The First Day of My Second Life.

I worked my last day yesterday.
I've retired.
It is the second time I have been unemployed since before I graduated from college the first time and the first time I did it on purpose.
My income has officially become less than half--social security is a safety net not a replacement job.
My time has become my own.

I'm both ecstatic and terrified.

I have made a million lists, lists of expenses, lists of projects, lists of cheap meals that are not deadly or tasteless, and the list that is only written in my head.
That is the list of fears.  The list of fears is long and includes things too awful to consider and things too ridiculous to take seriously. It's a list that changes at the drop of a hat.

Example of things I want to avoid for the rest of my life:

• don't walk in front of a bus the day after you retire while texting.
• don't become an alcoholic that starts drinking with irish coffee and ends with a nightcap
• don't lie in bed, depressed and lonely waiting for someone to visit
• don't rush out to get a job as a Walmart greeter
• don't start volunteering at the place I retired from because I miss them.
• don't drive my kids crazy being needy
• don't drive my grandkids crazy being needy
• don't need a Doctor till after I can get Medicare.
• don't burn my house down learning to weld
• don't impulse spend my entire life savings on one good vacation (a discounted cruise would accomplish that---everyone wants to know about my travel plans, or my mission plans or where I'm moving after I retire---none of those apply, none of them.)

My father was a terrible businessman, terrible, but his favorite job was building and rebuilding things---cars, trucks, metal oddities---if you could weld it or solder it or bolt it together, it was something worth doing.  After a health scare that left him blind in one eye and no longer safe for the commercial job that he repeatedly complained about, he was depressed--in bed, nonverbal, cranky, and everyone knew, "he's not going to be here long".  Then, he got up, and opened his shop--his "rebuilder shop".  He was getting social security--age 63, and was not at the peak of his health, but he went back to work and he was his own boss.  He finally sold that business nearly 20 years later and went home to garden and make wooden birdhouses while being with my mother whose health had turned bad.

That is my goal.

I want my second life.

After 40 years in a profession that I knew I didn't like in the 3rd year of college, I'm going to start again.

I like history.

I like Art.

I like making things.

And, for those times I need to communicate, not feel alone, not wish for a friend that thinks about what I think about, worries about the same things and loves the same things, a person making their own journey in life, with no idea what that means or where that trip is going, I invite anyone that finds this to use this for the same things.  

Getting older is no picnic.  This country has worshiped youth for a while now.  Maybe TV and Radio did that, or maybe capitalism does that, or maybe, at a certain age, the perspective--looking back as much or more than looking forward, it just too disconcerting to those that "have their whole lives ahead of them". 

It is what I have now.  And memories are more valuable than just about anything.  

I don't want to be young again, though the old saying about "If I knew then what I know now" has some interesting potential for redo's.

I don't even want overs so I can choose the field and job that I think would have made me happier.

I'm not unhappy with who I am.  Maybe I needed to learn what I learned and go where I went to get here.

But, I do want to be the Captain of my future.  I want time to create some stuff.  I want time to decide what I want to do for me and what I want to give back to mankind or animal kind or whatever.  And I want time to get this stupid house cleaned and organized for the first time since I moved in, in a rush, with one day off, with kids, and school, and work, and extended family, for the first time in 24 years.

If you read this, and want to add or comment or write your own thing on this bottom of this, please do.

We only live twice--or once--or?