This Retirement Thing Is A Heck of a Lot of Work!

So, I have completed my yearly review of budget and spending habits.

But more importantly, I sat down and reviewed my “retirement to do” list – which items and activities I have crossed off, which items and activities I have added.

And my verdict after twenty-five months of retirement:

I still have no time to do the laundry.

The health department is about to slap a “quarantine” notice on my bathroom door.

I am still eating leftovers out of plastic storage containers because I never seem to have time to actually cook or do a proper grocery shop.

My boxing day sale, puppies and kittens calendar has so many appointments and events written on it, I am double or even triple booked with activities on some days.  (Mad Retiree hint – Boxing Day sales!!!  Get out and buy yourself a cute 2015 calendar!)

I am beginning to refer to those few days when I don’t actually have anything written in my calendar as my “days off”.

I have to reschedule, and reschedule again, lunches with friends (even those “work” friends who I swore I would keep in touch with) because I simply do not have a free hour to eat with them.

I am physically unable to arrive on time for medical appointments (heck any appointment for that matter) that have been scheduled for any earlier than noon.  There are days when I struggle to arrive on time for noon luncheon dates, for Pete’s sake!

I still don’t return personal phone calls or e-mails with any sort of punctuality.

There are clothing items draped over a bedroom chair that should go to the dry cleaner.  And without a word of a lie, they have been draped over that same chair for about a year now.  (I know it’s been at least that long because I wore one of the blouses to a 2014 Christmas party and it has a cranberry sauce stain on it.)

I am still constantly looking at my watch because I have always seem to have to be somewhere else.  And I’m usually running late. (I did try to loose the watch in the early days of my retirement.  What a disaster that was!)

During the week, I am never home between the hours of say, ten and six.

Instead of shrinking, my retirement “to do” list is getting longer and longer by the day.

I am beginning to find that retirement is becoming as big an imposition as working for a living used to be.

By the time I made it through my first year of retirement, I had more or less found my feet and was just beginning to truly appreciate the concept of being retired, of not having to go into work anymore, of having all of the free time in the world at my fingertips.  I was being trivial and frivolous, and for that moment in time, that seemed to be enough.  So, at the end of my first year, I didn’t consciously go back and re-visit my retirement "to do" list.

But now, after completing my second year (and second summer) of retirement, I have come to the realization that simply crossing things off of my list may be fun, but it should not be the sole purpose for making, and keeping, the list.

I am x-number of years old, I have 35+ years of work experience under my belt, I’ve read a few books, been a few places, done a few things, met a few people.  

And after 25 months of retirement, I have a good idea of what my financial limitations are, I have established some structure to my days, and I have figured out, more or less, exactly where my interests currently lie. 

So now I think it’s time I actually tried to accomplish something.

I am beginning to think of my first year of retirement as my “gap” year – the chance to acclimatize myself to my new reality.

 

Now at the end of my second year of retirement, I think it's time to get on with it.  To actually "do" something with my retirement.
 

I'm not quite sure yet what that "something" is but let me tell you, I have plans!  The question now is, can I pull "it" off?