It will be here before you know it…I’m not sure I will be ready financially but I am certainly ready physically and somehow I think I will figure it all out.  Milestones get the mind to thinking, reminiscing, reviewing past events.  Retirement is such a milestone and I am amazed at all the thoughts jumbling up inside as I think about “next steps.”  How did I get here so fast?  Wrinkles, fatigue, excess weight creeps up and one day you look in the mirror and you know that there isn’t that much time left and you know there is so much more to do and you realize that it is time to make time to do the things you never had time to do because you were too busy working, raising kids, getting educated and moving up the “corporate” ladder. 

Now all that is behind and there still is a little energy to try to figure out what I would like to do with the rest of my life.  I remember feeling like this when my fifth born was finishing kindergarten and the next year all five kids would be in school all day and I would finally have some time to do the things I wanted to do without being interrupted.  First, I wanted to Spring clean each room in the house, one room at a time, and then I wanted to go back to school.  My husband wanted me to get a job so we struggled a bit about what I should do with all my “free” time.  All of our discussions and disagreements about what I should be doing now that the kids are in school all day ended up being a silly waste of time because the roller coast was beginning and events would dictate what I would do with my “free” time…no choice at all.  My husband left, I was pregnant, and on and on.  No choice but to get a job, try to assure the kids that I would not leave them, and cry, cry, cry..no appetite, no sleep, just cry, cry, cry.  Slowly, very slowly, with the kids support and new friends I met at work, I began to put together a life that was liveable.  Eventually, I laughed again, and I loved the work and the people, and getting out of the house.  I loved coming back home and working with the kids to create a life that we could all accept.  So how did I get here so fast?  Hard to believe that all that struggling is over, kids are grown with kids of their own.  I live alone now and enjoy the quiet when I am not entertaining one of the loveable grandkids. 

I like to write…will I finally discipline myself to write on a more regular basis and experiment with the possibility of getting something published…take a course…test myself. Or will I fill up my life with bits of this and bits of that instead?  Certainly I will need to work but not quite so hard as I do now and I hope whatever I do carries much less responsibility.  I would like to take a course in setting up web pages.  I would like to really clean the attic and organize all the stuff that never got unpacked when I moved here six years ago.  The garage will be another major task.  I want to put together a will and enter all of Aunt Juanita’s record albums into the computer to see if they can be sold on e-bay.  I want to organize the pictures of a lifetime, and finish memory boxes for all the kids…only Jenny’s is done so far.  Clean up the yard, the garden, and the front of the house.  Create mosaic tiles around the front sidewalk and retention wall by Jerry’s house.  Build a new two flat or three flat on the lot.  Transfer all my financial records to Quicken.  Did I say write???  When do I think I will find the time???