Made it!  Whew!  The weight of the world has fallen from my shoulders.  I LOVE being retired.  It is strangely familiar given that I have had Summers off for over 32 years.  However, I get to keep reminding myself that I do NOT have to return. Summer break just gets to keep going. 

    Growing up I did not live in a family with financial resources.  My parents are dependent on Social Security for their subsistence. I have NOT even calculated SS into my retirement plan.  It isn't needed.  I would rather, frankly, that those benefits go to people who have worked hard in their lives but have NOT been as fortunate as I.  Or better yet provide medicare for everyone.The USA's health care system is total shit.  A same-aged friend is one of those.  He has lived a life rich in travel and experiences. He has worked hard his entire life.  He deserves to enjoy these final years in rest and ease.  

    I am very proud of my wife and I that we have planned and saved such that we are financially independent; and, that we may pass along a financial legacy that is as profound as the ethical and moral legacy that my wife has given the kids.  *wink* I find that being elderly is freeing. I give zero fucks what others think of me.  I only care that I am demonstrating to my kids and grandchild that they can count on me through the good times and the bad times.  Nothing else even registers on the radar anymore.  Fuck the social convention of "always be contributing and productive."  I don't owe society a damned thing.

    As an introvert, I find that people now want to spend time with me (since I now have so much of it).  I am horrible at saying no and drawing boundaries in this area.  Usually I am surprised that anyone wants to spent time with me.  I try to be curmudgeonly, but apparently I suck at it, or people just ignore it.  I make an exception for my kids.  I am at their beck and call anytime day or night. And I gladly savor every minute in their presence.  But the statement by Thoreau, " I have never found a companion as companionable as solitude" sings to my very soul.  I am happiest when I am alone.  But now, I am infused with a sense of peace that I cherish.  Ridding my life of the anxieties of the workaday world is better than I had even hoped. Have always looked forward to retirement. Now that it is here it is even better than in my dreams.  My mental health has not been this good since I was a youth.  And good for me! 

The begining of the end.

 It is Monday.  The last Monday before I retire. I have looked forward to this day since I started my first day working.  Many people take jobs because they find something they love doing; and they get paid to do it.  Others take jobs just for the paycheck.  I took jobs because it was the only way I could get to not having to work ever again.  I hate working with, and for other people. I have never been comfortable in the work-a-day world and am glad to be getting out of it. I am lucky. My spouse retired for years ago at 51 years of age.  Pretty early I know, but she began teaching at 21.  So she labored for 30years doing something she was extremely good at; and also loved to do.  I have spent 32 years doing something I am competent at. Now I get to go live my life completely on my own terms and without the anxiety and stress of working for someone else's benefit.  

We are financially independent. We have saved and rid ourselves of all debt.  We are very comfortable and can enjoy the fruits of our joint labors.  Looking forward to being a full-time grandpa and dog walker. TO think... the wife and I may wake up after 5 am any day we like.  We can drop what we are doing in an instant to help our family. We can just sit on the back patio all morning and watch the sun rise if we choose. Freedom.  Real freedom to live life completely on our own terms.  

I wish the same for everyone.  Life is hard.  An unfulfilling job makes it that much harder.  Retire as soon as you can and just live each day like it is Saturday for the rest of time.

HH =)

Wasting time..

 Sittin' on the dock of the bay...  I am on the final three months of work. I simply have lost all of the fucks I used to give about my job.  It has become repetitive, banal, and jejune.  I know nothing has changed from the job that I have savored the past 30+ years.  But, it has been my dream for so long to retire, and it is so very close, that my brain is just going through the motions and attempting to bend space-time such that it can be done tomorrow. It ain't done.  The cold weather and extraneous minor stressors turn the anxiety into pain.  It is quite literally painful to wait. 

I chatted with an old friend yesterday that I hadn't seen in a few years. He retired a little over a year ago.  He looks healthier than I have ever seen him.  Put me a little further into the darkness.  Patience is not my virtue.  Quiet solitude is my vice. Being forced every workday to socialize, meet deadlines, pacify ignorant co-workers, just making the effort is annoying to me now. I am lucky... financially the wife and I have achieved independence.  We have more resources than we can ever spend.  Our future is as assured as it gets.  The paycheck in exchange for compliance and time is no longer a profitable enterprise.   My time has become infinitely more valuable to me; and I wish I could just trade my last months salary to be free right now. Alas, my stupid need to fulfill my commitments keeps me voluntarily bound and chained.  A prisoner who's jailer is himself.  The proverbial cell door is open and unlocked, and I stand inside the cell angry that I don't choose to walk out.  I am the dumbest person you know today.   

60 more work days, 12 more: Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.  Whining over.

Oh look... my blog is still here.

Perhaps it is just old age and a faltering memory... but, I had almost forgotten about this blog. I was reminded about blogging as a blogger whom I followed for a time years back passed away. Dooce was a mommy blogger and so much more. She had transitioned out of the cult, and I was just beginning to deal with my own apostasy at the time. She was a brutally honest blogger and she was open about her struggles with depression. I have attempted to keep my own depression in the background of my life. I have struggled with it since I was a tween. Suicidal ideation grips me frequently in long dark winters of Utah. This past winter was as brutal winter as I have every endured. I am just beginning to recover a degree of sanity. 

 But that is not what I wish to pontificate on today. Today is about retirement. The wife an I have decided that I may retire after the next school year. I am a school psychologist... just as a refresher. Next year will be my thirtieth year with the district. I must say... I am burned out. Too much baggage has accumulated mentally throughout the years. Too many memories of the struggles students have laid at my feet during sessions in which I attempted to decrease their pain and burdens. The mind boggles at what happens to many children behind closed doors. It has been easy to become cynical about mankind. I have some reality checks that are there every day to challenge my cynicism. The most moral and decent human being I have ever known lives with me; and shares my happiness, grief, pain, and joy. Also, my co-worker. The other school psychologist I work with is as altruistic a person as I have ever known. She is dedicated to the health and well being of others. Everyone else I know (most of all myself) is egocentric and selfish. Nietzsche's "bungled and botched" we are.

Patience was never my virtue.  I am anxious in my anticipation of things both positive and negative. I can't tell you how many times I lied to professors so that I could take a final exam early to stop the stress of it.  How many times, as a child, that I carefully unwrapped and re-wrapped xmas presents under the tree.  Sneaky I was.  I find myself feeling the same about my retirement.  I have already pushed it back 3 times in the past 5 years. I really should have stuck with my plan to retire at the end of this school year.  With just two weeks left I am ready to call in sick and be done.  And, right now, the idea of going a whole other year is painful to ponder.  I liken it to the end of a marathon.  I remember running the last 6 miles.  Body was in pain and completely exhausted.  It was purely a mental game at the end.  Just keep moving. Just keep the feet going forward. My problem is that I have moved the metaphorical retirement finish-line willingly another mile up ahead.  What the fuck is my problem?  It is too late to announce a retirement for this year and I am stuck.  Thing is... the wife and I are financially "independent."  We don't need more money. I am, essentially, working for a specific retirement benefit offered by the school district.  This involves them providing 4 years of health insurance coverage in retirement.  Its about 45,000 worth of benefit.  Thing is, we can afford to purchase our own policy.  I just hate the american healthcare scam, and refuse to pay for an overpriced medical marketplace that is useless and corrupt.  I haven't been to a physician in over 10 years. And if the misses didn't need coverage I would just pay as I went.  But the wife needs her yearly breast exams (with thousands of dollars in follow-ups because that is how it always goes).  I would love to move to panama, or mexico, or somewhere warm as an ex-patriot.  The USA if really a pretty shitty country anymore.  We lead the world in three things: 1- number of guns per capita, 2- number of people who believe in angels, and 3- number of brainwashed citizens who are too stupid to see fascism because its wrapped in the flag and carrying the bible.  Unfortunately the wife isn't moving anywhere.  And if she ain't moving... I ain't moving. Yes.. I am a little bitter.

I quit drinking about 4 years ago.  It was getting ahead of me.  Also, I was hiding much of my drinking from my wife.  The damage dishonesty does to a relationship that matters can be devastating.  I really thought ,on my last day of drinking, that it was going to end my wonderful marriage. Turns out I only miss it from time to time now. Drinking has impacted my son's life in the recent past.  I passed along too much to my precious boy.  Guilt.  

I think of DOOCE.  She struggled with drinking and depression.  In the end they both won the final battle, as she and her family lost the war.  She won't get a chance to retire.  She won't worry about healthcare and her marriage. She won't see her grandchildren grow. I will.  Goodbye Dooce. Thanks for your blog.  Thanks for your words. Thanks for shared experiences and pain.  Rest in peace.

Empty Nest..

Well, the kids are out of the house and on thier own. Its quiet now. Clutter is gone... silence is frequent... stress reduced. I must say, its quite lovely most of the time. Yet, there are moments when the open drawers, messy counters, clothes and blankets strewn about the living room, conversations yelled from floor to floor, and simple morning hugs leave a sad vaccuum of temporal moments. Nah... its fucking awesome! HH =)

Blogging has been a recent estuary for the intellectuals of the world. A safe place to ascribe thoughts and whimsy. Many of my fellow bloggers have faded into chalk dust. Yet... Today it feels like a day to post. Today is a day to allow the intensity of reality flood through, and unbridle the binded colt biting for the bit of freedom. Life is... err... complicated. It has never lead where the path appeared to go in the distance (no matter how clear the vision appeared to be). Hope has always been a St. Elmo's fire in my life. Nothing has been as dreamt or wanted. Thus, peace has never been found, and harmony a lost hope. What is left? What is there to long for? What is it that drives us on? I have no idea. Ironically... I am supposed to have "an idea." It's what I was trained for. What my graduate days of intense study were for... What my clients come to me for. I have nothing but a jot and tittle of axioms that have offered me moments of calm reflection and docile solace. I feel like a fraud. There are questions that others are not ready to ask. I have asked them. There are answers which provide no peace or joy. I am fine with this. There are concepts not yet even discovered by our most advanced scientific minds. This provides an umbrella in the rainstorm of daily existence. Tossed and hit by the tumult of chaotic empirical entropy. To be blunt... life sucks. If were not for my amazing wife, and adorable puppy existence would be "unsatisfying." Now.. I am not going to walk into a lake. Nor, am i sticking my head in a gas oven. But I posture here a cynic. One who believes this is all a cosmic joke. One who has learned the rules that are real... followed them... and sees the pointlessness in it all. Life is a serendipitous wasteland. We are marionettes whose strings are pulled by other marrionettes who's strings are, in turn, pulled by capricious puppeteers who rarely dawdle in their craft. Universal acid (as Dennett writes) pours over all life, over time, and allows only those who are basic to survive (no matter how minimally). Emptiness... Pointlessness... obscurity... abjuration. These are the motives that draw me to blog today. The need to spew against a wall and see a pattern upon it. Superstition and adventitiousness? This may have helped. My stressors are also stressed themselves. Or... perhaps a simple nap? HH =)

Venting..ignore

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! FUCK YOU ASSHOLES!!!!!!!! stop... Please ignore. Thanks HH

Another quaint thing..

Being unable to state specifics is, often, the most troubling of things about blogging. We have the right to expose ourselves in any written way we wish. However, we do not have the capacity, or right to infringe upon others privacy and confidences. It is another's privacy I wish to vent upon. Screaming would be cathartic I think. Alas, it is out of bounds. I watch this other person suffer and have little ability to abate the pain. I can caress, cajole, rationalize, and chat... but, there is nothing which can reduce the suffering which is apparent and inflicting pain on the other. Belief in humanity is failing me now. The beastliness of our dog-eat-dog world wears the walls of optimism upon my mind. Drip by drip of realities watery wear leaves me thinned and cynical. The unjust nature of nature lends more credibility to the axiom that rationality and reason are the only guides which lead anywhere worth landing. The pain of "other" impales me. Futility consumes me. The ubiquity of the paradox enthralls me. For the moment, at least, I am floating in the Ether. Emotion feels like weakness. SH (Stoic Heretic)