blogger obstacle course

I have always hated obstacles to a goal. For nearly a month, it seems, l have been too distracted to blog. (Not that I have completely avoided sitting at the keyboard.) Drivel that was less readable than my year-old grandson could produce with a crayon, I chose not to publish. Perhaps if I were at a crayon-eating stage of development, writer’s block would not have been a big deal. But a fleeting thought about a childhood candy commercial turned into a big deal – and then I researched and realized it was a completely different candy than my memory. Why are those memories more clear than what I did yesterday? And other distractions:

• Seeing a date I expected to receive a military pension come and go without receiving it.
• On the phone waiting on hold for three hours while work still had three hours of tasks I needed to accomplish that day.
• Is there enough income to “retire”?
• Am I healthy enough to keep working?
• Am I too old to do something new?
• What will others think?
• What will I do with “free” time?

I turned sixty last week. For the last twenty years, my family has been fortunate that health issues, financial trouble, family crises, late-summer wildfires, and backed-up plumbing have not deterred me from eyeing a “finish line”. In the year I turned sixty, I thought I would be able to ease into a newer, slower-paced week or month: writing a blog, walking the dogs, and visiting a grandchild. My wife and I started a business. I informed my employer that I would be retiring in August – at that point two months in the future. And calculating that we had been prudent enough to put money away to live on for the next few decades.

For the last months, I have been anticipating my August retirement. Life did not accommodate my plans. On one hand our business venture, despite some missteps, is growing and doing better. Satisfied clients, satisfied workers, and a bank account that is slowly creeping from breaking-even to some profit. For four weeks until my mid-August retirement, I have been in transition, but my soon to be former-coworkers are not subtly jealous. They are picking up the work in the last several days that I gave my employer two months to enable transition.

I will not worry about that. To them, I may be retiring. However, my spouse is adding more days to our business calendar; the house needs upkeep; the dogs need longer walks, and my church anticipates I will have more opportunity to perform some volunteer work. Add adult children, aging relatives, and so on.

The obstacle course still between me and my heavenly goal line is going to be great material for blogging.