talk 808

Retirement – The Best of Times and the Worst of Times
May Chen

About a year ago, I was entertaining the thought of retirement when I was feeling the pressure (more so than before), my work was no longer an enjoyment and I didn’t really care for the people (most of them anyway) I work with and there were never enough time to spend with my two adorable grandsons. However I also realized that I don’t really have any hobbies either other than traveling that I would like to pursuit, so what am I going to do when I have all the free time in the world after I retire?

When I started working at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, my boss was a young researcher and I was a young girl, now 40 years later, he is a world renowned scientist who received the ultimate Olympic gold medal (it is solid gold unlike what the athletes got) for his contributions to sports medicine at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and I have become a grandmother. I have always envisioned that I will retire at the same time as my boss, to close down the lab so to speak, however, my boss has made it perfectly clear to me last year that he has absolutely no desire to ever retire from his research, so there goes my plan. My boss asked me to stay until he retires when I told him that I have had enough; but knowing that his grants still has at least three more years to go and he is applying for more so there really is no end in sight. I want to leave while I am still relatively young and in pretty good physical shape, I want to be able to spend more time with the grandkids and do more travelling while I still can. He left me no choice.

June 30th was my last day at work, a job I had held for 40 years. I had a lot of fond memories as well frustrations, I had helped built and managed that lab, a place where I spent two third of my life. I felt the sadness when I walked out of that door for the last time (even after quite a few beers). No doubt I will miss working in the lab some time down the road, but I certainly won’t miss the pressure and the deadlines. Although I have done a lot of travelling while I was working (just to get away from work, I supposed), but now that I have retired, I have all the time in the world yet I have no desire to go anywhere, funny, isn’t it? Other than a few short trips here and there and another trip to Europe later this year, I have nothing else planned. I am not exactly having the time of my life, not yet anyway, but I am not complaining either. I still exercise 5 days a week, babysit when asked, watch a lot more TV and work on my photos, however I am still sleep deprive even though I can sleep as much as I want. Everybody asked me what my plans are after I retire; my answer is “NOTHING”, absolutely nothing, my plan is to do nothing.

Life is good as it is, I am at peace and enjoying it, hopefully the worst of times are over for me and I am going to have the best times of my life.