Our local NPR station has a promo advertising their quickie morning news podcast. It goes something like, “Your mornings are soooo busy! It’s time you just don’t have! You’ve got to get up, shower, decide what to wear, get breakfast, milk the cows, and plow the back 40–!” (I made up the last part.)
I hear that and think, I’m retired. I live by myself. I have no kids, no siblings, no parents, no significant other, no job, not even a volunteer job. I live in a darling, rented house with a postage-stamp-sized yard. I have no debt at all, an adequate income, enough money in the bank, reasonably good health (knock on wood-- breast cancer 4 years ago but now NED*), in short, NO obligations of any sort to a job, an institution, or to any other persons, living or dead. I have two cats and a dog–those are my only dependents, and they spend most of the day sleeping. I can pretty much do whatever I want every day all day with no one to answer to or explain myself to.
A year ago, a dear friend died, someone whose health was steadily declining and whom I saw often and often took to the doctor. A few months before he died, my mother died. I had moved her here from California to assisted living and I saw her twice a week and did her laundry every week. Those two people were the last two human beings with whom I had any personal ties of obligation. I had done freelance work (when did that become The Gig Economy??) for dozens of clients over a period of 40-ish years, but my last client retired about the time my mom died, and I don’t feel moved to look for more work. So no more professional obligations either.
My friends all have families, including some or all of the following: spouses, children, grandchildren, siblings, in-laws, and a couple of my girlfriends still have their moms (in their late 90s). Most of my contemporaries are enmeshed in tight webs of obligation, with aging/chronically ill family members, grown children who are financially dependent on them (still), grandchildren doing poorly in school due to various problems, massive debt from second mortgages or old and/or current college loans. I’m not saying I would trade places with any of them; I definitely would not, but it is strange and atypical in this Busy Era to be so unencumbered.
Just curious. Is anyone else here footloose and fancy-free like me? How’s that working for you? (Give your age, if it seems relevant.)
- NED = “No evidence of disease.” I prefer this term to the commonly used “cancer-free,” which is something no one can count on, especially if you’ve ever been diagnosed with cancer… and frankly, even if you have not.