One day, you awake and realize you don't have to wake up to an obnoxious alarm, a real alarm, the kind that you bought at Wallgreens, wrapped so you could see the face. I don't know why the faces come in different colors, like who's going to see it, even you don't, until it sounds like a four-alarm fire going off in your head, just inches from your face.
As you drink a second cup of coffee, you realize that while you were running late, all you ever had time for was half a first cup, and the remainder stood on the kitchen counter, a swimming pool for flies. Now the coffee pot is almost always filled with enough to last you the day, but that last cup could probably be used to clean rust off of chrome.
Retirement isn't always what it's cracked up to be, but there are some perks, like boxing up the dozens of ties in multiple colors and designs that you were forced to wear around your neck each and every workday. Donating a closet full of business suits to a charity, but keeping one for funerals or special occasions you hoped would never come along as quickly as they do.
Retirement means retraining our brain to take things slow, as there's no rush anymore, just slow-paced walks to visit nature that you usually only saw out a taxi window. You'd find yourself talking to the trees or laughing at the squirrels fighting over acorns. You wore your bathrobe over your old army coat, which you found while undoing your clothes closet. and finally had a chance to try out the rubber waders your son gave to you at your retirement party, because you said you might take up fishing.
With so much time these days, you took every opportunity to stay in touch with the friends still breathing, meeting at the diner for lunch that somehow managed to stay in business for decades. You'd skip the bacon-and-mayo sandwiches, and water would be the drink of choice to help your kidneys. It looked more like a lady's social than a man's lunch, with several pictures of beer and smoke rings from a hand-rolled Cuban cigar.
All in all, being retired isn't so bad as long as we keep telling ourselves we're just aging like fine wine, saved for the next celebration, not a random number when the final curtain falls. Whether it's 70, 80, 90, or more, we are still who we've always been, except for those pesky age spots we wear with a Grateful Dead t-shirt.
Retirement isn't always what it's cracked up to be, but there are some perks, like boxing up the dozens of ties in multiple colors and designs that you were forced to wear around your neck each and every workday. Donating a closet full of business suits to a charity, but keeping one for funerals or special occasions you hoped would never come along as quickly as they do.
Retirement means retraining our brain to take things slow, as there's no rush anymore, just slow-paced walks to visit nature that you usually only saw out a taxi window. You'd find yourself talking to the trees or laughing at the squirrels fighting over acorns. You wore your bathrobe over your old army coat, which you found while undoing your clothes closet. and finally had a chance to try out the rubber waders your son gave to you at your retirement party, because you said you might take up fishing.
With so much time these days, you took every opportunity to stay in touch with the friends still breathing, meeting at the diner for lunch that somehow managed to stay in business for decades. You'd skip the bacon-and-mayo sandwiches, and water would be the drink of choice to help your kidneys. It looked more like a lady's social than a man's lunch, with several pictures of beer and smoke rings from a hand-rolled Cuban cigar.
All in all, being retired isn't so bad as long as we keep telling ourselves we're just aging like fine wine, saved for the next celebration, not a random number when the final curtain falls. Whether it's 70, 80, 90, or more, we are still who we've always been, except for those pesky age spots we wear with a Grateful Dead t-shirt.
Mike 2026 
No comments:
Post a Comment