Pondering Retirement

How long will I be a slave to "The Man" before I get to retire? Can I accelerate it? I'm almost 30 now and I am waiting to retire; golf, grandkids, and world travel... Yup the retired life is for me.

Years of service = 3 years,

Required Years of service for pension = minimum 30 if 55 years or older

So, I started at 25, I will be 55 when I have my full pension (if I manage to continue to work during winter layoffs).

Ugh, long way to go yet isn't it? I guess the best way to gauge one's success in life isn't to see who can cross the "Gold Watch" line first, but to look back once you near the line and see if anything you did while earning your living was worth the time you put in. Family, friends and fun are the most important things to me. But I am still at a very simple version of each.

My family consists of my Wife, Parents, Brothers, Uncles, Aunts, cousins, nephews, Nieces, GodDaughters and Sons (in laws included). Pretty simple stuff. Friends consist of local buddies, their wives, families and all my cronies from youth who I still keep in touch with. Fun is playing baseball games, eating wings at the bar with family and friends, and social events with them all. Still a very simple map.

My father told me recently that he will likely retire soon. I think of his life. Family Friends and fun. Mom and Dad's is much like mine, exept they get into Grandchildren, Nephews, Nieces, Cousins, all numbered exponentially larger than mine. Friends are from far stretches of the world because of work, travels and aquaintances made otherwise. Fun is having the kids and grandkids home, visiting theim, golf, Sports Saturdays and the Bulwer Lytton contest each year, pickling, canning and garden harvest have grown in my father's interest while Mom looks forward to it less and less. She prefers flower beds and as of late; work, only because "they" make her, right mom?

I think of the other things my mother and father used to do like Baseball weekends, Hockey, Coaching, Tennis, Marathon Running, Child Raising, Farming, Mining, Psyche nursing, nursing, Potato hauling, phone pole climbing, and world travelling... I have an awful lot to do before I earn the right to think of retiring.

For now I'm content to wake up mornings (sometimes with a bit of a hangover from Monday night Ball), drag my butt to work and put in my 8, keeping in mind that there is a lot of good stuff to look forward to before I get to call it a career.

Then I'll sit back and enjoy all of the things I did outside and inside of work that made my life worth taking my retirement to enjoy, like kids, grandkids, my wife, friends family and fun.

Looking back on my mere 3 years of service would only take a few minutes, Ma N Pa are going to need the time off to absorb theirs.