As I’ve muddled my way through retirement, I’ve pretty much let go of the idea that I need to accomplish anything. Just hanging out, enjoying simple pleasures. Trying not to worry but worrying anyway about Riley, our cat, and why he likes Dale better. It can’t just be about the food.

However, sometimes I get this idea – I can’t quite reach it – but it feels like something might be pulling me in a new direction. As per usual, I have few clues as to what that might be.

My prediction is that I’ll discover something special to write about, I’ll do some sort of long-distance walk or I’ll find a new focus for my cooking obsession. As I reflect on these speculations, it occurs to me all are a search for a singular passion, which I don’t appear to have. Always the dabbler, we’ll just have to wait and see what comes of my magical thinking.

I’m trying not to stress out about anything. Maybe retirement doesn’t need to be orchestrated. Just live it and do your best to stay healthy and happy. Or maybe it’s a cycle, and you just have to ride out each phase until the next one appears. I don’t know, but I’m open to endless possibilities.

I do these deep breathing exercises in bed before I even get up. It’s almost a form of meditation, and I think that’s when all will be revealed. Until then, I continue to putz around, taking care of things that perhaps don’t matter in the big picture but seem to provide a sense of steady comfort.

This might be the vaccine microchip talking, but I’ve actually had an urge to go shopping. Like not online and for real. It’s hard to imagine I could need anything beyond what’s delivered to my doorstep, but going to the mall seems like such a quaint thing to do.

Although we didn’t have much money, my mother loved clothes and was always good for a trip to The Broadway. It’s gone now. I vividly remember waiting outside with great anticipation for the doors to open before a big sale and was always enthralled with the lingerie section upstairs, where there was a big glass case of fancy peignoir sets. Oh my!

The peignoirs were gone, too, by the time I got old enough to wear them. I do like fancy undies and may splurge if I should make it to said mall. Although I remember the owner of a lingerie store telling me, “If you wait until you can afford it, you’ll look like hell in it.”

Donna Pekar is an aging badass (for real) who lives in California and writes Retirement Confidential.

 

 

You’ve heard the expression, ‘shot himself in the foot.’ I wonder where it comes from. Maybe it goes back to WWI trench warfare where a self-inflicted wound meant a ticket home paid for with a permanent limp. Now, it more broadly refers to a tactless act or remark in a social context. Anyhow, when I saw my mechanic friend, Todd, outside a drug store wearing a walking boot, I tried to joke about it. But I actually shot myself in the foot by asking if he had shot himself in the foot.

Todd smirked and shrugged. Oh shoot, I thought. Now I stepped in it. There goes my preferred customer service and best-buddy discounts. He can’t really have shot himself in the foot, can he? Trying to back-pedal, I asked if he had been in a car accident. He shook his head. Next, noticing the shiny metal ‘safety plate’ peeking out of the torn leather of his left boot, I tried to blame something heavy like a transmission landing on his foot. Never a man of extra words, he shook his head again. Damn. Could he have actually shot himself in the foot?

“On accident,” he finally offered, “with a 9mm hollow point.”

What do you say to that? I surely did not want a blow-by-blow account of what was probably embarrassing for him and kind of nauseating to contemplate in detail. And besides, I had to get home with my wife’s pain medication. Todd seemed in no rush and when he shifted his weight to his good leg and blinked a few times and blinked, I realized he actually welcomed his chance to tell a story and wallow in some omigod reactions. This was probably the most excitement he had encountered in twenty years of tune ups, oil changes and greasy skinned knuckles. Here he stood like an unknown comedian enjoying his first break on a late-night show. He finally had a story to tell after having to endure my yarns and jokes every time I entered his shop.

It was my turn to play audience to medical chart notes, surgery progressions, recovery predictions and the long-term effects of losing feeling in two toes. I ‘uh-huhed’ and shook my head with compassion while foregoing the pressing question…what were you doing with the gun in the first place?

Sometimes, I guess, you just have to let a guy have his moment in the sun. He paid a lot for his patter even if he had to provide it himself.

Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara and his wife live in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. Read more at https://freefloatingstories.wordpress.com/

Stop and think for a moment how many of your fellow baby boomers own their own businesses. They are designers, bakers, realtors, restauranteurs, farmers, nursery operators, landscapers, pet groomers, childcare operators, vintners, photographers, B&B owners, interior designers, and an almost endless list of various retail store operators.

Now stop and think for a moment about what happens to these businesses when the baby boomer retires. Is there a succession plan? Is there a family member in the wings ready to take over? Is there enough potential to offer the business for sale?

Starting to get the picture? Baby boomers account for about 40 percent of all small businesses. Now factor in the 10,000 boomers who are retiring EVERY DAY. There is about to be a seismic shift in the future of small business in this country.

Millennials and Gen Zers are skewing more to the tech sector when it comes to career choices, so what happens to these boomer businesses, which incidentally are profitable for the most part? We’re talking about 2.3 million businesses that employ around 25 million people. The supply of potential businesses is about to outstrip the demand for ownership.

There’s an unparalleled transfer of wealth happening now, as the boomer generation leaves its wealth in the form of inheritance. But what happens to the actual businesses that built that wealth? Boomers may wish to hand off the business to a family member, but if no one wants it, it either can be sold if there’s a buyer or it withers on the vine.

So what? So there may be fewer professionals, trades people and crafts people to cater to our needs. Fewer plumbers to fix your water heater, fewer one-off restaurants that feature unique local entrepreneurs, and overall fewer options other than national chain stores and services. This may be one of those “you won’t know how much you miss us until we’re gone” situations. And there’s nothing on the horizon that would have the potential to change the trajectory of this trend.

The movement to support your local small business is more important than ever in our current economic climate. We just need to realize that many baby boomers will be the last small business owners, because operating a small business has gone out of style. RIP.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. You can also visit his author page here. His newest mystery novel, Rio Puerco Demise is available on Amazon here. His first mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon.

A New Dream “Surgery? Are you kidding?”

Not exactly what you’re meant to say to a doctor, and this guy who’d been affable until that moment looked dubious, squinting and his whole body shifting away from me as if I were mildly toxic. The neon lights in his office seemed to glow a lot brighter and I felt exposed and scared. I though the X-ray I’d asked for to explore the chronic pain in my right hand would only reveal arthritis, but there were bone chips and bone spurs and pretty serious deterioration.

I went blank for a while as he explained the options, but I was fully alert when he said, “It’ll hurt like hell afterwards, you’ll need physical therapy, recovery takes about a year. Oh, and your pinch strength won’t really come back like it was.”

Well, damn. I’d been talking to cello-playing friends about starting to take lessons and I realized that my long-held dream was shot.

My mother forced me to take piano lessons for years and while I had “feeling,” according to my teacher, she and I both knew I didn’t have the technique or the passion for playing. But over the years, I fell in love with the cello hearing different movie scores and through CDs of composers like Brahms and thought that in my sixties it would be a good time to take up the instrument—for fun, for a hobby, for something new.

Well, I did go ahead with the surgery and it did relieve my pain but left me adrift. I felt the urge to do something musical but what instrument could I play with a bum hand? Then a pianist friend suggested voice lessons and I felt like a kid discovering a mountain of Christmas presents just for him under the tree.

My local university had a community music school, lessons with faculty were inexpensive, and the school was a five-minute drive from my house. I knew I was in the right place when my cherubic teacher, Natalie, tested my range, had me try some exercises, and kept smiling. Real smiles. “You can sing,” she said. “You’re a baritone and there’s lots of repertoire available. What would you like to start with? ”

And the lights in the little studio seemed warm and comforting.

Lev Raphael is the author of 27 books in many genres and mentors, coaches, and edits writers at writewithoutborders.com.

 

Gather the team: your kids—perhaps home from college for the holidays—are young and strong, and they owe their grandparents big-time.

Bring the van, if you have one, because you’re definitely coming home with some stuff.

Eat a good breakfast; you will need the strength and energy of a pack mule in the hours ahead.

Dress comfortably: your parents will have the heat up and you will feel like you are hacking your way through the Amazon as you dig things from the back of the closet on your hands and knees.

Do not say yes to taking Grandpa’s huge desk, or Grandma’s sewing table with the broken leg, to your small house.

Do say yes to the non-working hundred-year-old mantel clock; your parents will be happy, even if you keep it in a box in the garage for 20 years until you downsize, yourself.

Remind yourself again: they changed my diapers, educated me, fed me, guided me. I owe them everything. Including this.

Tell them how proud you are of them for their courage in taking on a move of such magnitude.

Express your gratitude: their downsizing will make your eventual task of settling their affairs a little easier.

To that end, encourage them (gently!) to let it go, let it go.

Introduce them to the ease of donating to Goodwill or Salvation Army; freely giving items they are not using and no longer need blesses others.

Drink your water, and remind them to drink theirs—you don’t have time today to drive someone to Urgent Care when they faint from dehydration.

Allow some trips down memory lane; meander together through the past as you pack. Your parents’ lives are being turned upside down; they need grounding.

When you lose patience with the slow pace of packing, bite your lip; remind them they can linger over these precious things anytime in their new place.

Inform them that, “No, when the grandkids are grown, they are not going to want the fifty sculpey figurines they made at your house when they were four.” Then let them pack them all carefully and keep them anyway.

As they sort through dusty boxes they sealed in the ’80s, before their last move, vow that your own belongings will flow in and out of your life, not stagnate in dark corners of the garage and basement until they disintegrate or have to be moved again.

Don’t agree too heartily to their expressions of remorse for the mountain of stuff they’ve somehow accumulated—this is not the time to gloat.

Take a moment to savor this house and all its memories amid the hurry of meeting the deadline. The truck is coming in the morning —ready or not.

Feed the troops! Takeout tacos taste incredible and bestow fresh courage after hours of hard labor.

Reminisce about the games of Hearts played at this table, the family art projects in the garage, the cookies you made together at Christmastime, the Broadway songs sung at the piano, the 4:00 am wakeups because the kids were so excited to be at Grammy and Gramps’s house they could not wait for the sun.

Plan to gather in the new place and christen it as home very soon: decide to make new, beautiful memories there.

See how swiftly life has brought your parents to this point? They are stunned. You may be, too. Sit with that reality. Let it sink in.

Note their example, how they are setting up an actual art studio in their new home, the dream of many years. Believe that you can prioritize your purpose, too.

Resolve: whatever it is I think I’m led by my Creator to do, whatever my gifts and purpose here, now is the time.

Come home and look around. See, afresh, your own belongings stuffed under this roof. Start with the hallway closet. Sing to yourself: “Let it go. . . .”

Michelle Goering has been writing forever, and for an audience for about a year. She is a musician with a background in publishing, married and the mother of twin college-age sons. A San Diegan who grew up on a Kansas farm, she’s recently published in Sasee and Christian Science Monitor: Home Forum. She can be found on facebook at michelle goering.