[ "I can only fantasize. I retired at 68. I can tell you what they don't tell you about retiring LATE. That you're already too old. That you're too late to whitewater rivers or climb mountains or any of the multitude of things you'd always secretly hoped to do in retirement.
That within five years of retiring at 68 you'll spend more time and money in doctor's offices than in all the rest of your years put together. That at retirement beyond 68 you won't feel like making that hour's drive to the coast just to stand in the salt surf with your spinning reel and feed the fish like you'd always thought you'd do, and especially not given the hour's return trip as well.
That all those great books you were planning to read will end up lying in your chair beside you while you snore away before you'd even finished the introduction. That you'd have to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the rest of your life in order not to encourage the kind of acid reflux that can leave you barfing on your bed at night. (Oh, how badly I'd wanted to try the fried dill pickles and fried green tomatoes and okra at Jimmy's Grill!)
That every time you felt the need to go it would become an Olympic sprint to the bathroom. And that you don't always win. That one sip from a Miller's Lite would make your stomach flip three times over (Miller's Lite, no less!). That your favorite reading material would be the obituaries, and that you'd spend far too much time hanging out at the cemeteries.
That you'd spend so much time studying actuarial tables and fudging answers on all those longevity tests. That the only thing worse than the maladies you have are the maladies created by the damn pills you take for them.
PS - Please understand that most of this is tongue-in-cheek and written for humor's sake. Some is true, but it's not as bad as all that. I enjoy life very much and am able to do all the things that most matter to me. Best wishes to all."]
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Ron