by Marc Cullison   [mcullison.com]

Since my leave of absence from blogging, I have been working furiously to get a grasp on what retrement really is. I’ve yet to savor the full taste of it.

I had envisioned a life unperturbed by a full time job, social obligations, and an alarm clock. Of course, I’m easily given to folly and this has proven no less of a misjudgment of my future. I mean that in a good way, I suppose. I had always harbored the fear that I might turn into a couch potato, losing all interest in life and its happiness. I still have visions of my father sitting at home after retirement, waiting for something, he knew not what. It was a solitary life, even with my mother there in the house with him. He had few interests except money, and retirement pretty much left him without the anticipation of making more of it. I didn’t want to be like that.

After the last few months, I have convinced myself that I will not succumb to the perils of wasting away. Aside from projects for friends and family, I have found little time to do what I had anticipated doing. My daughter relocated from Texas to Oklahoma and bought a house in a town not too far way. Far enough for privacy, but close enough for convenience. My wife and I have been working diligently helping her to spruce up the place, cleaning, painting, repairing, minor modifications. We finished just before the holiday season hit and shortly after Christmas, she officially moved in.

Until the big move, she stayed with us for a bit, much to the pleasure of my wife and I, and we spent a great deal of time renovating the upstairs bathroom for her convenience. It needed it, anyway. And other small jobs here and there have taken their toll on my “retirement” time. Not that I mind so much, but I still feel that I am missing something big about this retirement thing.

Now that the holiday hubbub is over and the new year has begun, maybe I can get my feet on the ground and settle into a routine that in more appropriate for a retiree, not that I really know what that is. But the pressure is off and I’m beginning to see some favorable outcome of it all, as I gaze into the near future, after the credit cards quit smoking and we can even out our debts. I will still have a lot of project to do on our home, but nothing that is critical. At least I can slow down a bit and enjoy life a little more.