Finding the Future
It’s hard to believe I could take a vacation while in retirement, but that’s exactly how my most recent trip felt, like a vacation. It was getting away from the mundane, the pattern of an ordinary life. While I’m at home, basically, I’m a maintenance man. I clean. I cook. I tend the yard. I tend the pool. I tend my car. I keep things going. It’s pretty much the life I’ve always led. There’s not as many plates to spin, but that’s still my job.
And I’m not complaining. I’m comfortable, more so than some, less so than others. My next trip will be a short one with my brother as we head off to play a little golf for a few days, then I’ll settle in and wait for Christmas and more time with my daughter and her little family. Mini-vacations, little dabs of spice, the distance from the ordinary that allows perhaps for a change of perspective and maybe a chance to see things differently, to find new paths.
Not that there are a lot of new paths open to a guy my age. But there are things to do, and I’d like to do them, and I even thought of some on this trip. Luckily, I live in an augmented age of one and zeros which opens up lots of possibilities to a fellow with a brain, a computer, and access to the internet, and I have all three. The only thing in question is the quality of the brain, and I’ll have to leave that judgement to others. As for me, embracing this new digital universe seems like a lot more fun than being an old guy sitting around waiting to die, even if I do have a nice garden.