Backyard Feeder

Backyard Feeder
photo taken through porch screen

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Ready to Retire? A Ramble.

A woman that I work with came back from vacation yesterday and told me that she had a very nice vacation, but that she was ready to come back, not ready to retire, because she missed coming to work. I almost wish I felt that way about work.

I've been ready to "retire" since I started the job. Maybe we just don't see work or retirement the same way, but I'm ready to be on my own all day. I want to be able to work on my writing. I have at three books waiting to be finished and more to be started. I have this blog that I've been neglecting. My website was lost when the free host changed their format--so I'm rebuilding that from the ground up and paying for the domain and the hosting to be sure it doesn't get deleted again. I have way too much to do to have time to miss work.

I might miss some of the people, but there's no law that says I can't drop in from time to time--I work at Walgreens and my husband is on lots of medication, so going back to shop and see everyone isn't a problem.

Of course, I have a long time before I can actually retire. I suppose if the books sell well I could "quit my day job" to focus on the writing, but the combination of an unsteady income and an unstable husband (and overspending is his most destructive symptom) is just too frightening for me.

I have to be the stable one, the consistent breadwinner, the one who calmly sits down and works it all out. I have to be strong.

Next month we will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary and I am still grieving over the dreams that I had way back then--of being a full-time wife and mother and growing my writing career as the children needed less care over the years. The children are almost all grown up but I am working full-time to pay the bills and struggling to make sense of our life. This is not what I imagined at all. And it's not my fault. I didn't do anything to deserve this. It's not anyone's fault. There was this terrible disorder that stole away my husband so he's not all there all the time and it hurts.

Will I get my life back when I retire? Will that make things seem just a bit more normal? I'm ready to retire--it's just not ready for me.