Penny Deacon’s version of retirement 
I spent my twenties living on a yacht, travelling the world. Great fun. Then I moved to teaching which turned out to be more fun than I’d expected. I also ran school libraries and wrote romantic novels. And some crime. Then I was Retired.

First there was panic. How do I cope on half my income? What am I going to DO with myself? And how will I get to know anyone since I’ve just moved house and my close friend in the area has promptly fled to London (thank you , Margaret). I imagined myself  a lonely and bored hermit.

Fast forward five years. I was swimming in the sea this morning with a friend (new). And lunched with three other friends (also new). I have lost three stone (much needed). I have been to the Galapagos Islands (dream trip)  and Orkney (another dream – despite the rain). I’m off to Italy next month. And then there’s the new kitchen …

I didn’t win the lottery. I DID get lucky – my health is good. My pension, much to my surprise, has proved adequate, and some of my savings got me to Galapagos (you can use up too many opportunities by keeping all your savings for a ‘rainy day’ which, if fate is kind, doesn’t come). I rediscovered who I was and, I hope, who I might be. Because I was in a new town I understood it was up to me to go out and find new friends (U3A and the local leisure centre gave me most contacts). It wasn’t  easy, but no harder than being a ‘new girl’ anywhere. I only bonded with one in every dozen new acquaintances, but that’s plenty to provide company and inspiration, and then some of their friends became my friends and so it goes on. Great return on a little effort and some occasional embarrassment (we’ll gloss over the time I got thrown out of the Circle of Friends for being a ‘disruptive influence’. Moi?)

The hardest thing has been finding out what my own rhythms are. I spent more than thirty years working, quite literally when in school, to someone else’s timetable. Now I have had to find my own pace. I rediscovered swimming – both in the pool and in the sea. I discovered a need to do something worthwhile and Words for the Wounded gave me an opportunity to work for a great cause and also to leap out of aeroplanes and take part in the muddiest assault course in the world.

I found that I was a natural early riser (a surprise – I’d been longing for the opportunity to laze in bed every morning and found I didn’t want it after all). I like some structure to my day or week – and revel in not being tied down to it. I do some local volunteer work but don’t want to commit to the same thing every week. But I can see a time when I might.

And that’s the most exciting thing yet: for me (and I know how fortunate I am) retirement has been an opening as well a closure, and the world is still full of possibilities.

Gransthread would love to hear of your experiences of retirement: frost@margaret-graham.com