Thinking about retirement

My friend Katherine and I were talking about what it means to be sixty. You can decide to feel old or you can decide that you possibly have thirty years left. Then I thought about how long it took to go from thirty to sixty. I just arrived there last week. It was a long time it seems. And I was able to do so much. 

Granted I had youthfulness on my side and perhaps more drive than I have right now. I also had two children for twenty years of it. So these years I have more time in some ways.

Also, I am less likely to take time for granted at my age. I savour it more. I am more sure that there are no guarantees of how much time we have. So now at the age of sixty, I can feel that I am getting old or I can feel that I have lots of time. It is a choice. At no time in life do we really know if we have lots of time. When we are young we just assume we do. When we are older we know that time is grace itself.

So as we walked and talked we dreamed and hoped a little about what the next stage of our life would look like. Every stage a new experience. The thing I like about this stage is that we enter it better equipped. We have lived and we have more understanding to carry with us. 

Honestly, I am a little scared of aging and the possibility of not being well, but though I entertain those thoughts, I do not let myself dwell there. I try to live in the moment and in the possibility of good health. I try to imagine a future of making and creativity and all the joy that brings to me. And I pray for that.

Life for me won't be like it is for many. I won't retire. An artist does not retire. It is not a part of you that you can put to rest. It is a part of you that continues its need to grow and explore. I have no desire to stop working as an artist. In the studio there are somethings I will do less of and somethings I will do more of as I grow older, but I plan to work. I love my work and feel that from it I get nurtured and from it I grow.

I might slow down. I might change my routines. I'll wait for the signs and see what comes. I feel so much gratitude to be healthy and be able to work. Like everyone there are days when a sadness creeps in and darkens my gratitude. I always call a friend when it does. My friends reassure me that this is the human condition and that it will pass and it does. Oddly, these days often happen on a Sunday. The "Sunday scaries" my daughter calls them. It was a thing in her dorm in university for students to feel sad and out of sorts on a Sunday afternoon. I feel it too sometimes and usually I walk, talk to God and others, and remind myself that feelings come and they go.

I think part of it is that I am ready to go back to work and get engaged again. I need to make and create. It is something deep within me that wants to show itself. I have listened to it for a long time and I hope to continue listening for a long time yet. So many artists come to life as they age. Some only begin as they age. Art is not defined by our age it is defined by our making. I want to keep making.

So when I think of retirement I just think of coming and going as I like in the studio as I do now. If you know me, you know it is next to impossible to get me to write something down in my calendar. I love a blank page because that means it's a day to make. I like to keep it blank, so I can decide that day what to do. This is retirement for me; getting up free to hook and to create. I am curious about the rugs I have yet to make. If I want to see them, I have to keep showing up.