So, there’s a quiet rhythm to enjoying the seasons. Essentially, you give up control. Spring can be muddy, damp and cold but there is the magic of new life and those more and more frequent bright and sunny days to sustain you. Summer arrives in a burst of sunshine and with long days that stretch out endlessly. The heat of the day melts into the gentle coolness of the evening and it’s just magical to think this good weather actually is commonplace. Fall is, well, fall. It is the most spectacular season of all. The turning leaves light the hills on fire, the cool crisp days beckon jeans and a warm sweater and there is nothing like the fall harvest. And winter – despite my hard feelings – puts on a show of its own with icy mornings, fluffy snowflakes and dark nights that drive you inside to be calm and rest in front of the fire.
The seasons are one of the reasons I still live here. As much as I think winter is too long and summer too short, the fact is that is a personal preference. It really isn’t the season itself. In fact, they are nearly so perfectly balanced that each are truly about three months.
Still, I love this rhythm and I crave these seasons. In the same way, I’ve loved the seasons of my life. I read in a novel once that a character described himself as “having grown up lucky.” That’s me. Childhood was something out of a storybook and while I was desperately poor after graduating college and starting to build a career, I learned, I earned and I made my way forward. By my 30th birthday, I had my first middle manager job; by 36, I was a CEO. In the meantime, I bought a house and I kept building a life.
At 45, I married the love of my life. After years of dating and enough near misses that I thought I was just unlucky in love, my husband came along. More than my best friend, we built a life that I could only have dreamed about. It’s a quiet, simple life full of hard work and a bit of sacrifice, but it is an honorable one and one I cherish. Life for us would continue for over a decade, through seasons and renovations and kitty adoptions and sadly, one kitty crossing the rainbow bridge. Time and tides. Time and tides.
Then, we wound up here. We each have a year or two left before retirement. We are finally at that phase where we’ve saved enough that it wouldn’t be a tragedy to retire early but that each extra dollar makes retirement that much sweeter. My husband still has some milestones he wants to achieve. Me? I grew up lucky and I’m satisfied. I did what I could, I failed sometimes and I won battles I didn’t deserve to win. But mostly, I worked hard and I enjoyed the fruits of that labor. So, it’s time to move on.
Now, it’s time for me to prepare us for a life after work. Truly, that sounds like a euphemism for “it’s time to go on a long vacation.” But, it’s not really. (Okay, a tiny part of it is.) This little family needs a cruise director or a ship’s captain. It needs direction and someone who establishes a sense of priorities, boundaries and expectations. For so long, we could do it all, fix it all, build it all and toil all the way through it. Now? We need to pace ourselves or we could break a hip.
Okay, so maybe the “break a hip” was a bit over the top, but you get my drift. This family needs a pacer. This next chapter needs a vision and the people living it need to know – and experience – The Plan. (The cats don’t need to know The Plan as their lives are just one continuous happy retirement.)
That’s my job and I’m not afraid of it. In fact, that is the job I aspire to with every fiber of my being. I’ve realized lately that my frustration about work isn’t about work at all. Instead, it’s about the headspace that it pulls me into. I have so much to figure out, explore, design and do related to our new life that work becomes an irritation. It’s not my future; it’s my past.
In all likelihood, I will retire before my husband. In fact, I will largely wind down next spring at the latest. Then, I can focus on building our new life. Right now, we have only had glimpses of what it could be. Despite the considerable headspace I give to it, I also don’t have a clear idea of what it looks like. And then, there is the practical. I likely need to buy a new car, we have to figure out the true cost and the plans for our final renovations (garage and main bathroom) and we need to keep building out our lifestyle.
But next up? Well, I’m going to take the next six months or so to get my head right and to learn. When I first started learning about retirement savings, stock options and long-term financial planning, it was all an intimidating mystery. Then, as I slotted in pieces and parts, the puzzle finally came together. That’s where I feel like I’m at now with the actual lifestyle of retirement. I’m intimidated and I’ve got a few pieces and parts lying around here that I don’t quite yet know what to do with. But, I’m not only confident I’ll gather the pieces and solve the puzzle, but I will enjoy doing it.
Like summer melts into fall, each chapter of my life has melted into the next. I am ready for this new chapter to start while the old gradually ends. Time, indeed, marches on.
The Yuppie Homesteader 