I always thought retirement was the ultimate goal until I realised its just the start of a new struggle.
For forty years, this is what I kept telling myself, especially when exhaustion set in:
Just hold on a bit longer. Once you retire, youll finally get to rest.
I dreamed of having time for myself.
I dreamed of waking up without an alarm clock.
I dreamed of not having to rush anywhere.
On my 65th birthday, I signed the papers. There was a cake, a bouquet of flowers, and farewells. My colleagues gave me hugs and wished me peaceful days. I went home, finally feeling as though my life was truly beginning.
That feeling lasted exactly thirty days.
When my first pension arrived, my stomach twisted in knots. The amount was fixed but the prices at the shops werent. My prescriptions became more expensive. Bills certainly didnt offer any discounts.
I sat down at the kitchen table, pen in hand. Added up the numbers. Subtracted. Calculated over and over. It just didnt work.
If I wanted enough for food and medicine, I had to choose:
either cut back on my treatment,
or cut back on my meals.
Two months after my joyous retirement, I pulled on work clothes again. Not in my old profession. Anything I could find. Cleaning, helping out in a shop, temp jobs.
With aching legs and a sore back, I watch the young people spend their entire paycheques on a weekend night out, and I cant help but think:
If only they knew, time runs out quicker than money.
Growing old should be dignified.
Poverty in old age is brutal.
I made a mistake. I believed the system would look after me. That the government would protect me. That hope would be enough.
But you cant build a future on hope alone.
You build it with a plan.
Retirement isnt about age.
Retirement is about financial stability.
If youre working today, if you have your health and energydont spend it all. Don’t rely on someone else to come and rescue you when youre old. Build something that will look after you when you no longer can.
Because theres nothing more painful than working your whole life dreaming of rest
only to end up working just to survive in the end.
