Two Links and Turning Points

Hmmm. I had planned to write a piece on the State of the Union speech, and the Republican candidates, but probably one thing has happened that illustrates the State of the Union pretty well.

I will warn you–for those of you without firm retirement plans, it will sound a bit like whining, so you may not wish to go here (unless you want to see the writerly links and the meta).

Bryon went to a meeting about IPERS, our state public employees’ retirement plan, last night.

Substantial changes to IPERS–teachers will now receive 65 percent of the average of their top 5 years of salary, rather than 80 percent of their top 3.

We will survive that. Many teachers who work in lesser paying districts will now be looking at a retirement full of poverty, where being able to go to McDonald’s would be a good week. It comes as a bit of a blow for us, even. I am encouraging Bryon to get out as soon as he can in 2018, because I’m almost worried that they’ll damage the program even more if he delays retirement. There is nothing to be gained from his waiting.

However, my dreams may be substantially changed. Let me say that I love my job. I love all the nice things my job does for me. I am lucky to not only have a job that I love, but I am lucky that I have any retirement at all in this day and age. There are no guarantees for what life will be like when I’m 65, but I’ve done everything I can humanly do to try to make what I can work.

I was really looking forward to writing full-time at 55. But I am too conservative, having grown up in poverty, to quit my job and risk a retirement that is less than adequate for our needs. Further, while we can play a little more with life insurance, should anything happen to Bryon while we are in retirement, I’m on my own, unless we want his IPERS income to take another palpable hit. At this point in time, our fiscal planning is sound, and if I want it to stay sound, I’d best keep working for the full 30 year career. It’s too bad Bryon’s not the writer. He’d have around twelve years to kill. The way I’m looking at it now, I blew my opportunity to get early retirement while I was working on my PhD.

Well, fine. I’ll still write the way I write now. Many, many modern writers work full time and crank out plenty of material. Dare I suggest it, but I think this may be becoming the way of things for more and more writers as advances lower. And the Stumps still be able to travel and buy nice things. I intend to go into retirement as wisely as I can.

But no one knows what the future will hold. I have done a budget and figure we can get by with seventy-five percent of what we make now, even with added medical expenses. I figure that the job I have right now is a great fit, but if a similar job opportunity were to come up in Florida, one that contributed to the same academic funds I am storing up right now, well, excellent. I could look into that. Also, one of my books could be profitable. That could make up the difference. Things could change. Or not. What’s imperative? Funding for our future.

Pragmatism keeps me on the more conservative, sure path. Boring? You bet. But as safe as I can plan for.

So, then, as I mull all this over, queasy about uncertainty, and a little disappointed about how I hoped things would turn out, the Internet is kind enough to hook me up with a couple of links that actually apply.

From Steve Buchheit, there’s a link to Kameron Hurley talking about being a working writer and setting her goals for writing a book a year. Also, Hurley has some excellent things to say about writing what you write, regardless. Which is something I can believe in, because I can do no other thing.

And then, from Richard Baldwin, one of my fellow Codexians, comes this link from Dennis Palumbo about patience. This quote especially rings true:

Moreover, patience builds faith in one’s craft, because craft results only from the slow accumulation of skill—that is, from the mistakes, the breakthroughs, the false starts, the two-steps-forward-one-step-back rhythm that is the writing life. The cultivation of patience—not as a “waiting for things to change,” but as a state in and of itself—leads to awareness and self-acceptance, necessary components of artistic command.

Too much for a bumper sticker, but isn’t that what we should be about, after all? Patience in producing work, regardless of the time you have to do it, and how long it takes.

Something else that Palumbo says was a slap I needed:

Stephen Levine, a well-regarded meditation teacher, once described the cause of suffering as, simply, “wanting things to be otherwise.”

And that brings me full circle in regard to worrying about a life that I’ll be living anywhere from 8-19 years from now.

Foolish, foolish Catherine. Do the best you can to plan for the future, but live in today, enjoy what you have, and see what happens. It is not who you will become that matters, but who you are now that will make you happy.

Hmm. Chew on that, you crazy type A woman. And shine on.

Catherine

Author: Catherine Schaff-Stump

Catherine Schaff-Stump writes fiction for children and young adults. Her most recent book, The Vessel of Ra, is the first book in the Klaereon Scroll series. She is currently working on its sequel, as well as penning the middle grade adventures of Abigail Rath, monster hunter.

2 thoughts on “Two Links and Turning Points”

  1. Is all of both your retirements entirely in IPERS? Any Social Security funding at all?

  2. Steve:

    My retirement is not in IPERS. It is in TIAA/Cref, which is why I can play with mine. Bryon is in IPERS.

    We will qualify for social security when we turn 65, like most other folks, but that won’t help us until later.

    Catherine

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