Let’s talk ‘Retirement’ since it was raised in a comment. Is this the problem? or part of the problem?

Having moved from primary teaching to f.e to teacher training to university over the first 20 years of my working life, I never felt bored or tired of my job. In fact, more often I felt excited and scared because I was always on the edge of my competence, always learning new stuff and new skills to keep up with the increasing demands of the jobs. (And, most of the time, tired.) Working at unversity level continued the change and the pace: setting up projects overseas, writing my first book, getting funding for research projects, speaking at conferences, joining and then running committees. At some point (around the millennium probably) the committee work stopped being so interesting, the piles of documents became a drag, the ‘politics’ became fatiguing. Research took over my energies. Still I could not begin to imagine wanting to retire – it always felt as if I had just got started.

Study leave started it – long periods of working in isolation, thinking and writing. Wonderful! It was what I had dreamed of in those last boring committee-years. But gradually, the institutional ties weakened. Now my working identity focussed more on my research colleagues around the world that I met up with at conferences. Even that  began to pall – the downside of conferences includes the exhaustion of travel, the tedium of egos and neediness on display, and the realisation that my own ego and neediness would not be satisfied in such an environment. As art became ever more important in my life, so the snatched moments in art galleries became more fun than the conference presentations.

Now I want out, as the Americans say. And retirement from the day job, scheduled for 2 years time, sometimes seems like someone holding open the door for me. But 2 years also seems like a long time. 2 years of 5 days a week giving my energy to tasks that have, for the most part, lost the capacity to inspire or even interest.

This blog is about is missing the energy and excitement of earlier years, not wanting to admit that these might have gone forever, and therefore wanting to re-find them. Retirement from the university job is, I suspect/hope, not the answer but a Red Herring. I don’t want to stop work, if work is applying my energies to something that feels exciting, while also earning some money. The trouble is, it becomes a red herring for me too, offering a way out when what I want is a way forward.