I’ve retired. I thought the reality of retiring had sunk in
a long time ago, but I'm not sure it has yet. Not that I would change anything,
I wouldn't; I'm quite happy not to have to follow someone else’s schedule, and
I'm extraordinarily happy to 1) not
be defined by a job, 2) have time to do some truly important things.
Like what, you may ask?
I plan to do more reading and some
writing; I’ve been noodling some ideas for a mystery series, and might try my
hand at some poetry. I’ll be posting
here a little more regularly; I’ve set the initial goal of once a week, every
Saturday, starting today. Also, I want
to venture out to other parts of Colorado and take of pictures of all the
beauty in my adopted state, a lot of which I haven’t had time to see yet. There’s a lot of things I want to do,
including having a beer now and then and just sitting and watching all the hustle and
bustle of the world going on all around me.
John Lennon got it right.
That’s the key. Usually, the first thing anyone said to me
when I told them of my impending retirement was, "What do you plan to
do?" As if I had to do something to be a real person or to be
happy. It seemed that many people, when
they think of being retired and living a life without the daily busyness would
be meaningless, empty. My constant rejoinder, offered with a laugh, soto
voce, to cushion the blow as it were, was "As little as freaking
possible." They all thought I was joking, I wasn't, I was deadly serious.
All the busyness, with little play time, I've put in over the last 40 years
wasn't my real life, I think my real life is just now beginning. I don’t think this big change in routine is
going to be easy, there’s going to be challenges ahead, it’ll be hard
work. But, I think, it’ll be the real
work I’ve been itching to do for as long as I’ve been on this earth. I’m ready to get started.
