When the cosmic tumblers click
There comes a time when all the cosmic tumblers have clicked into place - and the universe opens itself up for a few seconds to show you what's possible. – Field of Dreams
I was reminded of that line, from my favorite movie, roughly two years ago as I drove the back highways of Iowa, returning home from my parent’s house about two-and-a-half hours away.
I realized then that all of the cosmic tumblers had come into place and for a whole host of reasons it was time for me to plan my retirement. Not just plan for retirement as you all too often hear in those financial planning television commercials, but actually plan, circle the date in red on the calendar and check off that final lists of tasks to make it a reality.
I recently turned in my papers at work and will officially close my office door for the last time this June. That’s sooner than I had anticipated and financially it might be better to hang in there longer, but it’s time, my work here is done.
I told my daughter several years ago that if I had the choice between more money and more time, I would choose time in a heartbeat. There were so many things to do besides work and I had no time to do them. It’s now time to put my money where my mouth is, almost literally.
Two things have precipitated my somewhat early exit. I’m the only child of elderly parents and it’s apparent that challenges there lie not far ahead.
And then 2020 happened. As with so many others I’ve lost a year of my life. It’s 2021 and I haven’t seen my only daughter, who lives 1,800 miles away in California, since Christmas of 2019. I’ve worked many 50 and even 60-hour weeks since last March, and have seldom ventured outside my home and workplace except when it’s necessary to purchase groceries or some other item for a project I might be working on around the house.
2020 is a year we will never get back and when you pass that corner into your sixties every year becomes more precious. I know of only one way to reclaim that time lost and that is to retire and with it claim the freedom of not having the demands of daily employment.
So now I look forward to the future and all the tremendous possibilities it will bring. New places to see, new people to meet, new adventures to be had.
Even though the cloud of Covid continues to hang above us and we do not know when it will be fully lifted, I have still allowed myself to begin to dream, just a little, of the places I will experience. I have a whole bucket load, even a whole cattle trough, full of ideas just waiting to happen.
Not too long ago my daughter was planning my birthday present a couple of months in advance. I didn’t know it, but it would require some traveling on my part. Talking with her at the time I was telling her about a “crazy” idea I had for a road trip to the Pacific Northwest. Worried that it would interfere with the birthday present she’d planned, she ask me if this was just something I was talking about or something I might actually do because “you know how you are. You’re talking about something one day and the next thing you know you’re doing it.”
I couldn’t argue with her, she was right. I’ve quite often had an idea pop into my head and been off doing it soon after. Most recently, last January, prior to Covid putting a deep damper on my wanderlust, I saw a television show about the Guinness Book of World Records snow maze in Canada and a week-and-a-half later I was standing in it; a 1,600 mile, three-and-a-half day, road trip.
So I don’t know which of those semi-truck load of ideas will happen first, or even if they will. There’s always new ideas to be had and the four months between now and retirement is a lifetime in the idea factory.
What I do know is the cosmic tumblers have clicked into place and I’m ready to see what possibilities the universe has in store.
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