WORTH EVERY PENNY

My Facebook memories tell me that I have been retired from my town job – you know the one that paid money and had a pension - for eight years as of today.  I must have blinked.  It can’t have been that long.

I’ve been trying to remember what I did the next day to celebrate my freedom from the 8:00 to 5:00 grind.  Chances are Facebook will let me know tomorrow morning but let’s hope it was something wild and crazy like sleeping in.

I do recall my motivation for leaving the employment world behind me, though.  Heaven knows I tried to explain it to my significant other enough times.  It’s not that he didn’t approve of the move, it’s that he didn’t understand it.  I had seven more years before I was retirement age – I could work that much longer and get that much higher pension.  Why on earth wouldn’t I do that?  I looked at my bank account and what my pension would be without the extra seven years and thought “I think I’ll be fine”.

I had kind of the same conversation with our accountant around the same time.  I know it’s her job to be all about the money but my response was that if worst came to worst I could always get another job and make more money, but there is no way to make more time.  When you run out of time you just plain run out of time.

Maybe the seven year difference in the two pension amounts is the monthly instalment I’ve paid for the extra years of freedom I’ve had.  Regardless, I’m happy with my purchase; it was the right thing to do.

Another thing I remember about my decision was that the ‘freedom’ I spoke of wasn’t being free of the actual work I was doing – being the postmaster of my own hometown was a great job.  I liked the people I worked with and the public we served.  I found the work interesting, I liked the contact with my community, and my employer encouraged me to grow my opportunities within the company.  It was everything a person could ask for in a job and I’m glad I had it.  I am also very glad it belongs to someone else now.

The freedom I looked forward to was the kind that would let me choose on a day-to-day basis what I was going to do on any particular day.  I could go for coffee with a friend and not get back until it was time for supper.  I could garden from sunup to sundown.  I could do a day trip; heck I could do as many as I wanted!  I could be the kind of grandma who was open to sleepovers almost any old day of the week.  I could read books.  I could write books!  I could sit on my deck with a glass of wine at the end of a busy day and watch the sun go down. 

And I could repeat it all the next day.

Or pick something completely different.

And now Facebook tells me I’m already eight years into it.  These past eight years are the extra ones I bought for myself.  My flower and vegetable gardens have expanded probably tenfold and I have a small greenhouse to play in.  My yard is my pride and joy.  I serve my community on the Tourism Board.  Depending on the time of day and who the company is there is always coffee/iced tea/wine/water to be enjoyed with conversation on our deck.  I have written a book and am working on another one.  If Covid ever goes away there are some places I want to travel to, but in the meanwhile I’ve got lots of other things to do.

Of course I am hoping for even more years, we all do.  But the only ones we are sure of are the ones we’ve already had and these past eight have been worth every penny.