Chapter 4:  The Money Thing. Sigh. 

Money - financial planning, your savings, a pension if you are lucky enough to have one - is central to retirement. It has to be. And, after health and hot flashes (you feel me, ladies), it’s what’s going to keep us awake most nights.  For me, 4 months away from my official retirement date, here’s what I have figured out about the money thing:

1. I am terrible with money.

2. No matter how reassuring the numbers look, I am legitimately afraid of running out of money when I am retired, and becoming poor and desperate and pathetic.

3. It isn’t really about the money. 

Public servants are not supposed to talk about money (at least not about getting paid). Public service executives, even less so. And diplomats? Eek. I think we are meant to live on the fumes of euphoria from serving the public good. 

Can you blame people, though?  I can’t. Despite the many misconceptions of what government work is like, we are so very - so extremely - fortunate to have the security that comes with a public service career, and especially now in these truly terrible, really just quite shit times for so many people. But you cannot talk about retirement without talking about the money. Your money. My money.  So I’m going to try. 

My money story is simply this: I have worked since I was 17 years old, and have never been without a job… until 4 months from now.  I worked to pay my way through university in all the usual crummy jobs, and then straight into government at age 22.  My dad worked until he died in his 60s - we emptied his office. Our mum is still running a small business at 82. 

If you peel back all the layers of my character (the fascinating creature whose words you continue to read here for unfathomable reasons) - you will find at its core a panicky compulsion to self-reliance. Being safe means counting on only yourself, and that means work. And work means earning money. My DNA does not let me trust in anything else.

Oh, I know how that sounds. Small-minded. Maybe a bit soulless. Irrational? Possibly. 

My panicky, self-preservation wired brain is at fault here. No matter how many times the maths of pension payments, CPP adjustments, RRSPs and tax benefits are explained to me, my untrusting brain scatters the data and locks my synapses in the blinding headlights of a single thought: it can’t be true. You are not meant to be safe. That is for other people - the ones with kindly grandparents who took them on sailboats and hayrides, and showed them how to grow old with grace and comfort. With parents who coached them on savings, and avoiding debts, and didn’t have to struggle to shield them from the shame of goodwill deliveries and food packages that left a permanent blot of embarrassment that has never quite scrubbed off.

So, point #3. It really ISN’T about the money. Clearly…

The irony of planning for my security in retirement, is that I am realizing that it is going to have to be about a completely new value system. If until now work = survival (and vice-versa), then what is the existential formula for retirement?  I suspect that the shocking answer to this lies in the idea of seeking fulfillment, rather than financial sustainability. I also suspect that some people figure that out much sooner I did. Damn their eyes.

But now I am wondering what is the cost of fulfillment. Effort? Experimentation? Enlightenment?

I don’t know yet. But I have a sneaking suspicion that fulfillment is not entirely free. So I had better get smarter about the money thing. Sigh.

💰💰💰