Dreams of retirement

My wife thinks I'm crazy. Today I sat down for a long, hard look at what retirement might look like. Questions like:

• When is the earliest I can realistically retire?
• What might our expenses look like when retirement becomes an option?
• What commitments are necessary to realise my earliest possible date?

Given my current circumstances and trajectory, I am looking at putting in another… 22 years. With the demographic shifts taking place (more old people) there is also the very real possibility that the earliest possible retirement age for my generation will be bumped up by a few years by the time I reach 62.

Let's take an optimistic stance and say I'm on the hook for another 25 years.

That is… a lot of years.

I've been working since the middle of my teens. Even counting those part-time years where I was a student first and foremost, and an employee second, I've not even reached the halfway point.

Only in 2012 did I begin working full-time. 13 years ago. A long time. It seems like forever. Yet only half of what remains.

"I never even think about retiring," my wife told me, before stating that "it's kinda sad that you're spending so much thinking about it."

And I agree. But, of the two of us, I don't think I'm the odd one.

For a big part of these last 13 years, I thought otherwise.

That I was indeed the oddball. Someone who couldn't adapt and adjust and accept the realities of the modern world. The worst of those days still echo in my mind. Dreading every minute of it. Seeing everyone else around me looking normal and well-adjusted. Wondering if they could see through me. Spot that I was just faking it. Barely scraping by.

"I don't mind workin', but I'm scared to suffer"

A line from the song "All or Nothing" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

When I look forward to retirement, I'm not envisioning a life of sitting inside and surfing the web or watching TV. I dream only of spending my days on the things that excite me.

Every day I want to run. I want to read books. I want to study Norse mythology and mid- to late antiquity. I want to talk to people who might need someone to talk to. I don't want to be paid to do it, because I think that inherently changes the dynamics of any conversation. I just want to sit with people and hear what they have to say. I want to spend time outside. In my backyard and in the local forests and in a tent for days on end on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. I want to spend more time with my kids.

Honestly, I not entirely sure what I want to say with this post. I'll probably never publish it. I've written down similar thoughts countless times before. It's just unproductive fantasizing. Disillusioned daydreams. If I want a different life, I need to find a way from here to there within the constraints of the real world.

And yet…

Deep down, there's a whisper. It claims everything starts with a disillusioned daydream. That the mere idea of unproductive fantasizing is a by-product of "the system" or whatever. The thing that almost drowned me.

We all need to pay the bills. Shelter and sustenance, and enough to pay for the overhead required to acquire the necessary income stream. Perhaps the only way for me to a life where I can spend the bulk of my days doing the things that excite me is to put in my remaining 25 years.

Or maybe, just maybe, the path to another way begins with a disillusioned daydream. I'll post an update and let you know 25 years hence.