"Today is the first day of the rest of your life." I remember a TV ad that used that line, I want to say it was for Total cereal but I could be wrong. Never thought too much about it, until this past Saturday.
Last Friday was my last official day of work. As of 3/1/26 I joined the ranks of the retired. It's been a long time coming. I have now signed up for Social Security and for Medicare. My wife, the Poker Queen, also retired on the same day after working 38 years for the county. 38 years. Almost boggles the mind.
I had originally planned to retire in July of last year when I turned 65 but decided to continue working a bit longer to give myself time to pay off some outstanding debts and get my financial affairs in shape. I'm kind of glad I did as I feel much better financially now than I did a year ago. Plus my investments did well over this time period. While I still worry about having enough to last me, that worry is much less than it was .
So, what am I gonna do with all this free time? As I said, it's the first day of the rest of my life. The book hasn't ended, but a new chapter has begun. Where do we go from here? A friend told me "It's not that your life is over, one life has ended but there's plenty of time to start a new one."
So what is my new life to be? One week after retiring, it still hasn't sunk in. I feel more like I'm on vacation right now. I suppose a week or 2 down the road I'll really start to feel it. Admittedly I haven't done much this past week. I think both of us were mentally worn down with our respective retirements. It definitely was emotional. We both spent last weekend and early this week just relaxing and napping. We started getting things done as the week went on, Dr appointments, meeting with a financial advisor, dealing with retirement funds, etc.
One thing that will be happening is a trip around the US we have been talking about doing for the past few years. Starting in Florida, we will drive across the southern US out to California, stopping where we want, going off the beaten path, and seeing places we've never been. We'll definitely hit major places like New Orleans, San Antonio, Santa Fe, LA and Seattle along with every National Park we can get to. Plus of course Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe. In between we plan to go off the beaten track and see places of interest for us. Maybe go across the Texas border into Mexico, definitely go to Marfa and look for the lights at night. Also check out the faux Prada boutique near there some artist built in the 80s. Who knows what else we'll check out? We just want to wander around and see parts of the country we've never really been to. On the way back we plan to cross the northern US and part of Canada to see Niagara Falls.
The only things we have actually scheduled are a couple of cruises, one out of LA down the Pacific Coast of Mexico and the second out of Seattle going to Alaska. These are already set up and paid for so we have two dates where we have to be somewhere. Outside of that, we just have a bunch of places we want to go and a desire to wander the land like Kwai Chang Caine. I'm sure we'll get some ideas of places to go from others who have been out that way.
So that's the start of the rest of my life. Who knows where it goes from here? I might go back to working part time - I know my boss would like me to do that - or maybe I'll take some college classes. Possibilities abound. What I do know is I have a penchant for taking it easy and I don't want to become a couch potato. I can do that when I'm 90.
