Let's just get one thing straight right off the top.
I have no plans to retire.
Like, ever.
I will stop writing when they pry my keyboard from my cold, dead hands.
But several things have happened lately that have spurred me to think about the concept of retirement and what it means generally and to me and The Man.
Target: Age 70??
First of all, I finally opened my own retirement savings account. It's not that I don't have retirement accounts; I have one from many years ago that has a little money in it, and I'm the beneficiary on The Man's accounts. But for the first time, I'm finally making enough money doing commercial work that I can afford to put some of it away for retirement under my own name. This is kind of a milestone for me, and it feels pretty good.
Anyway, I had to set it up over the phone, and of course, the advisors always want to put you in the "safe" plans--the ones that target a certain date for retirement and stay away from "risky" stocks and all that. At the time, I hadn't researched which funds were available to me, so I just had the guy open the account with the default plan based on my age.
It was the Retirement 2040 plan.
2040, y'all. As in, 18 years from now.
I will be 70 in 2040.
I have no plans to retire at 70.
Bear in mind--I had to talk him into pushing it out that far. I think he wanted to put me in one of the earlier targets. I gently explained to this polite young man that 1) writers aren't necessarily dependent on physical abilities to continue to work, and 2) I planned to write until I die.
Slow down at 70? Sure, probably. Maybe I won't do so much commercial writing and I'll just work on fiction. Maybe we'll spend more time traveling, and I'll transition into someone who does travel writing--who knows?
But unless I'm suffering from early onset dementia at 70, I still plan to be writing.
The Traveling Office
The other thing that started my wheels turning on this topic was this:
Yep, we bought a camper.
I am of two minds (or more) about this. On the one hand, I am struggling a bit with letting go of my Badass Minimalist Camper identity. That was part of my personal brand for a very long time. It's fair to say that The Man dragged me, kicking and screaming, into it, but once I was there, I loved it. I loved knowing that I had everything I needed for a weekend in the woods in one backpack.
But... the ground is getting harder, for some reason.
And this camper... well, we have theater seats that recline, heat, and massage all at the same time.
I'm kind of... not too sad about that.
When I sent the picture to my mom, I said, "now we'll be like one of those Millennial couples that drives around filming their travels, except we're old."
My mom replied, "your dad and I said you'd be like a retired couple, except young."
Perspective, right?
Here's the thing. We still have a lot of ties to Oregon, and having a camper makes it a lot easier to visit family and friends for a decent length of time without being a burden on our hosts. And the camper gives us a place to work from anywhere as long as we can get a moderate amount of connectivity. I probably need that less than The Man does, because I don't have nearly as many meetings and can easily work offline. And since I am homeschooling Kid #4 through the last bit of high school, she can do school from the road, too, and still have time with her friends.
There are other reasons for the camper, too. We want to spend time exploring the North Idaho wilderness for sure. We'd like to travel through more national parks. And eventually, we'd like to find a little spot of acreage where we can maybe build a cabin or a house or maybe just leave the camper there every summer so we have a place to escape to.
There's also the fact that I apparently raised rather adventurous children. Kid #1 and his family are apparently going to be a Navy family for a while longer, which means Virginia for now and then who knows? Kid #2 wants to work at a children's hospital when she graduates from nursing school, and she doesn't want to move back to Oregon, so she's looking at places all over the US. Kid #3 is entering the Air Force, and with the job he's going to do, he may end up in far-flung reaches of the world. And Kid #4... well, she's still sorting things out, but given the trend, I will not be surprised if she ends up wandering far afield as well.
We can't drive a camper across the ocean, and there will certainly be times when flying to visit kids will make more sense than driving. But given how adventurous my kids are, the camper will be a clear advantage if we want to stay connected to them.
So back to this concept of retirement...
Working Differently
What retirement looks like for me is working differently, not quitting work altogether. I think The Man feels the same way. I don't think he'll work at his current job until he dies, but I do think he'll continue to work in some capacity for a long, long time. And again, as long as I have a moderate amount of connectivity and a laptop, I will continue to write... something.
I don't know if any writers really "retire." Ursula Le Guin was publishing new works right up to her death in 2018 at the age of 88. Maya Angelou wrote ten books in the last decade of her life and was working on another when she passed away at 86. And Cormac McCarthy's publisher recently announced the release of two new novels later this year. Cormac McCarthy is 88. Granted, it's been 16 years since he released The Road, but still--he's working.
I think the idea that people would quit working at some point and take it easy on the front porch is one of the past. There was a time when essentially all work was physically demanding and lifespans were shorter for a number of reasons. I'm sure that a 52-year-old woman of 100 years ago would not be excited at the prospect of another 20 or 30 years of work. Her "work" probably was that of a more domestic nature, but that doesn't mean it wasn't physically demanding. My grandparents owned and operated a farm, and my grandma worked until she died in her 80s. In the past, people who owned and operated farms might not even make it to 70 without decent labor-saving devices and healthcare.
I think this is where that idea of retiring at 65 started--with the promise of Social Security. Imagine that you worked your ass off for most of your life in a world where a lot of people didn't live to 65, and the government says, "if you make it that long, you can finally rest." Well, heck. I'd probably take that deal.
There was also a time when companies provided pensions. If you worked a physically demanding job for 20 or 30 years at the same place, you could finally rest. You still see that for public employees or some union represented fields, but for most people of my generation, funding retirement means a variety of IRAs scattered over different jobs or rolled over into a couple of different accounts. And because I'm a freelancer, I'm responsible for myself, so I'm not really counting on anyone to fund my retirement (well, aside from my husband).
Retire? No, Thanks!
I'm 52. I'm in pretty good health. The most physically demanding stuff I do are the workouts I inflict on myself. And as someone who has walked around with stories in her head from day one, I'm going to need a lot more years to get them out.
To me, stopping at 65 is just... anathema. I can't even wrap my head around what that would look like.
No, I think retirement for me looks more like sitting outside the camper on a sunny morning, laptop charged, coffee and dog next to me, plinking away at a new story.
I'm just getting started.
I don't know, but I've been told, you never slow down, you never grow old. Keep on writing Amy!