A week in Las Vegas with friends, including tourist time at the Grand Canyon, was a perfect respite for a couple in retirement. There is nothing like getting out of the house together for vacation fun.
I’m not retiring, but my husband, Chuck, was forced to after losing a good deal of his eyesight in a serious fall at work.
You both face the ups and downs of retirement when one joins the out-of-work society. Chuck can no longer drive and he gets mighty bored.
It’s one of the annoying things about our new life, including our feed schedule. I get home from work and he has a sandwich after his nap so he isn’t hungry for dinner. I sit down to graze, starting with a piece of toast, and Chuck wants to visit.
I want to read a magazine or watch the news, but I realize he has been home alone all day. I sneak glances at US Magazine, turn to have a second piece of toast, and he’s put the margarine and jelly back in the refrigerator.
He is just trying to be helpful, but I’m not done eating. Longtime readers may know we call my husband “Betty” when we go camping. He is the queen of setting up, doing camp cooking and washing greasy pans.
Now I live with a full-time Betty who cleans the bathroom, does laundry and keeps the rec room tidy – well, as tidy as he can see with bum eyes. I follow behind with Windex to do the mirrors. He sweeps, but misses the dirt.
Because of his boredom, my life has taken on new importance. If I am on the computer, he wants to know what I am doing. If I get a call, he wants to know what it was about. When he was working, he mostly went to the job, ate and slept.
Now he is a bulldog – about me.
Take, for instance, a phone call I got the other day about a party. Here was our conversation after I hung up. Note that banging sheet metal for 30 years did not improve his hearing.
Chuck: “Did they say what we should bring?”
Me: “Chips.”
Chuck: “Chips?”
Me: “Chips.”
Chuck: “What kind of chips?”
Me: “They didn’t say.”
Chuck: “They didn’t say?”
Me: “No, we’ll just take regular.”
Chuck: “Regular?
Me: “Regular.”
Chuck: “Are you sure they don’t want barbecue?”
Me: “I don’t know.”
Chuck: “You don’t know? Should we find out? Don’t you care about taking the right chips? Why are you so snippy?”
And all of this from a man who only cared whether parties included a card table and a keg.
In my employment, I talk to lovely coworkers and readers all day long, and I don’t want to go home and chitchat.
And I don’t want to go for a drive.
Of course, Chuck still likes car rides. He is often on the front porch when I get home, after calling me on my cell phone while I am on my way.
“I need something at Lowe’s,” he says.
Lowe’s is the last place I want to go.
We have camping property near Concrete, and he would like me to take him there every weekend. I don’t want to go every weekend. I want to sit around and do nothing, but he does that all week.
Chuck has one outlet he loves.
He is an attentive babysitter for his granddaughters, but being an occasional “manny” wasn’t his plan for life at 57 years old. This is a guy whose entire sense of self-esteem revolved around being at a job site five days a week with union buddies.
Retirement is an ominous adjustment.
The hardest part for the still employed is realizing the home guy isn’t living the life of Riley. I shove off to work, while he sleeps in.
I resent that he can watch “The View” at 10 a.m., or take a nap, or pet the cats, but I now realize it’s not glamorous at all when you are stuck in a house like a stick in a bog.
There must be volunteer work he can do by taking the bus.
We’ll discuss the idea, when I feel like a chat.
Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.
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