It was wonderful to have our son, Robin, and his family visit us in July. In August, we drove across the country and had a real nice visit with our son, Brandon, and his family. There we met and held our newest grandson, Desmond.
On our round trip – road trip, we encountered many (many!) road construction zones, each introducing themselves with bright signage:
Every year at this time, my job duties include Large Water Meter Testing with the professional we always hire, Meter Dave with Oregon Meter Repair. If large meters are not measuring accurately, they give away a lot of free water (they give away money).
I always look forward to working with Dave, but each time I put the meter testing schedule on the calendar, I see warning signs right there on the bottom left corner of August. Signs cautioning me that summer is circling the drain and change is as close as flipping that time-table page.
This year I found new signs on the highway of life.
We’ve worked our last ten-hour work day (on our summer schedule). Monday we’re off work for Labor Day. I will work four more eight-hour days, take the Retirement Exit and end my working career.
Some ask if I’m excited. Apprehensive might be a better word.
Some warn me not to sit around and get bored. There’s no chance of that.
Some might be concerned that I could become depressed. If I haven’t encountered depression through three cancers (does a re-occurrence count as a fourth?) it probably won’t happen with retirement.
For years, I felt there was some kind of competition between Multiple Myeloma and Prostate Cancer (and a minor skin cancer), to bring about my demise. It felt like a race towards retirement. Retirement not being the finish line, but more like a reward for making it that far.
I was tempted to work a little longer, maybe a year. I can walk to work, a monthly paycheck and insurance is nice, and I’m good at what I do. But, I’ve reached my normal retirement age, there is no reason not to retire, and with Prostate cancer making a come-back, I’m taking this exit.