Retirement Revisited

Today marks the seventh anniversary of my official retirement. I'm inclined to say it doesn't seem that long ago, but as I just recounted in a previous post to this blog, the passing of time is rather difficult to gauge as we age. Or maybe I should just quote John Stewart: "Time flows like a river, you can either sink or swim." What I find most remarkable, and so I will remark on it, is how closely I have followed the script I worked on just prior to leaving the world of work.

The first year was spent just getting used to my new status and settling all the issues arising from the changes that brought. Many, of course had to do with money and the fact that I was no longer getting paid by a single employer. Suddenly I was in charge of my finances and they were rather complicated. I spent many hours online and on the phone getting everything sorted out, and it was nearly a year later before we finally knew where we stood. That's probably one reason retirement advisers suggest making no major changes for at least a year. But when I wasn't learning how to become my own financial manager, we just enjoyed life without jobs and began thinking what we would do next.

Although we imagined our next phase would be very complicated, as it turned out our planning (and a good deal of very remarkable and unexpected good fortune) served us very well. We put the condo on the market; it sold for what we asked for it, almost too quickly; and we moved back to Texas to a rented house that turned out to be just what we needed, so we bought it. I still look back on those first two years with a certain amount of amazement. All I can say now is that it does pay off to go to all of those pre-retirement training seminars and to think about what you need to do in advance.

Since then we have found that retirement suits us very well. Both J and I have many interests, sometimes I almost think we have too many interests, that keep us occupied and engaged.  So seven years on I'm hoping only for more of the same. As one of my old friends is wont to say, "life is good."  So is retirement. May it continue that way.