Writing as a way to cope with Retirement

 There is a saying: "Being retired is both the best and the worst thing that will ever happen to you."

However, often this reminds me of what marriage can be too.

Since I have been married about 50 years of my life now because I wasn't married from 1978 to 1980 (otherwise I would have been married 52 years time by 2026) I can relate to that too.

However, my first two marriages were difficult simply because I had a lot to learn. I found it is more knowing what you cannot live with than learning what you can live with that allows a relationship to be successful.

Also, I learned that what works as a younger single man with many relationships doesn't work at all in a marriage with children. Though this should be obvious logically, emotionally it is not.

I think the biological imperative  for women is quality and the biological imperative for men is quantity.

This is just how we were designed actually which is sometimes problematic for everyone.

I studied about this in Anthropology and this always made sense along with genetics which causes the human race to continue rather going extinct. 

However, that is another story.

Writing as a way to cope with Retirement:

Though I had prayed for around 18 years for the "Leisure to Practice" which basically means "The time to pray 24 hours a day the rest of your life" I didn't expect God to bring this into my life the way he did by almost killing me from Fall of 1998 to May of 1999. So, at age 50 suddenly I was retired so I wouldn't die.

This was a shock of unbelievable proportions by the way on many levels.

First, I wasn't working at a job anymore (even though I was still helping my wife run our business I wasn't going somewhere besides home for 8 hours a day or even 4 hours a day.

This alone took me 5 years to get used to so that means even though I was forced to retire at age 50 to stay alive I wasn't entirely physically or psychologically adjusted to this for around 5 years.

For example, my father when he retired at age 65 had passed on by 69 which was an awful thing to witness on many different levels.

So, on one level the first thing I had to overcome was equating retirement with death because of watching retirement (and illness) kill my father when we all expected him to live to 100 or more because he was just so healthy before sort of like a living Jack Lalane because they had the same health Teacher, Paul Bragg.

So, this was a lot for me to overcome.

However, I am more of a be-er than a person obsessed with doing doing doing all the time. So, a life more of contemplation like sitting under a tree watching the apples fall like Isaac Newton is more my style.

So, just being peaceful works for me (as long as I get enough exercise). Lately exercise is a treadmill and walking the dog on the beach mostly to stay in shape.

So, what I'm saying here is that I have been successfully retired (mostly) since 1998 (even though I almost died from Fall of 1998 until May of 1999. 

However, because I have a very capable and loving wife and God has helped me through all this I have been successful at surviving well since May or 1999.

First in 1999 I started a blog at geocities.com like I promised God I would to share my spiritual experiences that God and his angels had brought into my life all my life.

Then in the fall in order to celebrate that I had not died in 1998 and 1999 I went in Fall of 1999 to Europe with my 10 year old daughter and my 80 year old mother to show my mother where her parents grew up in the Glascow area of Scotland in Clydebank and Ayr.

I also wen to meet my son who was 25 then who had been born in 1974 when I got married the first time who was traveling then with his friend who had just got his physics degree from UCSC in Santa Cruz. So, the two of them as single guys were traveling on Eurail mostly because that is the most reasonable way to travel across mainland europe and also there is Britrail in England and Scotland and they stayed in youth Hostels along the way too. They did this for several month then because both of them were college age and his friend just graduated UCSC. So, this trip for his friend was a celebration of Graduating College.

So, I showed my mother where her parents finished growing up and got married and I showed my daughter Edinburgh Castle and Loch Loman and Pitlochry and Aviemore and Edinburgh and Inverness and the Cairngorm Mountains of Northern Scotland where the wealthy of the British Isles sometimes ski in that area of Scotland.

And later, we all flew to Munich, Germany from London to rent a 6 passenger diesel powered Fiat Motorhome 5 speed stick shift for navigating the Alps where you really need to downshift so you don't die with no guardrails at all then in 1999 anywhere with thousands of feet dropoffs to your right or left no mountain roads.

So, in June of 1999 I started my first blog as I promised God I would when I was waiting in a waiting room for heart operations on a gurney with about 50 to 100 people also waiting there at STanford Hospital near Standford University then. I promised God that If I survived all this I would start a blog to sing God's praises that he had saved my life.

So, I have been blogging at several different blogging sites ever since.

And I would have to say that Blogging for me in some ways gave me the mental discipline to keep on going. The other thing is I don't smoke or drink but then again neither did my parents so they set a good example in this way. So, this tends to make your life longer too along with the genetics of having great Grandparents who lived to over 100 my Great Grandmother and my great Grandfather who was a Captain for the northern Army of the Civil War lived all the way to World War II after being in the Civil War as a Northern Captain from Kansas.

So, blogging in many ways saved my life by giving me a spiritual and mental discipline so I could write about what I was experiencing every day of my life which gives me some perspectives that are useful in long term survival.

When I read what I have written it often inspires me to write more and more and this helps solve all my problems one by one as well as helps many of your solve your problems or entertain you with my garnered wisdom now of 77 years in a body here on earth surviving and hopefully becoming wiser every day.

By God's Grace