Retire

It’s really my father’s fault.

Everyday growing up, as I was going to school, he put on his tie and went to work.

When he was 65, his company gave him a retirement party.  With a watch.  They took  a photo of him standing next to a goodbye poster.  Signed by all the people in his company. He kept it on his desk in the bedroom.

Ever since he’d left college he’d gotten up and put on that tie.  But that was over now.  He was retired.

This is why I always thought that you were active…went to work and dinners and clambakes….until you were 65.  And then you replanted the garden and visited grandchildren and went to the post office.   Your desk chair became a recliner and you spent your days watching game shows and waiting for the next monthly turn of the calendar from the downtown insurance company. Your walk became a shuffle. Your life a series of visits to the doctor. You were retired.

Well, I’m past retirement age.  And am confused.  The way I look at it I have well over thirty years to do all the things I want to do.  Unemcumbered by responsibilities to anyone else.  So isn’t this my time?

My time to write a book.  Collect butterflies.  Trek in Nepal.  Take a college course.  Design a dogbed.  Be a pen pal.  Start a charity.  Go bobsledding.   It’s all there.  The freest time of my life.

But retire?  I don’t think so.

Let’s just retire the word. The thought.  Take it out of the vocabulary. 

I think my dad would have been relieved.

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