“Retirement can and will be a glorious time in your life. You’ll love the freedom and ability to try new things. It’s a new phase of life; a chance to be a beginner again.” Richard Carlson
“Retirement is the last opportunity for individuals to reinvent themselves, let go of the past, and find peace and happiness within.” Ernie J Zelinski
Crossing the Bridge: Crossing the Bridge is a metaphor I am using for being faced with a change in work, in life, in anything where things are now different, a change in my Parkinson’s, or an alteration in how I manage it.
“Retirement: a time to become much more than you have ever been.” Ernie J Zelinski
Before: I spent almost forty years living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and working at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, specifically in the School of Medicine. Chapel Hill is one end of the Research Triangle Park, with the other corners comprising Durham and Raleigh. It is a typical college town with a small town embedded in a relatively large university. Chapel Hill changes personality when school starts in August, and the students arrive. Likewise, it becomes a sleepy village in May following commencement, and the students leave for the summer. Everywhere you go in town, you feel the energy the students bring, whether it be from winning a basketball game against arch-rival Duke University or the crowning of yet another women’s soccer national championship.
Downtown Chapel Hill comprises a few streets dominated by bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and T-shirt shops. My mother visited once, and as we walked through downtown Chapel Hill, she said, “That’s it?” I lived 3 miles from campus, and it usually took ~10-12 minutes to get to work. Likewise, it would take about 12-15 minutes to walk from the health sciences/hospital on the south part of campus to the beautiful and picturesque part of camps to end at downtown Chapel Hill. Life continues at its own pace in a college town like Chapel Hill. The world may change, but while you are here, life has a constancy that never changes. However, after almost 40 years, I needed a change.
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.” John Burroughs
Now: My retirement community of Sun City Hilton Head in SC is 12 miles east of Hilton Head Island (depending on traffic, 20-45 min to the beaches), 20 miles from Savannah, GA, and 4 miles to the historic old town Bluffton. What is a plus for me is that we have three 18-hole golf courses on site. We also have six swimming pools, three workout/exercise facilities, three dog parks, a performing arts center, a crafts center, a woodshop, a sports park, pickleball courts, tennis courts, and bocce courts. Most of the men I play golf with wear shorts every day of the year (to give you a relative idea about the weather). The Wikipedia page is located here.
“Great necessities call out great virtues.” Abigail Adams
The Bridge: My community spans north and south of Highway 278, the road to Hilton Head Island. A bridge was needed to unite the two areas of the community. So, a two-lane bridge was built that allowed the passage of cars, golf carts, bikes, and pedestrians. Here are two views of the bridge.
We live on the south side of our community, and there are two golf courses here and one golf course on the north side. There are additional shortcuts to going over the bridge once you get to the north side of the community to get other exits into town. Thus, I cross the bridge a lot. But I never thought I would write a blog post on crossing the bridge.
“Golf is played by twenty million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun.” Jim Bishop
A Change in Life: When I drive over the bridge, especially in the golf cart, I look down at Highway 278 and notice/appreciate the traffic. An early morning tee time at the northern-situated golf course means driving over the bridge during rush hour, and cars are stacked back-to-back in both directions. After about 12 months of being here and driving across the bridge, I looked at the busy early-morning commuters, and I thought, “Gawd, am I glad to be retired.” It was the first time that thought had crossed my mind. But then I thought about what I had just said, and it was sinking in, Yes, you have retired. No more classrooms, no more laboratory benches, no more last-minute evening drives to the Federal Express office to overnight delivery of the latest grant/research proposal to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), no more interviewing applicants for medical school, the end of planning for next semester’s class, and the stopping of endless meetings to keep planning for now and the next few years ahead.
Those few minutes across the bridge that morning signified a change within me that said, yes, your career was over, and now enjoy your retired life. The school no longer needed your services. It was time well spent. But now you have the opportunity to begin anew.
“Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.” George Washington
The Transition to Retired: My heart still worked, and my brain still functioned, but there was no need to think so deeply. But that was okay because I had a round of golf to play. Later that day, I planned to nap, and it was my turn to prepare and cook dinner. At one time, others heeded your advice, appreciated your humor, and listened to your thoughts/ideas; now, you depend on yourself and a few others close to your heart.
And then it hit me; all of my neighbors and golf buddies had had a similar fate; they had all transitioned from working to retired. And they all seemed happy about everything. Life could still be good; life beats on, along with your heart and brain. And so it began; after the trip across the bridge, my new life was simpler, lower in expectations, and not heading in a particular direction. Life was now retired. And then I said, ‘Let’s go!” And I was reminded of the closing lines from “The End” in the Beatles Abbey Road album: “And in the end / The love you take / Is equal to the love you make.” May you likewise be enlightened when you cross the next bridge in your life.
“As a chapter closes in your life,
And a new one starts for you,
May your years be filled with all the things
You’ve been looking forward to!”
John Walter Bratton
Journey with Parkinson's 