The Hardest thing about Retirement

Is trying to find enough meaning to your life to continue to want to stay alive.

(Of course this might depend a lot on your personality and interests). But, this is the problem I most deal with in my life.

For example, a few years ago my son was going through a divorce and just finished a college degree and I saw he needed me to encourage him to keep on keeping on. And so I did. But, eventually he took a teaching job overseas and eventually met his present wife and had my grandson. Then, my daughter who is now 20 needed me and my wife to be there (until this fall) when she decided to move away to college for the 2nd time and now is very happy without us there.

However, this puts not only me but also my wife in a bind in an "Empty nest Syndrome" kind of way. And it wouldn't be so bad if it was only one of us going through this. But no, it's both of us going through this at the same time. So, if you take your role as parent seriously as we always have this becomes a real problem because your reason for staying alive just left home. And so my wife and I are left looking at each other like: "What are we going to do now?"

We are both best friends and love and respect each other very much and money is not our problem so we will stay together and travel and help people wherever we are. However, when your kids are all grown up (I have been raising kids non-stop since 1973 when my first wife became pregnant) so this is more problematic for me than I want to admit. So, here I am with my 2nd or 3rd bout of "Empty Nest Syndrome" and I am mostly feeling embarrassed it isn't any easier than it was around 1990 when I first experienced it with my 2nd wife then and it helped break us up then by 1994. However, I'm more grown up this time so likely it will not break up my present wife and I because we are more aware of what is happening to us.

However, for me personally, this is the single hardest thing about retirement and I was forced to retire because of a heart virus I almost died from in 1998. So, I have already mostly have been retired for almost 20 years now and I'm only 68.

If you are just retiring you have to survive the first 5 years or more. Most people who retire seem to die or lose it the first 5 years time. So, maybe retiring young enough where you are adaptable enough still to change who you are into someone compatible with retirement is helpful the most. If you wait too long to retire likely you won't be able to make a successful change to retirement. My father was a workaholic and only lasted 5 years into retirement because he needed more people in his life because he was n extrovert like my present wife. However, I'm not like that. I'm more an introvert that takes physical risks in that I still own a motorcycle and ski and snorkel and travel the world with my wife and friends. I find traveling more than anything else gives me a new lease on life. Just staying home I don't like except often I can write a lot which helps me define what is happening to me and the world and makes me feel better about everything because I then understand it all better.

But, in general taking in constantly new information makes you adapt to wherever you are and whoever you meet and keeps you in a much younger state of mind by so doing. So, I would say "at least for me and my wife" traveling is "The Fountain of Youth" for us.

By God's Grace