Quality Time

One of the best things about retirement is spending quality time with your adult children.  My children and their spouses are very busy with their careers so when I was working, we had to coordinate our schedules.  I was as much a part of the rat race as they were.  It was nearly impossible to find time to spend with my kids.  My son lives in another state so our time together always included travel.  Additionally, his job requires him to be accessible almost 7 days a week.  As a teacher, my options on travel dates were somewhat limited to summers and holidays such as Christmas and Easter.  My daughter only lives about 45 minutes away, but teaches and coaches so coordinating our schedules has been frustrating.  Spending time with my family and being there for them are priorities.  I am hoping that retirement will allow me the luxury of only having to coordinate with their schedules since mine will be more open.

This week, I spent an entire day with my daughter baking.  Each year, she and her husband spend the 4th of July at his family's lake house and she likes to take goodies for all of the adults and kids (it's a big family) so we spent all day baking.  The 6 hours we spent baking didn't seem like 6 hours since we gabbed the entire time.  For me, it was a great day with my daughter - baking, gabbing, laughing and stopping for a cup of tea every once in a while.  We topped off the day with our favorite thing - shopping.  Although we were exhausted at the end of the day, it reminded me of so many just like it that I used to spend with my mother.

Soon, my son and his wife will come for a week long visit.  I will have the luxury of dropping everything I'm doing that week to spend time with them.  There will be no meetings or trainings that will come between me and time with my family.  Although my family has always been a priority for me, it was often times difficult to juggle work responsibilities with family time.  I am so very thankful that I don't have to do that anymore.  Comments my children have made make me think that they too are looking forward to a time when my schedule is more flexible for our time together.

I lost my mother about 18 months ago.  She bravely fought Parkinson's Disease for a long time.  I would give anything to have more time with her.  My father adored her and misses her every day.  Sometimes being alone gets difficult for him.  Although my brother tries to keep him pretty busy, I try and make the 2.5 hour trip by train as often as I can.  It's so much easier to do that now that I am retired - another advantage of retirement.

During the Pre-retirement Stage, people ask you, "What are you going to do now?"  As I have mentioned before, I would respond with my best answer, "I am on the 'no plan' plan."  In other words, I have a list of projects and interests, but I want nothing to do with an inflexible schedule.  As a relatively young retiree, many people commented that I was a great candidate for having a second career.  Most likely, they knew I wasn't ready for the "rocking chair on the front porch" as my father would put it.  They knew that I wasn't yet tired of working and am still extremely ambitious.   But after having a scheduled life for my entire life, I am ready for an unscheduled, flexible calendar.  Of course, I won't be out there just "flopping in the wind" every day, getting up every morning without a plan for the day, BUT I will be able to easily "tweek" my schedule to accommodate the needs of my family when necessary.  Looking forward to it.

My family:

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