Why Retirement Isn’t As Straightforward As It Seems

Above, last Thursday at Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas. Photo by Mitch Geriminsky.

It will be ten years since I retired in late 2015 next year. Taking a cue from my parents, who really didn't have "golden years" due to health issues, I decided to retire while my health was still good. 

Good thing I did so, since I had a close call with a heart attack in 2018 that led to two stents being put into a coronary artery. It is said that retirees live an average of 11 years after retiring. 

As of now, I am enjoying retirement and as active as ever. My health is reasonably good. I travel in my RV or with a cruise line (most recently as last week). The key to having great retirement years is to keep active. Next month, I will be taking my RV north to Ridgway, Colorado to help out with the John Wayne Cancer Foundation's marathon. I did so last year.

Chuck Woodbury at RV Travel has posted an article on retirement. Some of what he wrote has crossed my mind on occasion. Like Woodbury, I am also "well past 65".

He begins it with:

How many times have I announced in this space that I was retiring? How many times have I hinted that I was retiring? Hmmm… Let me count the ways.

A whole buncha times… Apparently I have failed.

I am well past 65. For the approximately 17 readers in this audience younger than 40, that means I am really old. For those readers, maybe 7 or 8 of them, younger than 30, I am as old as dirt: I could have been Abe Lincoln’s drinking buddy.

Let me be clear: For most of my life I never thought I would get old. Oh, it would happen, but it would be so long it would like walking from Seattle to Miami and back maybe 50 times — essentially an eternity.

Then one day I looked at the mirror and I realized I was no longer 35 (or 45 or even 65!). I hadn’t even made it halfway to Miami one time! What the heck?

To be honest, as I always am, I have been guilt-ridden of late about still working. When I grew up in the 1950s, most working men looked forward to turning 65, whereupon they would get a silver watch, and their fellow employees would make farewell speeches saying they would remember them forever. And everyone would clap (and then the next day, when someone mentioned their name to another employee, he or she would ask “Who?”). That idea of retirement has stuck in my subconscious my whole life.

Unlike Woodbury, I did make it to Miami last week. 

To read more of what Woodbury has to say about retirement, go here.