On aging

One of my least favorite things is the topic of this rant - getting old.

It is something I am doing, albeit just about toally without any grace.

This week, I turned 67. The next day, my wife and I marked the end of our 41st year of marriage. Frankly, I have no explanation for how either of these milestones was reached. I guess I'm just lucky. Somehow I have survived all these years, and my long-suffering wife has found it neither useful nor necessary to kill me.

I am still working full-time - retirement is a happy thought, but it is not going to happen, at least not this year. For one thing, I don't know quite what I would do with myself, and for another the cost of retirement is a definite modification in the direction of moderation of lifestyle - and I am not quite ready to become moderate - I still like to do things that cost money, and my retirement income will be perhaps 30% of my current income - not impossible, but definitely sparse. I must have thought I'd never get old - I definitely did not do much of a job of planning for it. And no, I have no advice for those who've not yet entered their dotage on forestalling my discoveries. As is the case with so many other events in my life, I recognize where I have arrived, but have no idea whatever how I got here.

So I'll work a few more years, put away money, draw my social security because I can and bank as much of it as possible, and when I've been married 50 years, maybe we can both retire and enjoy what years remain in some retirement community like the one into which my parents retired lo these many years ago.

Life is, however, pretty good so I have no complaints. Have a fine day, y'all.