This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.
I am beginning to understand why retired people often discard their wristwatches.
They become superfluous and virtually without value. I know that cell phones tell time, too. So why wear something on your wrist that gets banged up, right?
My sister and brother-in-law have been retired for some time now and they both tell me how they laugh at well-meaning strangers who say, “Have a nice weekend.” They look at each other and might mutter something to each other like, “Well, OK. Thanks, I guess.”
Yes, time has becoming something that means less and less to wife and me as we move toward retirement.
This is a difficult transition for me, given that I spent 36 years toiling under deadline pressure. Time meant everything to me as a daily journalist. I had projects to complete by a certain time and I had to meet those deadlines … or else face the consequences.
No longer.
There have been moments recently when I cannot remember what day it is. Those moments usually occur on what full-time working folks would call “weekends.” Is it Saturday or Sunday? What do I have to do today? Oh, nothing. That’s a relief.
Our travel plans don’t usually revolve around weekends. Since my working life is now a part-time endeavor and my employers — I’m working three part-time jobs — are all pretty lenient with my requests for time off, my wife and I can schedule our road trips whenever we feel like it.
I’ll admit that this whole new time-management mode is going to take some adjustment. So far, though, we’ve managed to adjust to every change that we’ve encountered as we’ve entered this new phase of our life together.
Retirement, I’ve discovered, requires a high-level of adaptability.
We’re passing that test with flying colors.
What time is it? Oh, never mind.