Retirement?

re·tire·ment

rəˈtī(ə)rmənt/

noun

1. the action or fact of leaving one's job and ceasing to work . . .

. . . only to then be called upon to do everyone else’s work.

My daughter, who is moving into a new apartment, called to ask if I could paint it for her. She asked by saying “since I have to work 50 hours this week and you are home all day, would you mind ...”  

Jim, a casual acquaintance, recently had open heart surgery and cannot drive for a few weeks. A mutual friend called and asked “Jim needs a ride to a doctor’s appointment.  He asked me but since you are retired, and live closer, would you mind taking him?”  Which of course I did, but now Jim calls me every other day asking for a ride to the grocery store or could I pick up his meds.” Every time he says “Isn’t retirement great, to have all day to do whatever?”

A friend called to ask if I could come over and rototill her garden “in my spare time”  And then she laughed and said “I suppose you have nothing BUT spare time these days.”

Why is it that when you retire everyone thinks you have nothing to do?  They think my days are like this:

In all honestly I didn’t mind doing any of these favors for people.  But I do kind of resent the implication that now that I’ve retired I do nothing but sit around, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for someone to call and give me something to do. I already volunteered 2- 6 hours a week doing errands for the elderly.  I have a yard and gardens to tend, a house that always needs fixing, household projects, a never ending “honey-do” list, relationships to nourish, vacations to plan.  In fact, I still haven’t found the time to do the things I thought I would like practicing the piano, reading and writing more, taking an interesting college class or daily taking my dog on different hiking trails.

I retired to have the time to do the things I want to do, not to pick up everyone else’s chores.

Sheeze.  

Rant over.