Just Another Friday

Think about this….. “What will I do when I retire?”

Some of us have lived old enough to contemplate this situation. Some of us have not considered the future in reality.

Many of the boomers have put money aside, like a 401k or bonds or insurance or stock options, the list goes on and on.

But what are we going to do?

Don’t get up every morning and go to the office or classroom or hospital or museum or place where we spend a good portion of our waking hours.

We answer questions, go to meetings, mentor others, write reports, attend more meetings, plan projects, help and overall feel productive. Even annual reviews show we are fine employees doing what the companies or organizations ask of us.

A sense of pride fulfills our being, and a paycheck becomes an accustomed reward.

But what do we really want to do, when that is not there?

I talked to a guy at the bike shop today while Big Blue was getting a new front tube and he said a friend had just taken a disability retirement. He told me the guy loved to tinker with things but due to the disability, he could’t live out his dream, so he reads.

Now that’s not bad. I’m reading more now and enjoying it though it makes my wife nuts because I savior the words instead of rushing though a book to catch the new edition. I did enough speed-reading while working.

So back to the original question, “What do you want to do when you retire?”

Travel? Play with the family? Work on the house? Plant a garden? Write a book?

All those projects you said you were going to do?

What happens if you wind up like my friend John who’s health failed him and he died the first year out?

Some of you have children and that will take a lot of the time. Some of you don’t and may fall into the television pastime.

Look around at the retirement homes. Walkers, televisions, fake exercises and parties where they rush to the liquor tables.

I thought about this after a fun lunch with a buddy at Joe’s Inn, burgers and fries and a lot of writing talk. No outstanding ideas appeared, but a good time had by all.

But my buddy was talking about applying for a minimum wage job, and it made me think how lucky I was to be at the end of a working career, ready to make the big decision.

“What do I want to do now?”

Some friends got me into writing a couple of years ago and though it is not award winning verbiage, it did get out some stress and expanded my mind to thoughts I did not know I had.

And of course, the computer with all the software has given me the opportunity to continue my photo and graphics exploration and discovery.

Then there is the new and re-do music. Taking old songs and recording them or taking old cassettes or tapes to digitize them with a new freshness of ideas and a reminder of the time it was written.

The latest project is to ride the morning route and take photos of trees in the neighborhood. There are some magnificent wood beings still alive in this area and I want to capture them before they are gone.

And sketching in a small notebook of newsprint puts ideas on paper and expands to other projects.

Now think about it.

“What do you want to do when you grow up…… er….. I mean when you RETIRE?”