I’ve been counting down the days until retirement; or rather
an app on my smart phone has been doing it.
I’m at minus 23 days right now. I’m
not sure there is an app for counting UP and I sure don’t want to countdown
from 28 years from now when my financial advisor estimates “that my retirement
will end.” However, it seems like I
should have some means of measuring time.
My retired friends seem to quickly forget what day it is, which sounds
great, except that I am a counter. I don’t
really think I would like losing a sense of time. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want it to pass
too fast or too slow, but I would like to know that I’ve savored it a bit. I don’t’ want to over schedule myself, but I
do want to have some kind of structure.
Many of you will think I am crazy, but I thought about
developing a schedule for myself. You
know, get up at 7:00, go to the gym at 9:00, relax at 11:00, lunch at 12, etc… But then even I realized this was nuts. So how will I pass the time and what kinds of
goals can I set for myself?
Friend and I have already agreed that we will take one bike
trip a year to an overseas location until we are too old to do so. This year it will be northern Italy one week
after I retire. Next year our other
biker friend, Motorbike, says we should
do Denmark. So that is a plan,
right? A colleague retired last
month. She is training for a century
ride. I’m just not convinced I have the
drive to train by myself, and my biking friends don’t want to do it. So, I guess I’ll drop that idea. When you are retired I believe you can do
things like that---make up your own mind about your MISSION, VISION, OBJECTIVES
AND GOAL STATEMENTS. Right? In fact, I want to strike those words out of
my vocabulary. Didn’t like them when I
was working and by god I sure won’t use them when I AM retired.
I’m thinking that 2012 won’t be a problem. Retiring August 31, biking northern Italy from
September 7-19th, volunteering at The Mission Continues on September
22, then home for a BIG multifamily Italian-American reunion. October will be cleaning the house, getting
rid of stuff in the garage – hubby’s not mine, then November and December are
all of the holidays. I’m thinking that
2013 will be the big challenge.
I still don't have the 100 things I want to do before my retirement ends, but I'm working on it. Stand by. I'm sure I'll have it done soon.
