Yesterday, it was beautiful here. A rare 75-degree March day which included abundant sunshine, until the thunderstorms went through later in the day. Fully taking advantage of the day and our newfound freedom from renovations, we went for an 11-mile bike ride near our house. The route is a small gradual uphill followed by a return home that is pretty much downhill. As we were riding back down the hill, wind blowing somewhat through our hair (through the bike helmets), the sun shining, the ride now easy, I looked at my husband and grinned.
“This is what I want retirement to look like,” I said. And in that one moment, our future lives crystalized for me.
When I took a three-month sabbatical in 2024, I was exhausted and still had the work “twitches” of anxiety, fear and stress with me. I was anxious that I would not eventually find work again, fearful of wasting opportunity and resources and stressed about what the future held. As a result? I loved the sabbatical but was also ready to “get back to work” at the end of it.
Fast forward just 18 months and life looks and feels differently. I’m less fearful for one and I’ve been away from the high-pressure demands of being a corporate/employed consultant long enough that I now value all of my life differently. More than that? I am starting to recognize that we can live on a lot less than what we do now. That knowledge – or power, as I think of it – fuels my confidence and eases my anxiety. Are we fully ready to retire? Umm, no. We need to save just a little more and we need to wrap up some big things professionally. But just like you get ready for a new job, a new home or even a vacation, I can feel both of us getting ready for retirement.
I truly believe we are on the big wind down and it’s likely going to take us two years to get there. Well, actually a bit over two years… I want to target May 1st, 2028. That would have us winding up our professional lives just before summer breaks wide open. It also corresponds to when my sister will be retiring and my other sister should already be there. In two years, there’s a lot I want to get ready, including having the cash on hand so we don’t need to draw off of retirement and planning for health insurance until we’re Medicare eligible. (Medicare for all, anyone? Asking for my own self-interest. 😊)
But those are just the super practical and financial things. What I really want to think about getting ready are the not-so-practical-but-vitally-important lifestyle decisions. I want us to define the things we will do in retirement. It’s not just about summer bike rides or winter cross-country skiing. It has to be more. We need to keep rebuilding friendships, keep exploring areas of the world we want to visit, keep defining books we want to read, plants we want to grow, creative projects we want to pursue… the list could go on.
In the end, the practical/financial stuff matters a great deal, but the lifestyle preparation is likely even more vital. Understanding and building for that future is a monumental task. Too many people enter retirement unprepared and either get sedentary and turn on the television or get lost and go back to work for something to do. I don’t want that to be us.
Instead, I want retirement to be that process of rediscovering ourselves and our interests. I want to have the energy and mobility to do the things we love. I want to learn without the pressure of having to apply that learning as part of a trade. I want to read for fun.
And yes, I want days to stretch out endlessly so that one rainy or snowy morning doesn’t mean vitally missed opportunities. I want time to be our friend where we can pick a day – any day – and simply do. I want Sundays to be just another ordinary day and not a day to get ready for the week and I want Mondays to no longer feel like a burden.
In one moment, I had this perfect clarity of where I want to go. I’ve been working so hard on how we will get there that I had lost that vision. Now? I can see it more clearly than I have in awhile. I also realize that I am more ready for retirement than I ever have been and that’s a good thing. As I look forward, there are only two more summers of work. Two more autumns where we will be picking up leaves and I’ll be hustling for contracts. Just two more winters where we will need to squeeze in shoveling around client meetings.
What lies ahead? I am hopeful that it brings so much promise. More than ever, though, I recognize that for that promise to be realized, we have to be prepared. Challenge accepted.
The Yuppie Homesteader 