My Challenge for the New Year

Our New Year's Day supper.

I woke up early on New Year's Day and headed off to the gym to beat the rush of those who had "start working out" on their New Years's resolution lists while my wife and beagle slumbered away in their cozy beds.  And by the time the day was done I had enjoyed a wonderful breakfast that was followed up with a prime rib, asparagus, and twice baked potato supper,  all lovingly prepared by my aforementioned newly retired spouse.

In between I lounged on the couch and watched a lot of football and took Grace, the beagle, for an hour long walk.

It was a good New Year's Day.

But it was back to work on Friday because unlike the aforementioned newly retired wife and never employed beagle, I still have a job for the time being. Which really means for the rest of 2015 and then some. 

So while I've never been one for New Years' resolutions, I do have a New Year's challenge that I need to put out there with the hopes that by doing so, I will be more committed to making an honest attempt to meet this challenge. So here's my challenge:

Keep going to work everyday without whining and feeling sorry for myself and make an attempt to do what I'm paid to do even though I really don't want to go to work anymore and really do feel sorry for myself and want to whine about it, at least for a bit.

Our plan (a plan that could be changed) is that I will work for a while longer having just turned 62.

Here's why:

• Georgette just retired last week and has signed up for Medicare so she doesn't have to work for health insurance benefits, but I still do.

• The experts say one person in a marriage should retire at a time to make the transition less dramatic. So she's going first...fair enough.

• We are going to try to live on my salary and her Social Security before we both collect Social Security and start to tap into our personal savings.That will be an adjustment, I suspect. In the meantime, I'm still funding my 401K.

So you see, those are all very practical reasons for me to still be working a full-time career job.

However, practical is sometimes over-rated. Especially at this stage of life when you have fewer days ahead of you than more. So here are the impractical, but very personal reasons I'd like to retire sooner than later:

• I've been faithfully and responsibly going to work every day, full time since I graduated from college. I've had a great run and for the most part,  have always enjoyed my work. But I'm tired. And I want to do other things that having a full time, Monday to Friday job, simply put, gets in the way of.

• We are both in excellent health and would like to take advantage of that while we can by traveling, relaxing and just living our lives to the fullest, without the rigors of the Mon-Fri, 8-5 grind.

• Sticking another year or two of $$ into a 401k isn't going to help me sleep better at night or change my day. At some point, enough will have to be enough and we'll make it work. The same goes for squeezing another 8% out of Social Security by delaying benefits another year or two.

• And while I've been willing to get up at 5 am on workdays to get to the gym, I'd much rather get up at say 6:30 and get there at 8, when the whole place is cleared out. Then come home and have a nice breakfast on the garden patio at mid-morning. Then take Grace for a walk, have a nap, go putz in the garden some more or work my part-time job at the grocery store or whatever.

• I want to put more space in between the events of the day and I want the events to be about savoring instead of doing.

My time will come and I agreed to this plan. It is the practical and responsible thing to do. 2015 will be a year of transitions and adjustments and anticipation, in that order. My challenge is to gracefully walk through it.

In the meantime, spring is just around the corner. Catchers and pitchers report in just 7 weeks. We have another grandchild arriving in March. The days are getting longer and before we know it, the leaves will be falling and there will be eggnog for sale at the Safeway in Estes Park in holiday-themed containers....in the first week of October.

Available at the Safeway in Estes
Park, CO the first week of October.

And I don't want to miss a minute of it wishing I was somewhere else.