I love retirement. I love everything about it. But it’s a big lifestyle change. When planning for it, a lot of the things that will change are obvious. Thinking about how you’ll handle things like reduced income, where you’ll live, what you’ll do with your time, the structure of your day, and how to stay connected to events and people are fun to think about and finally, in many ways, be able to make choices about, sometimes for the first time ever.
One of the things that just sort of happened to me and Randy is that we drifted into sharing one vehicle. That’s worked out well for us. Right now there’s no good reason for each of us to have our own transportation. But an unanticipated consequence of that particular lifestyle change means that except for a few trips to Walmart every month, I rarely drive anymore. I’ve always liked to drive. A lot. And I miss it.
Yesterday I had a routine oncologist follow-up appointment in Naples, about an hour and a half drive from here. There was no good reason for Randy to go along. My sister, Lisa, lives in Naples and we were able to arrange to have lunch together after my doctor visit. And there are a couple of specialty yarn shops in Naples I wanted to visit while I was down there. So I got to take a short road trip, all by myself. I spent most of the day in what, strangely, felt like freedom.
That strange freedom-like feeling? Well, let’s just say there’s a longer blog post here. Watch for it next Tuesday.
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