Thursday Ramble: My Golden Years?

A comment from a neighbor and post by Doc Spo, have me thinking about the best years of my life.  I am nearing two years since I retired. And I have been thinking about what that means. 

In my mind it is hard to fathom that I am old enough to be retired. I remember my paternal grandfather retiring, he seemed so old (and would die in less than 5 years.) In reality he was about the age I am now. My parents retired early, in their late 50's, then went back to work for a few years and retired a second time in their 60's. They didn't really seem old to me, until their health started to seriously fail in their 80's. But here I am past my middle 60's and no longer working for a living. 

At the pool recently a friend was commenting on his retirement. He worked for a major auto manufacturer for 30+ years, and retired. Was bored and went back to work a few months later. Then they told him he had to work weekends, and he said, "No I don't - I quit", and that was the end of work for him. 

He said that for most Americans our identity is so closely tied to our work, that retirement is a struggle of self identity. How to self identify in retirement is an adjustment that all of us must make.  Almost two years in, and I still struggle with this. I am retired, but then I tend to add what I am retired from, tagging my current identity to my past identity.  I knew this would be a challenge for me, and I will keep working on it. 

We are taught to not talk about money. We are warned as older adults to not tell anyone about money, scammers are always looking for a pot of gold, and family will suck you dry just as fast. 

I have read that the greatest risk of poverty among middle class retirees is an unwillingness to spend the retirement savings that we have spent a lifetime saving. From childhood we are told, taught, to save for the future, no one really talks about what you do with it in the future.  Stock brokers are eager to offer advice that generates commissions for them, and continues to build the size of the portfolio, after all the more you have - the more they can potentially make. 

We have reached the point in life when we are no longer saving for retirement, and yet we find ourselves reluctant to spend against what we have saved. I watched my parents do the same, Dad's investment account was more than twice as much when he died as it was when he retired 30 years earlier. Yes they drew income from it. They lived well, but they should have lived even more comfortably. 

I am struggling with this. Worried that spending $234 on a replacement lens a couple of weeks ago was not absolutely necessary. And our obsession with not talking about money makes this harder. This is still a work in progress. 

What am I most enjoying? Being in charge of my time. I can take a walk, or head to the pool whenever I wish. I can book travel that takes us away from home for a month at a time. Things I couldn't do when I was working. It has taken a couple of years, but I have replaced the social network of work colleagues, with friends and neighbors. I have time to explore my creative interests. I have time to stroll through museums - one of the great joys of living in the DC area is access to world class museums. I can check out a bag of books from my local library, and read all I want (74 books so far this year.) I have time to play in the kitchen, allowing yeast to rise, pickles to ferment, roasts and stews to slow cook for hours. I enjoy it. Cooking is not something I need to do efficiently at the end of a long day of devotion to duty. 

At best, I have maybe 20 more years to do this, if I hit the national average life my life expectancy is closer to 10 years. I will focus not on the years in my life, but the life in my years.