Louisa Simmonds

It feels like we’ve been planning our retirement our whole lives, yet now as we inch closer to our target, the old man and I have realised that the dreams we shared in our early years together may have changed. 

I thought that my aspirations would centre around little more than long lunches at the golf club, beach walks, getting my hair tinted and dabbling in oil painting in my artist’s studio. However, this week’s beach holiday, whilst supremely relaxing, has highlighted how aimless I can become without routine and with limited Internet.

I’ve discovered the middle-aged body’s propensity for sleep when you have nothing tangible with which to fill your day and I can see myself slipping quite naturally into the cozy vacuum of retirement where a game of lawn bowls becomes the week’s entertainment. Just like dogs that are left at home while their owners work, I can already sleep on command and it’s becoming an effort to lower my tired body into my beach chair, hoist up the umbrella and slip, slop, slap more cream into my leathery skin each day.

In fact I’m so busy sleeping that the charge on my creative battery seems to have died and the only conversation I’m capable of is to quip back at Kurt’s barbed comments about why we dragged the poor kid away to this isolated detention centre where he can only get two bars on his phone.

I’m also fairly certain that my walks along the shoreline don’t fully compensate for the generous lunches that are somehow okay on holiday, or that they will they keep the extra kilos of contentment at bay.

Needless to say, the old man and I have been inspired to waste hours discussing and planning a sea change. The rediscovery of this gorgeous, un-spoilt little haven on the North Cost of New South Wales with its cluster of beautiful beaches edging the coastline has re-ignited our enthusiasm for an adventure or lifestyle change, perhaps a year out to commence Act 3 of our lives (more about that in another post) – for me to concentrate on my writing and for him to continue to pretend to work, like he does in Sydney.

And as I listen to the waves lap outside our window at night and pad through metres of hot sand by day, the tingle of salt on my skin and the wind in my hair makes the thought of escape tempting, to become anonymous and closer to nature.

Or perhaps not. Because what those discussions have made us realise is that our plans for Act 3 have unknowingly evolved over the intervening years and revolve less around relaxation and mocktails now and more around grabbing whatever time we have left by the balls.

And a sea change would involve more than a three-hour drive from everything we know and hold dear to us, like the pub that serves my favourite wine and the old man’s kebab shop. It would mean pushing the chicks out of the nest before I suspect they are ready to fly.

And although there are times – last night being one of them – when I would dearly love the kids to fuck off…or should I say transition to the role of “welcome visitors” rather than the freeloaders that they are, and that it’s almost time to force the them to stand on their own two feet and embrace the independence we’ve prepared them for (if we’ve done our job right), Kurt is nowhere near ready, and in all honesty, neither am I.

Anyway, I’ve read far too many articles about what is really important to people on their death beds and it’s never the “two-for-one Chicken Parmigiana with free glass of wine” at the local golf club on a Monday night.

#middleage #retirement #Family #seachange #Ageing #Humor