Retirement Doesn’t Mean Our Senior Days are Endless

How Not to Get Stuck in a Promise to Write

How many times did I say this: “When this thing is done, I will finally spend the time writing.” Now, the latest ‘thing’ is “when I retire” or when I stop teaching, my last job in four decades of my professional life. My retirement should be the opportune moment to finally continue or finish writing: a YA novel, a Romance Chicklit, a Play about Ruth, a Tagalog Short Story Collection, a Things Essay, and another Poetry Chapbook. These projects started way back in the early 2000s, and all of them are stuck.

The YA novel in Tagalog and English, tentatively titled Banggol and Bianca’s Diary, has both evolved into eight chapters, and both have just stopped progressing. The Romance Chicklit in Tagalog is a fully done novelette, but it is stuck in its dated language because it was written during the time chicklit romances were becoming the trend. At least four songs for the characters in my musical play project are stuck as lyrics without melody. There are at least five creative non-fiction works about Things, and they are stuck in the rarity of more things to write about. Then there is that lag in poetry. I’ve not written any new poem in five years, and my dissertation on poetry, Hugos, Awit ng Lansangan, is stuck waiting for defense.

I have Not Stopped Writing, But I'm Stuck

Yet, I know I have not been lazy. I have not stopped writing; only these projects aren’t getting my dedicated writing time. What’s getting done is mostly content writing, like this, for the current websites, because this is easy. This kind of writing doesn’t get stuck. It requires only a personal processing of an insight, and I don’t have to think too hard. But why is it that, after having written, I feel that I have not written at all, that I’m stuck in mediocrity, that I have wasted words? Why do I feel so guilty, as if I am retiring into a parallel depression?

Being stuck is being restless. My energy is still at its peak, but my self-confidence hasn’t matched the enthusiasm. My mind is full of ideas, and I can’t catch up with all the brainstorming. What to do first, what to concentrate on, how not to meander, this is what stuck means to me. The feeling is compounded by the thought that maybe all that I’ve been writing is nonsense. So I have been patting myself on the back, saying, no, no, no, what you’re writing isn’t noise, but then again, the nagging creeps in: you could be merely self-projecting, posturing.

Being stuck is knowing writing can’t be more than posturing; I get stuck because I double-take on the intentions and desires behind my writing. Memory, history, culture, belief, faith, and individuality aren’t simple subjects. But what about memory? What about history? What about culture, and so on? I am stuck in overthinking, stuck in coercing meaning into every title brainstormed for content. I struggle with every idea: How should I be writing about it? Will it be this way or that? Do I need to research? Should I not go where it leads me, but why, etcetera.

Being stuck is not being able to identify immediately what that legacy actually is. Am I forcing the next generation to come to their senses with my values and takeaways? Should I really impose my ideals on my nephews and nieces, and extended relatives, to the best readers out there? This sticky feeling, that I have not really sprung forth as somebody worth leaving anything valuable behind, leaves me stuck. What if someone reads my work and simply shrugs it all away? Not even a nod, a quiet weeping, or a moment of wondering, just a shrug. Or it gets relegated to the academic shelves. Too sad.

I Should Be Getting Unstuck

My prayer is that in the remaining days God is giving me, I should not be wasting time. Being a senior citizen means I should just be. My retirement can’t be programmatic in compartmentalizing the writing hours. What should happen is me getting unstuck. And the reverse of everything that is the definition of stuck here, that should be my escape.

I can’t get stuck in a promise to write, thinking I’ve not been writing. I should be forgiving myself because, after all, I’m writing. This essay is written. My content work is writing. Not only can those ‘major things’ be the writing. My end products are plenty; I can’t be stuck thinking that I’ve written only if I’ve published a novel, a short story, a poem, or a play.

Being unstuck means moving, choosing, and embracing the process. Forgiving myself for all the years of procrastination is getting unstuck. Getting back to any project without bias against the content writing I do is getting unstuck. Not overthinking legacy is getting unstuck. Arresting the nasty nagging of myself is getting unstuck.

Retirement doesn’t mean my senior days are endless. I don’t have infinite energy or infinite time to complete every writing project. But perfect conditions, inspiration, confidence, and legacy—these will only keep me in the doldrums. Instead, I will live fully in what is left of the time, think generously in any genre, and write on, and on, and on.