for an hour for.

·

That, even as guards valiantly double up as information officers, the best way to get information on how to get your records – especially if you are a special case like I was -- is to get out, call their delivery service number, and talk with a well-informed officer not necessarily only to get your records delivered.

·

That the queues of people are so long that if you come after mid morning you might be given number 4999 when the one currently being served is No. 409.

·

That they will refuse to serve you when you come at mid-afternoon but you won’t know it, if you didn’t ask, until you have already braved some lines.

·

That guards would permit you to enter almost anywhere the place and people would allow you to cut any which line with a smile as long as you brandish a senior citizen’s card, but you won’t know of this happy privilege until you have begun to grow more wrinkles. In other words, seniors don’t need a number, so what was I doing with number 4998?

·

That, in my case, I had to apply for my record, wait two days, and come back to confirm I do not have any record (which I have known all along) and thus what I got was a certificate of “no record” which I carry with me to the city (hall) registry of my birth which in turn will search for my record in their own archives and when they confirm what I tried to tell them (that I don’t have a record) will proceed to late-register me (I am told this will take several months) and then send that late registration to NSO where I have to queue all over again. (I felt – hingal -- rundown writing this, so excuse the run-in clause.)

·

That NSO must like their customers around for why else – instead of flinging the exit door wide open -- do they make it so difficult for them to get out of the premises?

·

That NSO can be an efficiency expert’s dream project.

·

That Filipinos are normally a patient people and that I am not normal.

Watch out for the “city hall” episode on part 2.

DOG DAY FRIDAY

Waking up to surprising rain was not really a disaster, even though the laundry I hang out to dry last night drooped heavily with drip. I tried not to whimper; one simply doesn't mourn the early passing of summer.

Even waking up with bad hair was no big hassle ... it has been happening most everyday … when my inglorious crown wouldn’t flip and fluff the way it used to, to cover the thinning and the graying inside.

It was no big deal either to spend a cumulative hour and a half looking for the toothpaste, the deodo, good, clean underwear, my cellphone, my watch, my eyeglasses. And yes, my sandals – oh please, any which pair, as long as they match.

I have long reconciled myself to spending more time to look for things than to do them.

It is that time of the year again: I am helpless, hapless, maidless.

Which means I have to cook in a hurry before leaving the house. On the chopping board, I nicked a finger while slicing the ampalaya paper thin, the way I have to do it if I want gourd minus the bitter. Not missing a chomp-chomping beat, I simply licked the blood and sting away.

I went back to the motions of dressing, got engrossed with more flipping and fluffing, forgot I had ampalaya guisado simmering, until I smelled something scorching. I ran back to the kitchen ... uh-oh! …. toasted ampalaya, anyone?! I amused myself I might have stumbled on new gourmet cooking, the way lechon was discovered – by a bungling farm boy who accidentally set a barnful of hogs on fire.

Before I left home, I had set on the table a half dozen of perfectly-fried longganisa, silently saluting the unknown who invented sausage.

Inside the car, the rain grew more insistent. And where there's insistent rain, persistent traffic can't be far behind, -- and it wasn't. As we inched our way through the godawful maze, I hummed a tuneless tune to keep my wits about.

My dog day morning had begun.

Later that day would find me on a paper chase – in my office, the NSO, back to my office – that was supposed to lead me to a potty of post-retirement gold. Why do I have the feeling it would first lead me to the fixer’s den before anywhere else?

That night, I strained to remind myself the next day will be new.

Good Riddance Day -- or so they thought

I knew it is traditional to say goodbye formally and I had long ago accepted I had to go through the ritual -- and in style!

But I had a couple of stories to go before I finish the UP Centennial book project my director touted as my "last hurrah." Plus he sounded me off on a part-time retainer engagement to go on handling publications and publicity.

So I told HRD it was premature to hold a good riddance party, as I will still be around for some time. I made AO Din promise to hold his horses and spring no surprises.

Thus have I lately fallen into an unharried, unhurried, "ah, this is the life" rhythm of going to work twice or thrice a week, after lunch.

Last Friday afternoon, I was enjoying a leisurely glass of iced tea in our office kitchenette when JP, president of our foundation, came in. He had a meeting downstairs, he said, and had time to kill, which he seemed to want to kill by discussing his arthritis. As I gamely listened, the secretary appeared by the door to tell JP his meeting was about to begin. I stood up to go back to work but JP gripped my arm. "You have to accompany me to the meeting," he said. "I can barely walk."

Strange, I thought, as he had walked in without help. Is JP making lambing? When he tightened his grip and led me through the door, a bulb finally flashed and I began to say: "Oh, no, no, no, oh no!!! Don't do this to me. I said no surprises."

When we reached the darkened Red Room, lighted only by a projector screen with my picture on it, shadowy figures began to sing. When the lights came on, the shadows transformed into smiling co-workers, former colleagues, and members of my family.

Aloud I kept yelling: "Ang sama nyo! Hindi nyo man lang ako pinag-lipstick."

Inwardly I kept groaning: "I should have prepared a speech. Omg, how come they didn't let me prepare a speech?!"

They said a lot of good things about me that day, but how come nobody said I was beautiful and sexy?

There was a "deal-or-no-deal" quiz between kapuso (my office mates) and kapamilya (members of my family) which focused on my late-rising, late-coming-to-work, nagging-pressuring ways, and other foul deeds.

The office counterpart of Michael Buble serenaded me, but why oh why did he sing "Only You" by the Platters?

I moved my chair nearer the projector when they showed a power point presentation. Even without my glasses on, I knew those were pictures of me evolving -- from very young, to not quite young, to getting old, to absolutely old. Which reminds me I still have to find out how they got my grade-school photos. And those of Apo Andeng. They even showed pictures I didn't know existed.

They made me cut a huge cake, significantly 40 x 40 inches big, thankfully without candles.

When I stood to respond, I hemmed and hawed as is my wont, when caught flatfooted.

But I managed to say the office has been good to me. That it was not just another workplace, but the source of professional, psychological, economic, and social fulfillment. That because it trusted my meager skills, I was encouraged to develop them. That because it believed in me, I had compelled myself to lecture and speak even in international conferences -- incredible for someone who has never gotten over a chronic stage fright and public speaking jitters.

I said that in the years I'd been with the office, I had coordinated and presided over countless goodbye parties, tributes and roasts and toasts. And that now that I was for the first time at the receiving end of one, it felt fabulous. But masama pa din ang loob ko, I insisted. "Kasi hindi nyo ako pinag-lipstick and hindi nyo ako pinag-prepare ng speech."

I served notice I'd still be around for some time to come and that if they expected good riddance they were in for a disappointment. For it would take a dozen hunks and a straitjacket to yank me out from my room. I ended with my favorite cliche: "And that's a promise as well as a threat."

I didn't say publicly I had fancied myself attending my goodbye party in style.

That I fancied entering the room dramatically, in gala gown, swept-up do, and vivid make-up, having finally gotten the day before the professional facial I have never treated myself to.

That, most of all, I fancied myself standing by the podium, ready -- with a torrent of choice and unforgettable words -- to shake and rattle the tiny universe that was my office for 40 years.

I didn't get to stage the goodbye I fancied. But why was I feeling so moved and thrilled and happy?